The Dawson News

HUSBAND AND WIFE SLAY ONE ANOTHER

BATTLE TO DEATH WITH AN AX AND BUTCHER KNIFE.

CHILDREN WATCH DUEL.

BAD AXE, Mich.—It all started with a quarrel that brought Joseph Lobert and his wife, bickering, back from a picnic on Sunday. It ended with the finding of their bodies in one of the rooms of the farm house, through which they had fought, she with a butcher knife and he with anything that came to hand, until he struck his final blows with an ax.

The bodies were found when the oldest child returned from school late yesterday, but the news and the explanation only became generally known today. It all was explained by Edward, 4, who had sat with his little sister, 2, and a baby brother, 6 months, in a baby carriage in the yard of the farm house, which is located near Elkton. They had seen the start of the trouble through a window. They had not seen the finish.

Edward, of course, was the only one able to tell anything. He said papa and mama had started their fight in the kitchen.

From the oldest, a boy of 10, the authorities learned that on Sunday his father and mother, seemingly on good terms, had gone to the picnic. When they returned they were quarreling. The boy said that things appeared better Monday morning when he left for school.

At that point little Edward's fragmentary story of the start of the fight came. The authorities had to imagine the rest. That was relatively simple. The interior of the house was blood spattered. Chairs and tables were wrecked. Broken dishes were scattered about.

The condition of the bodies told the rest, the story of a hand to hand fight. His throat was cut and he had been stabbed several times. Her head was cut open from the blow of an ax, and the marks of previous blows showed on her arms and shoulders. Bruises showed that crockery and pieces of furniture had been used in the fight before the two duelists "closed in."

Neighbors say they do not recall that the couple had previous fights. They were regarded as prosperous.