A Twelve-Year-Old's Calculated Ambush
Blaming '10-cent literature' for his actions, a young boy attempted to murder his neighbor in a planned attack near Mondovi.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
A 12-year-old boy named Herbert Shepperd, residing near Mondovi, allegedly attempted to kill his neighbor, D.M. Burge, to settle a months-old grudge. After being banned from the Burge property following a theft incident last summer, the boy tricked Burge into giving him a Winchester rifle under the guise of returning it for his father. Shepperd hid in a barn all day, waiting for an opportunity to strike. When he finally opened fire, he wounded Burge in the hip and shot at a hired hand, Al Briggs. The boy then fled home. Medical professionals suggest the motive stemmed from his obsession with sensationalist dime novels.
“He has been an ardent reader of 10-cent literature.”
The moral panic surrounding 'dime novels' in the 1890s closely mirrors contemporary debates about the impact of violent media or video games on children, showing a long-standing desire to blame pop culture for individual acts of violence.
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