MURDERS
Hazel May Cronce Shrope – was killed by her former sweetheart Amos Hart Jr. in Raubsville, Pa., on Saturday, Oct. 15, 1938.
Estranged from her husband, Sylvester Shrope, she was living with her mother, Helen Cronce, at 36 Trenton Avenue. She was 22. Frenchtown farmhand Hart, 24, accosted her outside a dance hall with a shotgun, shot her in the face, and drove off.
His car was found in a ditch in Riegelsville, Pa., and he was found hours later sleeping in a barn on the Milford-Frenchtown Road near Milford.
Hart told investigators that he had only wanted to frighten Shrope by showing her the shotgun, but he became nervous and pulled the trigger accidentally.
Arguing against that version was a note addressed to his mother, Nellie Hart, that was found in his pocket. It said: “I am going to put her out of the way and then kill myself.” He left the plan half-done. He had reloaded the gun, but failed to shoot himself. “I lost my nerve,” he admitted.
From "Rick's Frenchtown Encyclopedia"
he had some nerve!