Coroner's Jury Clears Stepson Who Shot His Stepfather
A Burlington youth shoots and kills his stepfather after the older man struck his sister and fired at him first; a jury rules it justifiable homicide.
BELLINGHAM.—Dr. A. T. Hoover, of Burlington, 20 miles south of this city, was shot by his stepson, Martin Hubbard, aged 20, and died an hour later. Hoover had struck Hubbard's sister and a quarrel followed, in which the elder man shot at the youth and missed. Hubbard then shot Hoover, the bullet taking effect in the thigh. A coroner's jury was impaneled and returned a verdict of justifiable homicide.
“Hoover had struck Hubbard's sister and a quarrel followed, in which the elder man shot at the youth and missed.”
A family quarrel over a man striking his stepdaughter ended in a fatal shooting and a swift finding of justifiable homicide. The case is a window into how domestic violence and self-defense were weighed in 1910 — questions that still shape courtroom arguments over defensive force today.
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