Mother Of Dead Children May Survive Wounds

Mother Of Dead Children May Survive Wounds

Insanity Plea Seen In Shooting And Attempted Suicide

Mrs. Victoria Walker, 24-year-old mother who confessed the fatal shooting of her two small children, clung to life in St. Joseph’s Mercy hospital today. Physicians said she has a “good" chance to recover from two self-inflicted abdominal gunshot wounds.

Mrs. Walker shot herself twice with a .22 caliber rifle yesterday morning after killing her children, Patricia Edna, three, and Robert Earl, two. Rushed to the hospital and believed dying, she rallied after three blood transfusions.

The children and their mother were found in the living room of! their three-room home at 1645 Maple Rd. at 10:30 yesterday morning by Earl Walker, the father. He had been summoned home by a telephone call from his wife, made after the shooting occurred.

Says Wife Was Moody

Statements from Walker taken late yesterday revealed his wife had been in a despondent condition when he left for work in the morning and had asked to be sent away. “Send me away before something happens,” Walker reported her as saying.

Still grief-stricken by the tragedy, Walker told Prosecutor John Rae that Mrs. Walker was subject to recurring periods of despondency and hysteria. “She thought she was in the way,” he said.

Walker also revealed his wife had attempted suicide on a former occasion and was under a doctor’s care. Her doctor ordered her to spend some time with her parents in Dearborn shortly before the shootings took place, he said.

Meanwhile, lying in the hospital, Mrs. Walker repeated her earlier story that she “had an impulse" and “didn’t know” why she killed her children. “I want to die now,” she told Rae.

Prosecution Is Pending

Rae said his office plans no immediate steps toward prosecution until Mrs. Walker’s condition improves. If she recovers, he said, he will act according to the usual legal procedures.

Most observers believe Mrs. Walker would enter an insanity plea if brought to trial.

Sheriff’s officers investigating the slayings said no inquest would be held on the dead children. Both were killed instantly, they reported, shot through the heart as they sat on a davenport in the living room of the house.

The double death was discovered by Walker approximately an hour after it happened. He had received the message from his wife, but had no intimation of what awaited him when he walked into the house. Mrs. Walker had, asked him to “bring the police” but he disregarded the request, he said, thinking his wife was merely having another of her hysterical: spells.

Funeral services for the children will be held at 11 o’clock Tuesday morning at the Muehlig funeral home. They will be buried in St. Thomas cemetery. Friends may call at the chapel.

Patricia, born Aug. 21, 1942, and Robert, born Oct. 16, 1943, are survived by their paternal grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Ellet F. Walker, of Ann Arbor, and their maternal grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Evanglista Tamburro, of Dearborn.