Shot by a Rejected Lover, Mabel Thorp Is Mending at St. Joseph's
Two days after Ernest Grant shot her and then drank acid to kill himself, the young Tacoma woman is healing fast — the bullet wound, the paper reports, is nearly closed, but the shock is another matter.
Miss Mabel Thorp, who was shot down Monday evening by Ernest Grant, her rejected lover, who later committed suicide by drinking acid, is still in a ward at St. Joseph's hospital, but is recovering so rapidly that she will probably be able to leave the hospital in a few days. The bullet wound in Miss Thorp's right shoulder is practically healed, but the young lady has not recovered from the severe nervous shock following the crime.
“The bullet wound in Miss Thorp's right shoulder is practically healed, but the young lady has not recovered from the severe nervous shock following the crime.”
A century later the shape of this story has not changed: a woman survives a shooting by a man who could not accept her refusal, and the coverage dwells on her nerves rather than on the man who armed himself. St. Joseph's still stands on Tacoma's hill, and the reporting still tends to measure a survivor's recovery in wounds rather than in what she carries afterward.
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