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TALE OF BLOOD CASE.
Wife Was Very Badly Treated and Could Stand It No Longer.
Special Dispatch to the World-Herald.
SIOUX FALLS, S D, Feb. 12 - Great interest is manifested by the
residents directly south of here along the Iowa boundary in the
trial of Mrs. Alice Blood for the murder of her husband, which will
take place during a term of district court which convenes tomorrow
in Sioux county, Iowa. The fact that Sioux county adjoins South
Dakota, and that the murdered man and his wife, who lived only a
short distance from the line, had many acquaintances in the adjacent
portion of this state accounts for the interest in the outcome of
the trial.
The murder occurred between 6 and 7 o'clock on the morning of
November 16, last. The deed was committed with a 38-caliber revolver
while the husband was sitting at the breakfast table. From what
neighbors say George H. Blood, the murdered man, while industrious
and well-to-do, was very abusive to his wife and family, frequently
striking his wife and making the lives of herself and children
miserable and unbearable.
The immediate cause of the tragedy was the declaration of Blood
the night before the murder that their eldest daughter, Nellie, who
had been attending the Hull academy, was "old enough and big enough
to go out and earn her own living," and that he proposed to make her
do it. Upon this declaration Mrs. Blood retired to her bedroom and
refused to continue the discussion.
A few days previous she had secured the revolver with which the
deed was committed, and secreted it in her room. The weapon belonged
to her son Oscar. Mrs. Blood has since stoutly maintained that
herself and husband had no further words that night. On the morning
of the tragedy,
Blood awoke as the clock was striking. He said something about
arising, and asked "Alice, was that 5 o'clock?" The wife did not
reply. Those were the last words which she heard him speak.
Nellie, the eldest daughter, was in the kitchen preparing
breakfast and had it nearly ready when Blood arose, proceeded to the
dining room and seated himself at the table, with his back toward
the bedroom door. Walter Blood, another son, and John Geick, a hired
man, were outside the kitchen washing, while the two younger
children, Alta and Bertha, were sitting at the dining room table,
facing their father. Mrs. Blood has since said that she passed a
sleepless night, meditating upon the deed. She arose, attired
herself in an outing flannel gown, grasped the revolver, tip-toed
out of the bedroom behind her husband, and, raising the weapon, sent
a bullet crashing through his head.
He received no warning whatever of his fate. The two little
children, seated directly opposite their father, with their faces
toward the bedroom door, were evidently spell-bound by the sight of
their mother creeping upon the husband and made no outcry. Blood
pitched forward out of his chair upon the floor, while his wife
walked back into the bedroom. The death struggles of Blood
lasted several minutes, and, fearing he was not dead, his wife
emerged once more from the bedroom and deliberately sent another
bullet through his head.
When officers and neighbors arrived on the scene of the crime
they were somewhat puzzled by the absence of tears or of other
manifestations of grief on the part of the children. Upon
questioning them upon their lack of sympathy they expressed a
feeling of relief at his death. They said he had simply crushed all
the fatherly affection they had ever known for him out of their
hearts by his abusive treatment, and embittered their lives with his
harshness and cruelty, until they learned to loathe and fear him
rather than love him.
The coroner's jury returned a verdict in accordance with the
facts, finding that "homicide was premeditated and done in cold
blood." When Sheriff Henry placed Mrs. Blood under arrest she was
not worried by the enormity of her deed. She had a glare in her eyes
that betokened insanity, but her conversation was as cool and
collected as that of any person.
Pending her trial she has been at liberty under a bond of $5,000,
which was readily signed by parties who have known herself and
husband for years. The murdered man was hated and feared by those
who knew him.
On one occasion Blood followed his wife, who had driven to Hull,
and met her as she was returning. He stopped the horses, jerked her
out of the buggy into the public highway, and there whipped her with
a buggy whip so severely that the scars are said to be yet upon her.
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