Quigley Murder

A Burlington county tragedy of 14 years ago, when a 16-year-old boy plotted the death of a man living with his mother, was brought to light in Burley, Idaho, on Friday when Charles W. Quigley, formerly of Moorestown, told authorities how his murder plan had miscarried and his mother was killed. The murder plot had been placed in records as an accident, when Mrs. Worthy Quigley was burned to death while lighting a fire with kerosene on the Arthur Collins farm, on April 29, 1925. Quigley told Idaho police that his mother had parted from his father who lived at 55 Elmer street, Bridgeton, a few months before the tragedy in 1925. She had taken up residence with William H. McIntosh, who passed away two years ago at the Lakeland sanitarium, unaware that he had been marked for death.

On the Moorestown farm the woman posed as McIntosh's wife, and the boy, smarting under the shame and hating his "foster father," had plotted his death. Quigley said that he had emptied the tank of kerosene which was used in the kitchen stove and had filled the can with gasoline in hopes that an explosion would kill the man. He was horror stricken when the plot miscarried, and by chance the explosion occurred as he had hoped, only to kill his mother. Chief of Police John Bradshaw, of Moorestown, remembers the case and recalls that the boy was grief-crazed at the time, and he is removal(sic) of the man, because he was a witness in the Parkers' case on trial in (sic) inclined to doubt that young Quigley ever plotted a murder.

Following the death of his mother, Quigley went west and, according to his story, he has served time in both San Quentin and Folsom prisons in California. He told the story of his mother's death to a port of entry attendant at the Utah-Idaho state line, and was turned over to Sheriff George Bray of Cassia county, Idaho. Authorities there immediately wired police at Moorestown, and the case has been turned over to Prosecutor Howard Eastwood of Burlington county. Mr. Eastwood announced this week that in case Quigley signed a confession and waived extradition, he would bring the man back to this county for trial. Just what charge would be placed against him is not known.

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