Springfield Daily Republic

HE CONFESSES.
John Beall, a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy, Confesses to the Killing of His Mother.
Cincinnati, Aug. 2.—A special from Eaton, O., says: John Beall, thirteen years of age, who has been in jail six weeks on the charge of killing his mother, has made a confession to the prosecutor, sheriff and an ex-sheriff. It was not written down, and the persons above named are secretive about it. On June 30th this boy was home alone with his mother, at the farm-house, and about 4 o'clock alarmed the neighbors by saying that three tramps had killed his mother, and at the time he was asleep, but awakened in time to see them leaving with some money and also a watch. The watch has since been found in a vault, where the boy admits he threw it. The boy had shot his mother twice, and then nearly beheaded her with an ax. No motive for his crime can be assigned, except that he was angry at what seemed to him to be evidences of favoritism shown to his sister by his mother. On the day of the murder, he expected to go to Eaton with his mother, to get a suit of clothes, but instead his father took his sister to town, and thus he was left at home with his mother.