Mother and jailed son she tried to kill

International News Photos (New York, N.Y.) · March 29, 1951

Los Angeles, cal........ "I intended to kill my son and commit suicide". That is how Mrs. Helen l. madden (left) explained to police her actions in Wilshire jail last night when she tried to kill her son, Kenneth (right) and herself during a visit to the youth who is held on a charge of participating in a holdup last Saturday. Mrs. madden was talking to Kenneth through a screen when she took a pistol from her purse, aimed at Kenneth's head and pulled the trigger, the gun misfired. She then turned the gun on herself, and again the gun failed to. Go off. She was disarmed before she could try again. The sobbing woman told police "I have failed in my responsibility to correct my son. If his actions continue he will kill someone. I was trying to save him from the gallows."