The Whole Family is Wiped Off The Earth

Shippenville, Pennsylvania, 1912
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WHOLE FAMILY ARE WIPED OFF THE EARTH

Wife's Head Blown Off, Daughter Shot, and Father a Suicide.

Shippenville, Pa., Aug. 15. - When neighbors, who had missed the family, broke into the home of Bert Dearloph, at Westling Corners, this morning, a gruesome sight met their eyes. On the floor lay the bodies of Dearloph, his wife and a daughter of the latter by a former husband.

Mrs. Dearloph had been choked and the top of her head blown off with a rifle, which lay on the floor. The daughter had been shot in the breast.

Dearloph had one end of a rubber hose in his mouth, the other end being attached to a gas jet, from which the gas was still escaping. He had tied the hose carefully in place with a string, the knot being at the back of his head.

Dearloph and his wife were about 40 years old and had both been married twice.

--The Evening Observer, Dunkirk, New York, August 15, 1912, page 1.