STEPHEN POLLARD

PETTY, POLLARD

Posted By: Nancee(McMurtrey)Seifert (email)
Date: 1/11/2002 at 21:09:14

Leon Reporter
July 4, l895

A telegram was received here on Monday of
last week by SAM PETTY,
informing him that his uncle, STEPHEN
POLLARD, brother of MRS. WM.
PETTY, of Decatur County, had committed
suicide at his home in
Norbourne, Carroll Co., Mo. WM. PETTY, PETER
POLLARD, brother of the
deceased, of Decatur County, and SAM PETTY of
this place, immediately
departed for Norbourne, arriving there on
Tuesday evening, but the
burial had taken place three hours before
their arrival.

The tragedy occurred on Sunday, June l6th,
the only person in the house
at the time being the wife of the unfortunate
man. Her story is that
her husband went upstairs about 6 o'clock
p.m. and hearing the report of
the gun she rushed upstairs and found her
husband dying from the effects
of a terrible wound in the breast, the double
barrelled shotgun by which
it had been inflicted with one barrell
discharged laying several feet
from the dying man. The hammer on the
barrell not discharged stood at
full cock. Her theory is that he placed the
muzzle of the gun against
his breast with the breach resting on the
floor and pressed the trigger
with a parasol which lay on the floor in the
room.

The couple are the parents of nine children
the oldest of whom is about
seventeen, but all of them were at the barn
at the time of the
shooting. While the official investigation
resulted in a verdict of
suicide, there is much unsolved mystery
connected with the affair and
the true circumstances of the case and the
causes which led to the
terrible death of the man may never by known.
He was in good health and
financial circumstances, and while there are
rumors of domestic
troubles, the causes are not regarded by the
neighbors as sufficient to
impell him to take his own life.

--LINEVILLE TRIBUNE

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Copied by Nancee(McMurtrey)Seifert
January ll, 2002