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The Morning Press, Bloomsburg, PA

Tuesday, June 30, 1931

 

DEWALD GETS TWO TO

FOUR YEARS IN THE
EASTERN PEN.

 

Fishingcreek Young Pleads

Guilty to Shooting Emory

Kline in Head

 

COURT HEARS FACTS

Fine of $50 Also Imposed

When Story of Old

Grudge is Related

 

     Two to four years in the Eastern Penitentiary at separate and solitary confinement, $50 fine and the costs, is the price Chester Dewald, 20, of Fishingcreek township, is to pay for shooting Emory Kline, 62, of Orange township, last Wednesday night in an effort to cripple him and satisfy a grudge of two years’ standing.

     Dewald, who told the district attorney he had nothing to say and who was only questioned a short time by the Court, entered his plea of guilty during the afternoon session yesterday and sentenced was imposed immediately after the facts in the case had been presented to the Court.

     Sheriff Arthur Rabb, who took Dewald into custody three hours after the defendant had wounded Kline on the Perry McHenry farm in Orange township, Wednesday night, testified as to the circumstances in the case.

     The sheriff told of Dewald having been around McHenry’s farm on the two day before he shot Kline in the head and fired two other shots at him. The official said that Dewald declared he only wanted to cripple Kline because he contended the latter had tried to take a job away from him. He admitted, Sheriff Rabb said, that he knew of rumor that McHenry kept money in the safe of his home and he knew the location of the safe but he denied he wanted the money. The sheriff stated that Dewald had had other opportunities to attack Kline.

     The sheriff read Dewald’s written confession to the court in which he said that all three shots were fired at Kline. Kline who still carries in his head the bullet, fired by Dewald, appeared in court. He did not even wear a bandage. Both he and Perry McHenry, on whose farm Kline works and who was walking with Kline when the latter was attacked, told of the shooting. They said Dewald was only about a step behind them when he opened fire. He had had supper at the McHenry farm and afterward the three had gone to the barn. They were returning from the barn when Dewald opened fire and then disappeared in the wood.

Dewald is Questioned

     Dewald said he would be 20 on August 17th but gave the date of his birth as 1912 which would make him only 19 this coming August. He said he used a .38 caliber revolver and had later thrown it into Fishingcreek at Forks. Physicians had believed the revolver only to be a .22 caliber.

     Only three chambers were loaded and all of these were discharged. He said he “had it in for Kline” but had nothing against McHenry and had not fired at him. Dewald said that the job Kline tried to take away from him was that of ?ring at a saw mill. This was about two years ago. He last worked in May of this year when he received $1.50 a day and board for cutting props. He quit school when 16 and does not attend church nor Sunday School, he said. He is one of 10 children of whom the others are four brothers and five sisters. One brother is older.

     Henry Dewald, the father, said that he had noticed nothing peculiar about his son before the shooting. He said the revolver he used had been a borrowed one. He had taken it from the home. He said it was a .38 cliber gun. Sentence was then pronounced with the sheriff to take Dewald to the penitentiary within then days.