PALMER, Gussie Peters

Arizona Journal-Miner, Prescott, Arizona Territory Thursday, December 2, 1891 A Fatal Shot Gussie Palmer Instantly Killed By the Accidental Discharge of a Pistol Little Gussie Palmer, aged about ten or eleven years, the son of Mr. And Mrs. H. N. Palmer, lies cold in death in a bed-room of the Palmer residence on Marina street, near the Catholic church, while his mother is frantic with grief, on account of having caused his death. It was about 11:30 o'clock that a messenger came in breathless haste for Dr. Davis, and told him to come up to Mrs. Palmer's at once, that she had shot her boy. Getting into an express wagon, the doctor was hastily driven there, only to find the lifeless remains of what a few minutes before was a light hearted, joyous boy, whose life seemed to be a perpetual ray of sunshine. The Journal-Miner man proceeded to the Palmer residence to investigate the cause of the accident, but the only one who could give the particulars was so overcome with grief that it was thought best not to interview her. It was a ghastly sight that met the gaze of the scribe as he entered the house. In the north front room of the house, just in front of the hall door, lay a sickening mass of the boy's brains, which had oozed out from a horrible wound in the back of his head and dropped on the floor and had been trampled upon by those present. On a bed in a back room lay the remains of the boy with a bullet hole in his head, his face and clothes covered with blood. Beneath the blood, however, could be seen the pleasant smile on his face, so familiar to all who knew him, showing that death was instantaneous and painless. Just how the fatal accident happened it was impossible to learn. Carl Miller, the violinist, was in the front room, just across the hall from where the boy was when shot, and was the first one in the room after the shootings occurred. He said he had been engaged by Mrs. Palmer to do some work for her, and just a minute or two before she had called him and asked him to show her how to remove two empty shells from the pistol, the charges from which had been fired by her on Saturday evening. He removed the shells and placed one loaded cartridge in the cylinder advising her to leave one chamber of the cylinder empty for the hammer to remain on as a precaution of safety. Placing the hammer of the pistol on this empty chamber he returned it to her and resumed his work in the other room. Scarcely had he reached there before he heard the shot and at the same time Mrs. Palmer called to him, "Oh, Mr. Miller, come here, come here quick. Oh, I have shot my boy, my darling baby." He rushed into the room which as stated, was just across the hall, where he found her holding the boy in her arms, weeping bitterly and calling on him to speak to her. A painter who was at work on the Sister's school directly across the street, attracted by the shot, arrived immediately after and was dispatched for a physician. The boy was then picked up and taken to the rear room and placed on the bed but it did not require an experienced eye to detect that life was already extinct. The pistol is a 45-calibre Colt's. Sometime after the shooting Mrs. Palmer told the story of the accident, that after Miller had loaded it for her she was engaged in oiling it, when the boy stooped down in front of it and looking up at it smilingly remarked that it was not loaded and almost simultaneously with this it was discharged. The bullet entered his forehead just over his right eye and ranged downward, coming out on the left side of his head just behind the ear, shattering the base of his skull and scattering portions of his brains on the carpet. A messenger was immediately sent for Mr. Palmer, who is at work at the Yarnell mine near Stanton. Justice H. T. Andrews arrived soon after the shooting occurred and took charge of the pistol and will hold an inquest on the remains to-morrow at 10:30 o'clock. The bullet after passing through the boy's head struck the floor and glanced against the north wall of the room, falling from there to the floor where it was afterwards found.