OBITUARY:
FATAL SHOOTING ACCIDENT
How Jesse McKillop Came to His Death
(Correspondence of the Captial Journal)
ZENA, Or., Mar. 24th - The folowing report of the coroner's jury summoned by P. F. Clark, J. P. and acting coroner:
State of Oregon, County of Polk - We the undersigned jurors summoned to inquire into the death of Jesse McKillop, aged four years, son of R. J. McKillop, at the residence of his father in the aforesaid county of Polk find from the testimony and circumstances that the deceased came to his death on March 23, 1890, at about 6 o'clock p. m., by a shot from a self-cocking revolver in this own hand while drawing from a cupboard. Dated March 24, 1890.
IRA BURLEY, Foreman,
John Childers,
F. P. Caldwell
A. E. Watson
A. Roland
A. J. Purvine
Mr. McKillop hs the sympathy of the whole community, he being a poor man, and his wife in the insane asylum at Salem. He lives on Fred Hurst's place about two miles below Lincoln on the Wheatland road; he has three children left, one older than the deceased and two younge [sic], one of them being a baby, taken from its mother's breast when she was committed to the asylum.
The evidence in the case as near as could be learned was this: Mr. McKillop went to the barn to feed the stock and milk the cow. While there he heard a noise which he supposed to be caused by slamming of a door. After he was through with his work he went to the house, and the next to the baby crying; he asked why, what's the matter with him, and was told that he was dead; he went in the other room and found the eldest boy crying also; his father asked him where Jesse was; the boy told him in bed dead. He then went and found the boy in bed, the elder brother having put him in bed 'ere the father came to the house. He thought that the boy had taken a spasm; he shook him and tried to restore him; the elder bou then called his attention to the wound; he asked the boy if his brother fell on a knife; he said no, that the pistol did it; the boy had taken a chair to the cupboard, and reached up into a box and pulled the pisto towards him by the muzzle; there bing no guard around the rigger, it being self-cocking, the trigger caught on the edge of the box which caused it to go off, killing the boy instantly, as the ball went through the heart. After he fell to the floor his older brother took him up , and carried him to the bed; took off his clothes and covered him up. In that position he was found by his father when he came in.
Evening Capital Journal 25 Mar 1890, 1:4
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