A Girl Shot to Death: Her Slayer Exonerated
February 5, 1898
Summary
A gun misfires as the result of an accident, or perhaps a lovers’ quarrel, and leaves a teenage girl dead.
Transcription
Longview, Va., February 1—Special—At Gay Mill yesterday Ed. Page shot and instantly killed India Walker, both colored. Magistrate George M. Crumpler, examined into the matter and dismissed the case as accidental homicide, the young woman was about sixteen years of age and engaged in a game of dominoes with a young man to who she was shortly to have been married. Page entered the room and she asked him to let her see his gun.
He pointed the gun at her under the impression, he says, there was no charge in it. The gun fired, the load entering her head and her brains were scattered on the clothes of her lover at her side.
To-day, the colored people at the mill and in the community are much agitated over the matter and it is alleged by some of them that Page was himself smitten with the young woman; that some unpleasantness had occurred between them; that during the day and night before, he was cross and sullen and there is some suspicion that he shot in her in a fit of jealousy.
He pointed the gun at her under the impression, he says, there was no charge in it. The gun fired, the load entering her head and her brains were scattered on the clothes of her lover at her side.
To-day, the colored people at the mill and in the community are much agitated over the matter and it is alleged by some of them that Page was himself smitten with the young woman; that some unpleasantness had occurred between them; that during the day and night before, he was cross and sullen and there is some suspicion that he shot in her in a fit of jealousy.
About this article
Source
Location on Page
Lower Left Quadrant
Topic
Contributed By
Cali Hughes
Citation
“A Girl Shot to Death: Her Slayer Exonerated,” Black Virginia: The Richmond Planet, 1894-1909, accessed March 15, 2026, https://blackvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/225.