This day in history: A boy was being held in his parents’ shooting deaths, and a deadly fire broke out at an Indian boarding school

From 1975: A 12-year-old boy was arrested in connection with the shooting death of his mother and the wounding of his stepfather in an RV campground just west of Cheney.

The three were living in a converted school bus. Police said the mother was shot three times and the stepfather shot in the jaw.

Police said they were shot at 5:45 a.m. with a gun they apparently kept by their beds. Police searched the campground and adjacent area and found the boy in Cheney, where he apparently walked after the shooting.

In an unrelated story, police in Seattle reversed course and announced that they were now investigating Theodore “Ted” Bundy in a series of crimes called the “Ted murders.” Bundy had been arrested earlier in Salt Lake City. Originally, King County police said he was not a suspect in the Seattle-area murders.

From 1925: Six Indian orphans were burned to death in a fire several days earlier at the St. Joseph Mission, also called the Slickpoo Indian Mission, on the Nez Perce Reservation 25 miles southeast of Lewiston.

“A smoldering mass of ruins was all that remained of the dormitory” following the midnight fire.

The death toll might have been higher if it hadn’t been for the efforts of Sister Angela and two older boys of the mission, who “went into the flaming building time after time” to rescue many children. Sister Angela had stayed up late that night to do some mending and discovered the flames raging in the center of the building.

The cause of the fire was not yet known, but authorities suspected an overheated lamp.