Bernard Coyne
Cincinnati Enquirer, 8 August 1877, page 4
BOY OF TWELVE YEARS SHOT FOR THE THEFT OF TWO WATERMELONS
About nine o'clock yesterday morning Willie Carney, Eddie Coyne
and Barney Coyne, none of whom were thirteen years of age started from their
homes on the commons south of Newport in search of boyish adventure. Coyne's
parents had formerly resided about a mile and half southeast of the city, on the
Water Works road and about half past one in the afternoon, they brought up in
that vicinity, in the watermelon patch on Lewis Thornton's farm.
Barney did not got into the patch, but remained outside the fence while his little brother and Willie Carney went into it to hook a few melons with which to regale themselves. Mr. Thornton's residence is not more than four hundred feet from the watermelon patch and the movements of the boys were observed by his hired hand, Henry Green, a tall strapping big fellow of nineteen or twenty, who went into the home and took down a double barreled shotgun and started out in the direction of the melon patch.
Mrs. Thornton spoke to him as he was going out of the door and told him not to shoot at any body, but he disregarded her counsel and a couple of minutes later she heard the report of the weapon and she ran out to see if anyone was hurt. She met Green coming back with the gun in his hand and on getting over the fence she found the lad Barney Coyne stone dead, with a terrible hole in the back of his head where the charge had entered it.
The body of the murdered boy was permitted to lie where he had been killed until his brother came to Newport and told Barney's father of the tragedy. The poor man, who ekes out a living for himself and family by shoveling coal out of barges in the Licking, procured a wagon and went out and got the remains and brought them to his humble home.
There Dr. Davis examined the body and found that twenty-three heavy buck shot had penetrated the skull, causing instantaneous death.
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Cincinnati Enquirer, 9 August 1877, page 7
NEWPORT
The funeral of Bernard Coyne took place yesterday afternoon from
St Stephen's Church and was largely attended by friends of the bereaved family.
Dr. Davis desires it stated that it was ordinary bird shot that caused the death of young Coyne and not buck shot as reported.