Lewistown Record — Harley Thompson, who will be 35 years of age in August, and an ex-service man who served eleven months in France during the World War, is in the county jail in this city to answer to the charge of having shot and killed his father, Samuel A. Thompson, 60 years of age, on Tuesday morning at the father’s home about four miles northeast of Table Grove. The act is one committed by a man with a shattered mind, growing out of shell shock during the late war. Harley Thompson cannot at this time, or at the time he was brought from Table Grove to jail, tell any connected story regarding the shooting.
The story of the tragedy was that Harley Thompson spent a restless night and at 2:45 o’clock Tuesday morning, got up and dressed and went to his wife’s room and asked her for a fountain pen, saying he desired to write two letters to the postmaster at Macomb. He told her he did not sleep well during the night. At 4:30 o’clock Mrs. Thompson arose and dressed and the family had breakfast about 5:30.
Sam Thompson, the man who was shot, at the breakfast table told his son that he knew the son had not been able to rest during the night and suggested that if the son would remain home and help the mother and wife with the work and washing that he would go and do the work of the son. The father left shortly after breakfast. Harley was worrying about the census which had been taken and he wanted his wife to go with him to Macomb to see the census enumerator. The wife thought his mental condition was vague and tried to talk him out of it. Harley then went to the home of a neighbor, Elmer France, and asked France to take him over to Macomb. France consented and later drove over to the Sam Thompson home, prepared for the trip. Mrs. Harley Thompson told France her husband had been acting queer and suggest that instead of going to Macomb that he would take him for a ride.
Harley, in company with France, drove to the Burlington depot at Table Grove where the former sent a telegram to Postmaster Harris at Macomb. About 15 minutes after he had handed in the telegram, they went back to the depot and Harley stated he wanted to change the message. Agent R. T. Evidge told him the telegram had been sent and it was too late to change it. France remained in the car while Thompson was in the station.
The two men drove back to the Thompson home and Harley got out, France returning to his own home. Sam Thompson arrived home, Mrs. Harley Thompson having sent her little three year old son for him. He arrived home about 9:30 o’clock. As soon as Harley returned home, the father saw that the son was mentally off and tried to quiet him down. The son then wanted to send a telephone message to the census enumerator at Macomb and insisted that the father would take him to Macomb.
Realizing the condition the son was in when Harley went upstairs, the father went out into the yard and disconnected the battery in the automobile intending to tell the son that he couldn’t get the car started. While the father was in the yard, he heard the screams of Mrs. Harley Thompson. She had seen her husband standing at the top of the stairway with a shotgun in his hand and their little three year old son by his side. On hearing the screams of his daughter-in-law, Mr. Thompson rushed into the house, and standing at the foot of the stairway, tried to argue with his son not to leave the place. When the father took a step up the stairway, the son fired the fatal shot, the charge striking the father in the face and tearing off practically one side of the head. The injured man fell backward into the room and death must have been instantaneous.
At the time of the shooting, Mrs. Alice Thompson, wife of the dead man, Mrs. Harley Thompson, wife of the slayer, and a 16 year old daughter Verla were in the room while another sister, Hilda, was just outside the house and when she heard the shot, she ran to the home of Elmer France and notified him that Harley had shot someone. France called the telephone operator at Table Grove, who notified a Table Grove physician and at the same time called Nick Leighty, who with a posse of men, left for the Thompson home. Mr. Leighty notified the sheriff’s office in this city and Sheriff Edgar Rorer, Deputy Sheriff Harvey Williams and Jack Atkinson left immediately for Table Grove where they picked up another man, and from there went to the home of M. S. Westlake, a neighbor, living near the Thompson home. They found Harley Thompson and his wife at this residence, out in the yard and Harley had their three year old boy on his lap. There were several men near the Westlake house.
When Sheriff Rorer told Thompson that he wanted him, Thompson immediately got up and started to go and then changed his mind and it required some little argument to get him to leave with the officer, who drove immediately to Table Grove and from there to the county jail in this city. On the way here, Thompson could not talk in a connected manner.
The remains of Sam Thompson were left at his home, where during the afternoon Coroner C. L. Lambert was to hold an inquest.
Harley Thompson, wife, two sons, one about one and one-half years old and the other three, had been making their home with his parents about four miles northeast of Table Grove. The father is about 60 years of age and the mother, Mrs. Alice Thompson, about 61 years of age. During the years 1915, 1916 and 1917 Harley taught at the Sugar Grove school in Farmers township. During the World War, he was in France for eleven months and during that time was a victim of shell shock. He was a member of the family of 12 children, 10 of whom are living. The family was living on a 120 acre farm in Farmers township near the Shinns schoolhouse in district No. 123. The shooting occurred about 10 o’clock Tuesday morning.
Current Obituaries in the Astoria South Fulton Argus