Cain, Myrtle (d. 1935)

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1935 May 1 p. 1

Birth date:

For Gum, Boy Tells How He Fatally Wounded Mother.

Bloomington, Ind., April 26. — A package of chewing gum induced Clifford Cain, 5, today to tell how he killed his mother, Mrs. Myrtle Cain. Clifford squirmed and wouldn't talk until Coroner Ben R. Ross gave him gum. then he told how he took his father's shotgun from behind a door yesterday, slipped to the kitchen where his mother was peeling potatoes, and fired a charge into her back.

"Mother was sitting on the floor peeling 'tatoes. I pointed the gun at her and it went off. Mother throwed down her knife. She went to the back door and fell down."

Russel Cain, the father, said the lad told him he "just wanted to frighten mother."

Coroner Ross returned a verdict of accident death and Cain took Clifford to the motherless home. There are three other children, Robert, 7; Mildred, 3, and Irvin, 11 months.