Elm Fork Echoes, Volume 22, May 1994 Page: 9
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MURDER AT ALPHA
Dallas Semi-Weekly. Nov. 26, 1904
Murder , arson and at I.empted robbery figure in a tragedy
which occurred ten miles no t th of Dallas early yesterday
morning .
Mrs. Tilda Armstrong, a mulatto negro about 35 years old,
wife of Dr . Sam Armstrong, 11 viringa mile this side of Alpha
was shot five times by an unknown negro who entered the
home, and despite her pleadings, after he had shot her
twice, continued to empty the contents of a 38-caliber
pistol into her body, then possible robbed the home and set
fire to it.
Mrs. Armstrong ran to a neighbor 's house, where she told the
foregoing story. From the direction of her home also came
the sequel to it, the complete destruction of the house and
its contents. Mrs. Armstrong lived until yesterday
afternoon and was able to tell a coherent story of the
affair as she knew it.
Sheriff J. Roll Johnson said:
"At 2 o'clock yesterday morning Dr. Armstrong was awakened
by a negro who asked him to go to a camp south of his home,
where there was a sick child, whom he wished the physician
to attend. The doctor quickly responded. He came down as
far as Carruth's Switch, but was unable to locate any camp.
He then turned back toward home and went still another and a
different route making a search of three areas.
"In the meantime a negro man said to have been the same as
the one who had summoned the physician earlier in the night
returned to the home and roused Mrs. Armstrong telling her
that her husband had sent him back to get some medicine
which had been forgotten. She started to light the lamp,
and as she did so the man opened fire. Two bullets took
effect in the shoulders, one in t-he right, the other in the
left, and each near the point of the shoulder-blade. A
third struck behind the ear, glancing, and the fourth
pierced her body near the backbone, coming out through the
abdomen. After the first shot the woman entreated her
assailant to let her live, but his only response was a
continual fuslade of shots. She ran to the door, and half-
stunned, fell bleeding across it. He seized one of her
hands, and in the struggle the member was terrible bitten.
He fired a fifth shot, and at that she lifted herself up and
started toward the home of a neighbor, three hundred yards
away. She threw herself against the neighbor's door and was
taken in and cared for. About the same time other people
living not far distance had been aroused by the report of
the five shots and were turning out to see about the9
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Peters Colony Historical Society of Dallas County, Texas. Elm Fork Echoes, Volume 22, May 1994, periodical, May 1994; Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth760609/m1/13/?q=%22%22~1: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Carrollton Public Library.