A Murder-Suicide in Kane

When Cressie Bunting traveled to her parent's house in Kane with her seven-year-old daughter, Doris, on New Year's Day of 1923, nobody could have anticipated that McKean County would shortly become the scene of one of the most shocking murder-suicides in Pennsylvania history.

Cressie Jackson Bunting, wife of Dorus Ray Bunting, a chiropractor from Erie, was an aspiring chiropractor herself, and during the previous year she had spent considerable time studying-- so much studying, in fact, that her friends and family began to worry that Cressie was on the brink of mental and physical exhaustion. And so, during the holiday season, she was looking forward to visiting her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Clem Jackson, who lived at 19 Pine Avenue.

After New Years, it became obvious to Mrs. Mettie Jackson that her daughter was in a highly nervous condition. On January 8, she decided to visit a physician and discuss Cressie's condition. When she returned, she discovered that her daughter and grand-daughter were dead.

When Clem Jackson came home that afternoon around 4:30, he opened the front door and noticed that no one appeared to be inside the house. Figuring that his wife had taken Cressie and Doris shopping, he lit his pipe and went out to the back porch for a smoke. As Clem emptied the ashes from his pipe, he was shaken by the sound of three gunshots fired in rapid succession. At first he thought the shots had been fired somewhere else in the neighborhood, but when he smelled the cordite lingering in the frosty air he was seized by panic; the shots had been fired inside his own home.

Clem, noticing that a revolver was missing from his gun cabinet in the living room, ran upstairs but was surprised to find all of the rooms empty. He sprinted to the stairs leading up to the attic, which he had converted into a playroom for his grand-daughter. At the top of the stairs stood Cressie, with a vacant expression on her young, pretty face.

"Cressie, what's the matter?" he asked. His daughter told him to come up to the attic and take a look at Doris. Before her father had a chance to respond, Cressie began to wobble, and then she tumbled down the stairs. Clem knew instantly that she was dead, and he knew what he would find when he entered the attic playroom.

Sure enough, little Doris was pale and cold to the touch. But, strangely, Clem couldn't find a sign of injury; there wasn't a scratch anywhere on her body.

Clem immediately notified the police, and within minutes officers were on the scene. Coroner H. Clay Heffner of Bradford would arrive a short while later.  officers carried the bodies downstairs, and the coroner's examination revealed that the child had been shot through the heart from behind. Evidence at the scene indicated that Doris never knew that her life was in danger; she had been playing with dolls at the time the fatal shot was fired.

Cressie, too, had died as a result from a gunshot to the chest, though it would take minutes for her to expire. One can only imagine the thoughts that must've flooded her tortured brain as she waited to be reunited with her young daughter in the hereafter; did she regret pulling the trigger? Was she filled with remorse for committing such a despicable deed? Or was her mind so frazzled that she drew her final breaths never realizing what she had done?

Not even the coroner could piece together what was taking place inside Cressie Bunting's diseased mind in the hours leading up to the tragedy. Cressie was a local girl, born and raised in Kane, and had many friends and acquaintances. She was popular and bright. She was Mr. and Mrs. Jackson's only child, and nobody could recall any friction in the family. After graduating high school, Cressie got married and moved to Erie, and worked diligently for eleven years helping to build her husband's chiropractic business.

As murder-suicide was the only possible explanation-- though the motive was a total mystery-- Coroner Heffner decided against holding an inquest.

Cressie's husband was notified and arrived in Kane as soon as he learned the terrible news. He decided to place the remains of his wife and daughter in the charge of Undertaker Vollmer and a few days later, on the afternoon of January 11, a double funeral was held inside the Jackson home, at the corner of Pine Street and Tionesta Avenue. The bodies of Cressie Bunting and her daughter were laid to rest at Forest Lawn Cemetery.