OCR Text |
Show IDAHO MAN BUTCHERS FAMILY After Crushing Skulls of Wife and Two Daughters. He Cut His Own Throat and Set Fire to Home. Filer, Idaho. Early Monday morning, morn-ing, Telaford Thoni murdered his wife and two daughters, then walked a mile to the residence of a neighbor, C. E. Sommers, there deposited a strong box containing some money, life insurance papers, property deeds and a confession to the coroner, and returned to his home, where the dead bodies of his family were later discovered. dis-covered. He then liberated his fine horses from the stable so they could feed themselves, also other stock, and thereupon entered the house, set fire to it in several places, cut his own throat and lay down near the front door to die. At a quarter to 4 o'clock the house was discovered ablaze by neighbors, whose efforts to extinguish it were unavailing. When the flames had spent themselves for lack of fuel, the debris yielded up the intensely charred and gruesome looking corpses of the entire family. In his confession Thoni said he was weary with life, and yet could not bear to leave this world without taking tak-ing his entire family into tne other world with him. He had been despondent, de-spondent, he explained, over inability Jo sleep. Thoni but recently came to this vicinity from New Sharon, Iowa, bringing considerable money. He purchased pur-chased -a farm one and a half miles rast of Filer, and had paid $5,uu0 thereon, as well as otherwise preparing prepar-ing to begin extensive farming operations. oper-ations. He was 42 years of age, and was rated by the bankers as being worth about $75,000. His wife was 52 years old. and daughters 14 and 15 respectively. |