A Tacoma Shooting Unravels an Elopement
Albert McAchren shot his wife, tried to shoot her daughter, and turned the gun on himself. As she lingers, a friend describes the couple’s flight from Fidalgo.
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.
TACOMA, Sept. 15.—[Special.]—A scandal has developed in the McAchren shooting tragedy. Albert McAchren shot his wife through the neck, tried to shoot the woman's little daughter, Bessie, who passed for his daughter, and ended by shooting himself in the left temple. Both the man and the woman are in a semi-unconscious condition, and their recovery is still doubtful.
Mrs. Campbell, the wife of a railroad brakeman, who met the McAchrens at Portland about a year ago, a short time after they arrived from Chicago, is now Mrs. McAchren's constant attendant. She confirms the scandal in the case, which is to the effect that McAchren ran away with another man's wife.
The present Mrs. McAchren was the wife of a Fidalgo man, and McAchren ran away with her, taking her little daughter. This little daughter with flossy curls is cute enough to forget all about her Fidalgo papa, and says she doesn't know that she would know him if she saw him. About all she has to say about the elopement is that she has not seen her Fidalgo father since she and her mother and McAchren left that place for Portland.
Since the shooting Mrs. McAchren has seemed anxious to know if Bessie told the same story all the time. Indeed, she seemed too anxious about what the little girl said. Today Mrs. McAchren's neck is so swollen that she can scarcely whisper. She is still very low and apparently growing worse. Mrs. Campbell is her constant attendant and she found the bullet today which passed through Mrs. McAchren's neck. It was near the bed on which Mrs. McAchren fell after Mr. McAchren shot her.
From the fact that the bullet was ragged it is evident it struck a spinal bone, and that in all probability renders her more dangerous than before.
Mrs. Campbell, while not conceding that Mrs. McAchren ran away with Mr. McAchren, stoutly defends the act on the ground that the woman's husband did not treat her right. Mrs. Campbell does not blame the woman. She blames the man—that is, Mrs. McAchren's former husband. If he had treated the woman as a man should treat a woman, she is sure the woman would not have left him. However, she says the woman secured a divorce later and married McAchren in due form. Both Mrs. Campbell and Bessie say the deserted husband has never bothered Mrs. McAchren nor tried to create trouble of any kind. McAchren is still unable to talk intelligently.
“Both the man and the woman are in a semi-unconscious condition, and their recovery is still doubtful.”
Intimate-partner violence is still too often reported as a private scandal rather than a public crime. This account’s focus on the elopement and the child’s testimony shows how the press could obscure the danger at the center.
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