“Mother Is Charged with Double Murder” from the Aug. 11, 1933, issue of The Landmark, Statesville, N.C.
Jefferson, Aug. 7—Affidavits charging murder to a young farm
wife and her 55-year-old husband were prepared Saturday after the woman glibly told
Sheriff C.H. Blanche that she had killed her two infant sons within the last
year and a half.
The mother said she was led to commit the crimes because her
husband complained of the fretting of the children and because he did not like
“boy babies.”
The strange tale was unfolded after a physician discovered
that four-months-old Mertis Fleming Jr. had died yesterday afternoon of
strangulation at the home of his parents.
Without display of emotion, Mrs. Aleeta Fleming told Sheriff
Blanche she had choked Mertis Jr. death with the belt of her dress. Then she
admitted she gave poison to another son, Louis, also four months old, in
February, 1932. The child died immediately, she said.
Both Fleming and his wife are in the county jail here.
Neither showed any emotion over the crimes, but Fleming stoutly denied any
complicity.
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“Father Arrested for Beating
Baby” from the Aug. 11, 1933, issue of The Landmark, Statesville, N.C.
Gastonia, Aug. 10—Accused of beating his eight months old
son, Jimmie, unmercifully for an hour with a leather strap, Dewey Graham, 27,
of the Ranlo Mill Village was in jail today charged with assault with intent to
kill.
“I beat him because he cried all the time and it bothered
me,” said the father.
Officers went to the Graham’s home and arrested him
yesterday after neighbors had telephoned them that he had beaten the child
incessantly for an hour.
Although the child’s body was a mass of bruises, physicians
said there were no dangerous wounds and the baby would recover.
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