Father Has Son Kill Him, Says It's Not Loaded

1911

FATHER PREVAILS ON SON TO KILL HIM

Tells Boy to Shoot, Saying Gun Wasn't Loaded

Greenwich, Conn., May 19.—Fred Husted, a prosperous farmer, aged forty-six, prevailed upon his twelve-year-old son Lester to pull the trigger of his shotgun which blew his father's head off.

Husted laid a double-barreled shotgun on the kitchen table and told the boy to pull the trigger as he wanted to see how it sounded. The man knelt on the floor, cocked one eye and looked directly into the muzzle of the gun only four inches away. The boy hesitated and his father said: "It isn't loaded." The boy snapped the trigger but the gun did not explode.

The father cocked the rifle again. "It isn't loaded. Pull the trigger and see how it sounds," he again told the boy. The boy did as told and the father dropped dead instantly.

—Indiana Evening Gazette, Indiana, Pennsylvania, May 19, 1911, page 4.