Bingaman Murders

I haven't determined exactly where this took place within Chester County, but the family was prominent in the Coventryville area for many years. If any house deserved to be haunted by its past, Mr. Bingaman's home certainly fits the requirements. I won't even go into the fact that this charmng character was related to my family - ah, well...

Source: Times Signal, Zanesville, Ohio. 1925-02-01

Beats Tots to Death; Aged Father Dies

Horrible Crime Enacted By Farmer During Religious Frenzy; Spirits Told Me To Kill Baby Only Explanation; Had Attacked Wife; the Father Dies of Fright 

Pottstown, Pa., Jan. 31 - Walter Bingaman, a farmer of Warwick township, near here, while in a religious frenzy, beat to death two of his three children. 

When policemen broke into the farmhouse that found the farmer's father, George C. Bingaman, 73 years old, also dead. His death, Coroner Russell James of Chester county, said was probably due to excitement and heart disease. 

Tonight Bingaman was in the Chester County jail violently insane, police said. 

Bingaman's wife was at a neighbor's hose when the tragedy occurred. The dead children were Priscilla Bingaman, 3 years old, and William D. Bingaman, 18 months.

Thursday night, according to Mrs. Bingaman, her husband tried to convert her to his way of thinking in religion. 

An argument followed and he tried to strangle her. She was rendered unconscious for some time. Friday night her husband again attacked her and she fled to the house of a neighbor and remained there over night, fearing to return to her home. 

Today she became alarmed when nobody was seen about the farm house and the authorities at West Chester were notified. Breaking into the house, they found Bingaman and a five year old son, Walter, Jr., stretched across a bed, with the dead grandfather and the two lifeless children in the same room. 

The county officers seized Bingaman and manacled him hand and foot. He said he was prompted by 'spirits' to kill the baby He evidently had beaten the infant to death with the handle of a carpet sweeper. 

When his aged father died Bingaman said he had to 'sanctify' the home by sacrificing the three year old girl. Her skull had been crushed. 

The coroner held an inquest and decided Bingaman had killed the two children and that the father had died from the excitement and heart trouble. 

Bingaman spared the life of Walter, Jr., his five year old son, he told his captors because God had not commanded him to take it.The coroner believes that the fit of temporary insanity left the man after he had killed the two children, to return later. 

Bingaman was placed in a straight jacket late tonight and taken into the Chester county insane hospital after examination by two physicians.

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