The Theme

English Teacher Ruth Ulferts of the senior high school in Anoka, Minn. (pop. 7,396) regarded the assignment as strictly routine. Write a theme on a book, she told her class; any book will do. Gangling Sophomore Richard Ingledue, 15, son of a truck driver, picked up his pencil, frowned a bit and began.

"This book," he wrote, "does not have a title but is a story of a boy who was fed up of living. His name? That doesn't matter. It's what he will do that will shock you.

"One night when his parents went to bed he got up from his bed, took his shotgun, loaded it and went quietly into their bedroom. His mother and father were sleeping he took aim shot his father first his mother screamed he shot her.

"His smaller brother came running out of his bedroom to see what was the matter. He fired again.

"What was the reason for this grusom murder? What made him do it? He hated them.

"His life ambition was to get a car. They promised him one but always fell down on their promises. He has a car now and will kill anybody who tries to take it from him."

When Teacher Ulferts read the theme, she thought it a bit on the morbid side, but did not take it too seriously at the time. An average student, young Ingledue had never caused any trouble. "He was," said Teacher Ulferts later, "a very quiet boy. Very quiet."

Last week police announced that the quiet boy was in the Hennepin County Jail. The night after he wrote his theme, he had gone quietly into his parents' bedroom, wounded both with two blasts from a shotgun. Then he drove off in the family car 80 miles out of town until his conscience caught up with him, and he gave himself up.

He had given fair warning. "This story," he had written at the end of his theme, "is not fiction although it sounds fantastic it happened in my family."

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