45 people... 7 Adults and 38 Children, were Killed and 58 were Injured

[Warph]

With all due respect and sympathy to the victims and their families of the Columbine, McDonald's, and Virginia Tech shootings, the Oklahoma bombing, and other mass murders, they were not the worst mass murders of children in the US.

http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~bauerle/disaster.htm

Bath, Mich., - On May 18, 1927, 45 people, mostly children, were killed and 58 were injured when disgruntled and demented school board member Andrew Kehoe dynamited the new school building in Bath, Michigan out of revenge over his foreclosed farm due in part to the taxes required to pay for the new school.

               


The New York Times, May 20, 1927


SCHOOL DYNAMITER FIRST SLEW WIFE

Charred Body of Mrs. Kehoe Is Found In Ruins at Home That Michigan Maniac Blew Up.
         
DEATH LIST NOW TOTALS 45         
Said to Have Mania for Killing, He Is Believed to Have Planned School Destruction for Weeks.
         
GOVERNOR STARTS AID FUND         
Bath Villagers, Stunned by Awful Deed Console One Another
as They Prepare to Bury Little Ones.         

News Special to The New York Times.

BATH, Mich., May 19. - Still stunned by the deed of the madman Andrew Kehoe,
who yesterday killed his wife and then blew up the consolidated school here and
his own automobile causing the death of forty-three persons, including himself,
this little community today was groping its way through tears trying to meet the
awful consequences of the tragedy.

Sad-faced parents of the thirty-eight children killed in the school came to
console one another in their grief, but funeral arrangements were left until
tomorrow.

Governor Fred W. Green Issued a proclamation appealing to the people
of Michigan to raise funds with which to rebuild the school and to provide
relief in cases where families were deprived of support by the catastrophe.

John W. Ferrer and Richard H. Scott of Lansing and Schuyler Marshall of
St. Johns were named the committee to receive and dispose of the funds. 
The little village of 300 inhabitants is virtually bankrupt as a result of
the disaster.

The deaths of Mrs. Blanche Hart, 30, a teacher, and of Oleo Clayton, 8,
a pupil, in a Lansing hospital, today brought the total dead to forty-four.

Kehoe's Wife Slain and Burned.         
The finding of the body of Kehoe's wife this morning by deputy sheriffs
was not entirely unexpected.  State troopers had combed the State for her
last night, following clues that she was in a sanatorium.  When this inquiry
failed, attention was directed to the ruins of the home, which Kehoe blew up
yesterday before he set off the blast at the school.

Though charred beyond recognition, the body was found in plain sight on
a milk cart, near a hen coop, the only building on the farm that was not
destroyed.  Dynamite was found buried under some straw in it.

It is the belief of Prosecuting Attorney William C. Searl that Kehoe either
cut his wife's throat or beat in her skull and then tied her to the cart
and set it afire.  Piled around the cart were silverware, jewels and a metal
cash box.  Through a slit in the cash box could be seen the ashes of several
bank notes.

Officers were unable to account the burning during the night of a davenport,
a small table and three chairs that members of a Consumers Power road crew
had taken out of the burning house yesterday morning.  All this was intact
last night, but in ashes this morning.

O.H. Buck, foreman of the road crew, and several of his assistants
unknowingly risked their lives in the explosion and fire at the Kehoe farm
yesterday morning and again at the school.
         
Narrow Escape From Death.         

Buck gave the following account of what happened:
"Arriving near the Kehoe place we saw that the buildings were afire and
speeded up.  The south side of the house was in flames when we got there.
We run around to the north windows and two of us crawled in.  We shoved out
a davenport, a table and some chairs.

"Then, in a corner of the room, I found a pile of dynamite.  Without thinking
much about what I was doing, I picked up an armful and handed it to one of the
men.  The room was filled with smoke, so we got out.

"Then I heard a woman across the road yelling that the school had been blown up.
We started for our car and had just arrived there when a terrific blast let go
in the house behind us.  I was slammed against the car.

"We got in and drove rapidly to Bath.  A tragic scene confronted us at the
school.  The north half of the building was a jumble of debris.  Several men
were digging into the wreckage.  We could hear the voices of the imprisoned
children calling for help.  I ran across the lawn and began helping.

"I had no more than started when I was bowled over by an explosion at the
roadside.  I got up and looked around.  A great cloud of black smoke was
rolling up.  Under it, I saw the tangled remains of a car.  Part of a
human body was caught in the steering wheel.  Three or four other bodies
were lying on the ground near by.
         
Seemed Like End of the World.         

"I began to feel as though the world was coming to an end.  I guess I was
a hit hazy.  Anyway, the next thing I remember I was out on the street. 
One of our men was binding up the wounds of Glenn Smith, the postmaster. 
His leg had been blown off.  I went back to the building and helped with
the rescue work until we were ordered to stop while a search was made for
dynamite."

The placard "criminals are made, not born", found wired to a fence on the
Kehoe farm, may give an inkling to the psychology of the man who with
measured deliberation, it is believed, attempted to wreak vengeance on this
community for what he felt was the high tax imposed on him and other financial
troubles.

Evidence disclosed today indicates that he mapped out his plans months ago.
He was notified last June that the mortgage on his farm would be foreclosed,
and that may have been the circumstance that started the clockwork of anarchy
and madness in his brain.

M.W. Keys, Superintendent of the School Board, said Kehoe appeared to have
a tax mania and fought the expenditure or money for the most necessary
equipment. 

Chance to Prepare for Dynamiting. 

"I have no doubt that he made his plans last Fall to blow up the school",
Keyes declared.  He was an experienced electrician and the board employed him
in November to make some repairs on the school lighting system.  He had ample
opportunity then to plant the explosives and lay the wires for touching it off."

Prosecutor Searl revealed that a shattered alarm clock had been found in the
basement of the school and that it was connected with a battery and wires
leading to various caches of dynamite and gunpowder.  The face of the clock
was intact.  The hands pointed to 8:45.

Bernice Sterling, first grade teacher, who escaped injury, said she telephoned
Kehoe yesterday morning and asked permission to use his grove for a picnic for
her class.  He told her that if she "wanted a picnic she would better have it
at once."

Evidence that Kehoe was plannlng his scheme early in April was brought out at
the inquiry before State Fire Marshal Charles V. Lane and the Clinton County
Prosecutor today.  Neighbors testified that he was wiring the buildings at his
farm about that time and that he evaded questions regarding his purpose.

Numerous witnesses declared that Kehoe had an ungovernable temper and that
he developed a mania for killing things.  He beat one of his horses to death
last Spring, it was stated.         

The man was known through the countryside as a "dynamite farmer".  Neighbors
detailel how he was continually setting off blasts on his farm, blowing up
stumps and rocks.        

Pyrotol Found in School Debris      

The wiring for the explosions in Kehoe's house and outbuildings was complicated.
A timing apparatus was found in the chicken coop.  Wires were found leading to
the house and barns from the telephone lines passing on the road in front of
the house.  Kehoe evidently intended to tap the telephone lines for current
to set off the dynamite.  The explosion destroyed only the small part of the
house; fire did the rest.

One of the rescue workers digging in the debris of the school found a quantity
of pyrotol, a war salvage explosive distributed to farmers by the Federal
Government, between a floor and a ceiling above the coal bin in the the part
of the building left standing.  About two bushels of sticks were removed.

In the basement State troopers found a small container filled with gasoline,
so fitted that the natural expansion of the gas would force the inflammable
vapor through a tube to a spark gap.  When this point had been reached the gas
could have been exploded by one pressing an electric button, and burning
gasoline would have been scattered throughout the basement.

It is the belief of investigators that Kehoe meant to burn the building
if the dynamiting failed.