Too Young to Kill

by M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
Carl Newton Mahan, 6, quarreled with his friend Roy Cecil Van Hoose, 7, over a piece of scrap metal they planned to sell for a little money. Cecil took it and hit the younger boy in the face. Carl went to his home, took his father's 12-gauge shotgun and returned to where the other boy was. He then aimed it at Cecil's chest and pulled the trigger. 

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Carl with his mother Cora Dixon Mahan c.1929

May, 1929
On a spring day in Paintsville, Kentucky, Martha Mae Fitzpatrick overheard two boys quarreling over a piece of scrap iron from the back door of her house. Carl Mahan found it, however his friend Cecil took it from him. Carl said that if he didn't return the piece of iron, he would kill him. She didn't pay attention believing it was just two boys squabbling. Five minutes later she heard the report of a gun. Once outside she overtook Roy who was known more by his middle name of Cecil, as he was running from the yard. She helped put him into an automobile which sped to the hospital. He died on the examining table. 

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Roy Cecil Van Hoose (1921-1929)

It was noted on Roy's death certificate that he had 19 shots enter his breast, and that he lived 10 minutes after being shot.

The defense demanded a jury trial fearing the judge planned to send Carl Mahan to reform school. The verdict of manslaughter was returned by the jury after 30 minutes of deliberation. 

​Judge John W. Butcher sentenced Carl to 15 years at a reform school in Greendale, Kentucky.  He would be released when he was 21 years old.​

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Jimmie, Carl's younger brother mysteriously drowned in 1942 when he was 16 years old

Carl Mahan was released to his parents on $500 bail, and not only the defense attorney but the public cried out for an appeal. There were others that thought his sentence was not enough. A circuit court judge issued a "writ of prohibition" that set aside the conviction and prevented the boy from being sent to reform school. This was based on a law that in juvenile cases a county judge would preside.

Carl's story ran in newspapers across the country. The case finally landed in the Kentucky attorney general's lap. A month after the trial Carl was left with his parents after the A.G. announced his review was complete, and he took no action.

In October, 1929 the family moved from Louisville to Lexington, Kentucky; no doubt this was spurred by the notoriety of the case.

Heartbreak once again visited the Mahan family in May 1942, when Carl's younger brother James "Jimmie" Mahan drowned in Breslin Pond (Louisville, KY), He was only 16 years old and an experienced swimmer, when he sank  into the water 10 feet from shore. 

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Carl Mahan (death cert)

Carl Mahan's parents were destined to outlive all of their sons. Prior to Jimmie's death, in 1921 they lost John Mahan, Jr. who was stillborn.

Carl married Roxie Ozell Shirrell in 1948, however he committed suicide by shooting himself in the head on April 24, 1958. He was 37 years old.

His paternal grandmother Roxie died in October of the same year. His father died in 1963, and his mother in 1980. His wife Roxie passed away in 1999.

What could cause a child to fight so bitterly over a piece of metal? Was poverty to blame, or conversations he overheard from his family?

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