1932 Bedminster murder: “I’m sorry I did it”

I found a ton of old articles about Stanley Wismer, the 14-year-old boy who shot and killed Bedminster farmer Elmer D. Bartholomew in January 1932. I'm getting sort of tired of transcribing the text (OCR doesn't help much) so I think I'll just post the rest of them (after this one) without. Sorry, my little nerdlingers.

Chester Times, Jan 9, 1932 

BOY CONFESSES FARMER’S KILLING
“Model” Helper to Be Tried for First Degree Murder, State Says 

DOYLESTOWN, Pa Jan. 9 — A 14-year old “model boy” will be tried on charges of murdering his employer, a Bucks County farmer “who never had spoken a cross word to him.”
Stanley Wismer, the grade school pupil, confessed to county authorities that he shot and killed Elmer D. Bartholomew, 28, on the latter’s farm near here, because “I wanted his car I to drive to-my mother who was sick at Hatfield.”

District Attorney Arthur M. Eastburn, to whom the confession was made, said today that the boy will be tried on a first degree murder charge in the next term of the Bucks County Criminal Court. Death in the electric chair will be a possible penalty. 

“I hated to ask him for the car,” Wismer told authorities, “and I made plans to kill him to get it after I got a letter from my mother in which she told me she was sick. I knew he wouldn’t let me have the car so I decided to get it.”

Bartholomew was fatally wounded by shots from a .22 calibre rifle. His body was found on the floor of his barn by his wife, Cora, 29. Wismer according to police had risen early yesterday and after attending his muskrat traps, waited in the barn until Bartholomew arrived. He was shot three times through the chest. 

Wismer then took the Bartholomew car and drove to the home of a step-sister, Mrs. Edith W. McVan, Lansdale, where he was arrested by State police. After preliminary arraignment he was held at the House of Detention pending action of the coroner. 

“I’m sorry I did it,” the boy said after he related the details of the slaying. “The Bartholomews were always good to me. They gave me a nice Christmas and I cannot understand what came over me to do it. But I wanted to see my mother and I hated to ask Mr. Bartholomew for the car. He never spoke a cross word to me in my life.” 

The boy made his home on the farm for about a year, working part time and attending school.
Members of the Bartholomew family bear no malice toward the boy and they hope that he will not be tried for first degree murder. They believe he suffered injuries to his head in a fall sometime ago which might have been responsible for his actions.

And here's the rest of the articles. You can click on them to read them in all their 1930s glory.

They're from, respectively: Jan 17, 1932 Waterloo Sunday Courier; Feb 16, 1932 Chester Times; Feb 29, 1932 Tyrone Daily Herald; March 11, 1932 Chester Times.





(Tee-hee, I just noticed in article two, paragraph one, the newspaper refers to "his farmer employer." Intentional pun? Typo? Maybe just poor writing. )