A Fatal Shot in Ellensburg: Adopted Son Killed, Mrs. Norris Takes Poison
Mrs. J. C. Norris shot 21-year-old Thomas Murray in the temple, then swallowed rat poison and told callers she was glad of it.
Ellensburg, Wash., Jan. 19. — At an early hour of the morning, Mrs. J. C. Norris entered the room of Thomas Murray, an adopted son just past 21 years, and with a .32 Colt revolver shot him in the left temple. He died from the wound shortly after 3.
Mrs. Norris went downstairs and took the contents of a box said to contain rat poison. She told callers that she had killed Tommy, as she called him, and that she was glad of it; she said she, too, would soon be dead. She took too much poison and soon began to vomit, and as a result she will possibly recover.
“She told the callers that she had killed Tommy, as she called him, and she was glad of it; and that she, too, would soon be dead.”
The item gives no motive, only the awful facts: a killing inside a family and an attempted suicide in the same house. More than a century later, Washington reporters and courts still struggle with domestic violence homicides, where the most dangerous place is often a shared home.
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