Washington County Rhode Island News Stories

MAN KILLS CHICKEN THIEF

John Nugent, who killed a hen thief on his farm in Narragansett Thursday morning was formerly a Newport bus driver and a stepson of the late A. H. Carson of this city.  The Matthewson farm, where he now resides has been raided several times and Mr. Nugent had equipped the hen houses with an electric alarm and circulated in the vicinity the information that he proposed to shoot if visitors came again.  There were three men in the party, one remaining with a truck in the road.  He caught the others at work approaching under cover of a wall.  One man was on the outside killing hens, and the other within the hen house.  When the man outside was covered with the shotgun he moved as if to take a revolver and Nugent fired, it was buckshot, and the man dropped shot in the head.  The other man came out with a revolver in hand and fired back, holding up a box for protection.  Nugent now had only three cartridges with bird shot, and let these fly at the fleeing man.  He was seemingly well peppered, from the trail which leads to the woods into which he escaped.  The truck was driven off.  The Providence police have identified the dead man as a Sailmaker of that city and have one peppered with shot under arrest in the Rhode Island Hospital.  He claims that there were only two in the party and that he drove off the automobile himself.  Newport Journal and Weekly News Friday May 11, 1917

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