BETRAYED BY BULLET HOLE

Grey River Argus, 25 April 1911, Page 8

BETRAYED BY BULLET HOLE

- ■■ — » . — — iiucißAND KILLS.: WIFE AND CHILD. An extraordinary murder of a woman and a baby, alleged to have been committed by the woman's husband, who was infatuated with • a girl, hks been accidentally revealed at Heading, '• Pennsylvania. Matthew Vanam^n, a highly respected, middle-aged tradesman, ' married a neighbour's 20-year-old daughter less than two years ago. They appeared to be devoted to. each other and their ' child. Some weeks ago, before daybreak, the neighbours heard Vanamn shouting; for help and saw him throw a blazing oil stove out on the window of his. wife's bedroom. Hurrying to the house, they found the woman unconscious ,ia bed.- Most of the bedclothes" nere burned. • The baby was- dead beside the mother.- Vanaman,- explained that the stove exploded and set the room on fire. ' Mrs Vanaman was taken to the hospital and died there the next' day, without regaining- cMrciousness. " . ■ TEe coroner made, a minute examination, which disclosed a bullet -hole under the* woman's hair. Ho secretly fnf ormed the county prosecutor. When the husband applied at the hospital to obtain a certificate in order to collect his .wife's .'-fe instance money, he. was arrested. . Jhe juhce .found then that he bad been making frequent visits *0 .. a pretty mill girl, aged 18, of a nelg-nbourmg town. . , She was discovered working at her trousseau. She told the detectives that she . was about to be' married to Vanaman, whom she had met ins a tram. He courted her as a bachelor. They were to marryj and leave the neighbourhood next week. The girl ws hysterical when she was informed that Vanaman was married, ; and refused to believe it until she was taken to the prosecutor's office. Vanaman, who had been protesting his, innocence, loudly declaiming against his arrest, „w as? confronted with" her. He immediately -collapsed, and confessed that he had.. resolved to marry her at any costi and therefore shot his wife, ; strangled the baby, . and set the room on fire to conceal the crime. An examination has shown that the stove' did . not explode and that the -bed had been saturated with kerosene.