Grace Morey shooting at Atsion

Shooting and evidence

At about 2:30 p.m., Oscar Morey, 39, left the Lake Road cottage wounded and reached neighbor Leason Small, who called Hammonton State Police. Grace lay dead on the kitchen floor. A short-barreled .22-caliber rifle and three spent shells were nearby. Oscar had wounds in his left chest and back below the shoulder and was taken to Burlington County Hospital in Mount Holly, where he briefly said Grace had shot him before collapsing.

An autopsy by County Physician Dr. Philip P. Remer found a bullet in Grace’s brain, entering through the back of her head. A broken nose and bruised knees and legs suggested a struggle and contradicted a simple murder-suicide account. Grace’s 13-month-old son was unharmed in another room. Her husband Albert Morey, 44, a farm truck driver/helper, returned about 3:30. Oscar, reportedly in poor health, lived with them. Detective Corporal Louis E. Bornmann, Trooper Arthur Aydelotte, and county detective chief Clifford Cain investigated amid storm flooding and failed communications.