Copyright USGenNet Inc., 2018 All Rights Reserved USGenNet Data Repository Please read USGenNet Copyright Statement on this page: Transcribed and submitted by Linda Talbott for the USGenNet Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/ =========================================================================== Formatted by USGenNet Data Repository Chief Archivist, Linda Talbott All of the above information must remain when copied or downloaded. =========================================================================== Detroit Free Press May 12, 1946 HUSBAND ADMITS DOUBLE KILLING Jack Handle Used on Girl and Mother. Newaygo Slayer Tells of Burying Victims. By Owen C. Deatrick Free Press Staff Writer WHITE CLOUD, Mich. - A confessed slayer told Newaygo County officers and State Police Saturday how he bludgeoned his pregnant wife and his step-daughter to death. He described without emotion how he covered their bodies with sand in a shal- low grave. He was CHARLES GILBERT, 35, a Muskegon foundry employee. He confessed to the killing of his wife GLADYS, 26, because "she was mean to my babies, because she taunted me for being inferior to her first husband." He said he killed her four-year-old daughter KAREN, because "she was old enough to tell." The slayings occurred on the night of April 19, in the southwest corner of Newaygo County. The bodies were found at 5 p.m. Friday by JAMES ANSCOMB, who saw KAREN'S foot protruding from the ground. Rains had washed away the sand which GILBERT had hastily shoveled over the bodies. GILBERT calmly admitted to Prosecutor J. DONALD MURPHY that he knew after he had committed the murders that he had made mistakes. "I knew that I should not have left that locket around her neck," he said. "And I knew I had not buried them deep enough." It was the locket, which contained his photograph and that of Mrs. GILBERT that led to his arrest shortly after noon Sat- urday in a Muskegon Heights trailer camp. ANSCOMB identified the picture as that of GILBERT, who with another man had lived for a time in the shack on the abandoned farm where the bodies were found. His tip led State Police Capt. A. A. DOWNING and Sheriff ROBERT HART to the trailer camp. Brought to the Newaygo County seat at White Cloud, GILBERT completed an un- official confession before the State Police car arrived. He told officers that he had quarreled with his wife and that she had belittled him in comparison to her former husband. Asked if that caused him to plan her murder, he said: "I did not have any hard feelings against her because of that." "Several days before this last trip, I came home and saw the baby black and blue," he said. He referred to the younger of his own two children, MARGARET KAY, 13 months. Their older child is JUDY ANN, 2. "She admitted that she had slapped the child with a strap. "Did you love your wife?" MURPHY asked. "I did before that," was the response. He went on to describe the slaying. "We went for a ride. The day before, a man I used to know told me the shack was vacant. I drove within 10 feet of the house and got out of the car and pretended to check the head bolts. "Then I asked her to get out and hold the flashlight. I reached into the back seat, under where my babies were sleeping, and picked up the jack handle for the car. I had made up my mind to kill her. "I hit her once on top of the head. "She fell face down. "Then I hit her twice more to make sure she was dead." "What did KAREN do?" MURPHY asked. "She asked me, did I strike her mommy. She was crying. "I picked her up and made her stand on the ground. She didn't say anything more. "I hit her over the head. "She fell on her face, and I hit her once again." GILBERT told MURPHY how he dragged his wife's body by the heels, 15 or 20 feet, into the depression formed by an abandoned surface well. "I picked up KAREN and carried her body over and threw her in. Then I took a shovel from in back of the car and buried the bodies about two feet deep. "On my way home I stopped in a tavern and had a glass of beer." He admitted to MURPHY that he walked the streets for a short time before he took the two babies home and put them to bed in the trailer home. He said he intended to marry another woman. She is married and the mother of a child; they both had planned to divorce their mates, he said. He explained his wife's absence to the other woman and to neighbors, GILBERT asserted, by saying that "we had a pretty hot fight and she left. I have learned since that she went to Oregon." Prosecutor MURPHY announced that GILBERT will be arraigned Monday on two charges of first degree murder. He said GILBERT has served two prison terms, one for forgery and another on a morals charge. =========================================================================