Posted on 12/17/2012 12:03:44 PM PST by Morgana
BATH, Mich., May 19. - Still stunned by the deed of the madman Andrew Kehoe, who yesterday killed his wife and then blew up the consolidated school here and his own automobile causing the death of forty-three persons, including himself, this little community today was groping its way through tears trying to meet the awful consequences of the tragedy.
Sad-faced parents of the thirty-seven children killed in the school came to console one another in their grief, but funeral arrangements were left until tomorrow.
Governor Fred W. Green Issued a proclamation appealing to the people of Michigan to raise funds with which to rebuild the school and to provide relief in cases where families were deprived of support by the catastrophe.
John W. Ferrer and Richard H. Scott of Lansing and Schuyler Marshall of St. Johns were named the committee to receive and dispose of the funds. The little village of 300 inhabitants is virtually bankrupt as a result of the disaster.
The deaths of Mrs. Blanche Hart, 30, a teacher, and of Oleo Clayton, 8, a pupil, in a Lansing hospital, today brought the total dead to forty-four.
Kehoe's Wife Slain and Burned.
(Excerpt) Read more at freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com ...
This still stands as the worst school disaster in US history. It happened in 1927. No gun just dynamite, which one purchased down at the local hardware store.
I’ve read about this before. A determined killer will use whatever they can including dynamite, machetes, swords, molotov cocktails, etc.
Firearms are just one method and if the killer does not have that available he/she will find something else, maybe worse.
I had heard about it but thanks to another FReeper this was first time I’d read it and now know the name of “madman” and victims.
Interesting stuff on rootsweb. What is most interesting is what’s missing: no questions on who manufactured the dynamite or sold it to the whack-job.
the worst school disaster in US history
- - - - - -
Intentional disaster, but there were worse accident/negligent disaster
New London School explosion
http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/yqn01
March 18, 1937
Of the 500 students and forty teachers in the building, approximately 298 died.
Fully automatic weapons could be ordered by anyone via mail order back then. Then violence from prohibition gave the federal government a reason to ban machine guns for public use. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it.
The difference between now and then sure as hell isn’t more availability of weapons or explosives.
bookmarking this
87 victims and the killer got away from the scene:
As I dropped my kid off at school this morning I looked down the line of buses when there was literally hundreds of kids all walking down the long sidewalk to the front door of the school at once. I had a chilling thought then, anyone with a big car could have easily surpassed this death toll by simply getting up to a high rate of speed, turning, and driving down that walkway from behind them.
Sick thinking I completely admit, but would Ford or Chevy be sued or condemned if someone used one in a mass murder of kids?
Didn’t think so either, but I bet their would be some idiot liberal claiming that had the psychopath only been driving a Smart Car, the death toll would have been much lower...
Make that 46. One little girl hung in for several months until she died of her injuries. One child died a year later.
A fictionalized version of the arson, where it was an arson intended to intimidate the Latino community, was featured on Law & Order.How sick is that?
I remember the Happyland incident. The SOB who torched the place, in spite of being convicted on 87 counts of arson AND murder, will be eligible for parole in 2015.
http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-201_162-2200813.html
It is done many times each year and still they keep selling assault autos!
It goes to show that someone bent on killing will find a way.
Guns aren't necessary.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.