Bibiane Jean Ashby 1957-1963

ASHBY, MILLER, MIEGHEM

Posted By: Lynn McCleary (email)
Date: 9/24/2021 at 06:44:00

Muscatine Journal Monday Feb. 18, 1963, page 1

Parents Absent. Accidental Blast from Shotgun Kills Girl, 5 years old.

The daughter of Mr. & Mrs Wade Ashby Sr., route 5, of Maple Grove Road, was accidentally shot and killed about 9 a.m. today at their home.

The child, Bibiane Jean, was pronounced dead on arrival at the Muscatine General hospital. She was struck in the left side by the charge from a 12-gauge shotgun while she lay on a bed in a ground-floor room. Her father, a truck driver, was at work. Her mother had gone to take one of her own and neighbors’ children to the Lone Tree school.

Deputy Sheriff Bob Miller said that the gun had been leaning against the wall beside a doorway. The bed on which the child laid was on the other side of doorway. Wade Ashby, Jr. 13, was in the kitchen making chocolate milk for the five-year-old girl. Another brother, David, aged 3, was in the room with the girl when the gun fell against the bed and fired, Miller said. Kathy Lynn Johnson, 18 month old, also was in the house.

The only shell in the pump-action gun was the one which fired. The child’s father told Miller he believed the gun was empty.

On her way home from the school, Mrs. Ashby had stopped at the Jim Hayes home at the Muscatine County Humane society shelter, just south of the Ashby’s residence, for a supply of water to take home.

While she was there, the son Wade ran to the house to tell her of the shooting. Miller said the girl died instantly. Wade had stayed home from school because of illness.

Bibiane Jean was born May 24, 1957, in Muscatine, the daughter of Wade and Alberta Van Mieghem Ashby. Her parents are members of Zion Lutheran church.

She leaves her parents; grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Theo Van Mieghem, Moline, Ill., and Mr. and Mrs. Oscar Ashby, Phoenix, Ariz.; three brothers, Wade, Jr., James and David Ashby, at the Ashby home.

Funeral arrangements are pending at the George M. Wittich funeral home.