| Notes |
- Mother Takes Life of Child
Poisons Four Others and Slashes Throat
Clinton, May 30 (AP) – Six-year-old Jerry Watson died of poisoning in a hospital here today and Sheriff Everett Stambaugh declared the boy’s mother, Mrs. Ida Watson, 34, had given him and her four other children poison capsules and then slashed her throat with a butcher knife.
Jerry Watson died shortly after he was carried to the hospital. The other four, Marie, 16; Bobbie, 14; David, 12, and Joe, 9, were reported improving after emergency treatment.
The mother was reported recovering from a deep wound in her throat.
Stambaugh said the eldest, Marie, told him she became suspicious when her mother called them into the house and made them take two capsules apiece, saying it was “quinine for malaria.”
Jerry was stricken ill quickly and Marie picked him up and ran for the hospital seven blocks away, the other children following here. They all collapsed as Marie was pouring out her story to a staff physician.
“Mrs. Watson was found bleeding and incoherent in the tourist cabin where the family was living,” Stambaugh continued. “She was persuaded to lay down her knife and be taken to a hospital.”
The sheriff said he found an unsigned, unaddressed not in the cabin which said, “you have your good time. I will take the children with me.”
Police Chief J.R. Greer quoted the father of the family, Duke Watson, unemployed oil worker, as saying he knew of no reason for his wife’s act.
Watson left the family shortly after noon to attend a baseball game with an old friend.
Stambaugh said he would turn the case over to the county attorney tomorrow.
Shawnee News-Star, Shawnee, Oklahoma. Wednesday, 31 May 1949, page 1.
[5]
- In the 1940 census the household includes, Duke, and sons Bobbie, age 15; David, age 12; Joe, age 10; and Peter, age 2 months.
In the 1950 census, enumerated 1 May 1940, the household includes Duke, Ida and three children: David, age 23, James, age 30, and Peter, age 10.
[2]
- LKH note:
It appears from news articles and from census records that Ida was pregnant when she poisoned her children. Duke and Ida's youngest son, Peter, was born about 9 months after that event.
Ida is not with the family in the 1940 census, but has returned to the family by the time of the 1950 census.
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1900 - 1983 (83 years)
[1, 2, 3, 4] 
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