Max Wagger Phoned Brother, Then Pulled the Trigger, March 1, 1923

‘Phoned Brother He Was Going Away, Then Shot Himself

Ashboro, Feb. 26—Max Wagger, Randleman merchant, shot himself in the heart about 2 o’clock this afternoon. He was at his residence at the time. Mr. Wagger had been in ill health for a number of years and this is thought to have been the cause of the suicide.

Mr. Wagger called his brother, I.D. Wagger of Ashboro, over the telephone shortly before 2 o’clock.

“I am going away,” he said. “I want you to be a father to my children.”

The brother asked him where he planned to go but received no answer. Fearing suicide, knowing of the ill health of the Randleman man, Mr. Wagger jumped in his car and drove to Randleman as rapidly as possible, finding his brother dead when he arrived.

--Greensboro News

From the editorial page of The Robesonian, Lumberton, N.C., March 1, 1923