Fatal Family Fire
True Crime Historian
Richard O Jones
4.4 • 729 Ratings
🗓️ 11 October 2023
⏱️ 79 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Episode 174 begins with a family of seven found incinerated in their farm house. The only suriviving member of the family was the 17-year-old son, who was at the movies with a friend when the fire began. But his story changes so dramatically and so frequently that justice has a hard time keeping up.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Popular.com |
| 0:03.0 | El Dorado, Kansas, April 21st, 1928. |
| 0:15.3 | An investigation was started here today to ascertain whether fire alone caused the deaths of seven members of the |
| 0:22.5 | Oberst family whose bodies were found in the burned wreckage of their home today. Each of the |
| 0:28.4 | seven bodies was recovered from the kitchen of the Oberst farm home near here. No possible |
| 0:34.0 | explanation could be furnished for the death of all the family. |
| 0:38.3 | Investigators said it was not reasonable to believe that the explosion of a kerosene |
| 0:42.5 | lamp, the only plausible solution, would result in instant death to the seven persons. |
| 0:49.2 | William F. Oberst, his wife and five of their six children, ranging in age from six to 16 years, were |
| 0:57.0 | found huddled in a group in the burned wreckage of what had been the kitchen of the farm home. |
| 1:03.0 | The children were Dorothy, 16, Ralph, 14, Hugo, 10, Ada, 8, and Herbert, 6. |
| 1:13.6 | Owen Oberst, 17, was in a nearby town when the fire started. |
| 1:19.6 | It was not until his return that neighbors who had gathered to fight the fire |
| 1:23.6 | learned that the Oberst family was in the building. The boy had been to see a picture |
| 1:29.5 | show and returned about midnight. He said he left his home at 7 o'clock. The fire was known to have been |
| 1:37.1 | burning at 8 o'clock. A coroner's jury has been impaneled and will draw upon witnesses who have said |
| 1:43.9 | they recall seeing an |
| 1:45.0 | automobile stop for a few moments at the Oberst home between the hours of 7 and 8 p.m. yesterday. |
| 1:52.4 | It was believed that Oberst and his family were without enemies, and it was looked upon as probable |
| 1:58.3 | that robbery could have been a motive for possible murder and incendiarism. |
| 2:37.1 | Music True Crime History True Crime Historian presents yesterday's news, tales of classic scandals, scoundrels, and scourges told from historic newspapers in the golden age of yellow journalism. Episode 174 begins with a family |
| 2:45.6 | of seven found incinerated in their farmhouse. The only surviving member of the family was a |
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