Bad Boy's Background

Chris Simpson's father, a violent-tempered Italian, present whereabouts unknown, married Chris's Irish mother, present whereabouts unknown, when she was 15. They begat nine children, whom the father never supported and frequently abused. When Chris, the youngest child, was five, the State of Michigan decided that his home was no place for him, instead placed him in its Children's Institute at Ann Arbor. A year later Chris was released to Mrs. Harriet Atwood, wealthy farmer's widow, began attending the one-room Bigelow Rural School in Calhoun County, Michigan. He grew faster than most of his 15 schoolmates, got pretty good marks in everything but conduct. was soon demanding special privileges because his foster mother was president of the school board.

Last week when cocky young Chris, now 13, was reprimanded before his mates for sleeping in class, he elected to fight School-teacher Donald Mitchell, older but not larger than himself, was thrown out of the schoolhouse. Home he went, not to mother but to get one of mother's guns. Armed with a .22 calibre target pistol, he returned to school muttering threats and waving his gun. Schoolteacher Mitchell made no effort to stop the rush for the door, was glad when all his charges were safely out. prudently retreated himself. Chris, found some hours later at his home by the sheriff, surrendered his gun, which he said had not been loaded.

While parents of his schoolmates demanded Chris's exclusion from the school and farmers' wives shook their heads over "that Simpson boy," Chris was taken to the University of Michigan's Neuropsychiatric Institute clinic for four weeks' observation. According to Clarence F. Ramsay, superintendent of the Children's Institute, Chris is typical product of a home where there has been neither parental love nor discipline.

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