PIKE COUNTY, Mo. — Sunday marks the anniversary of a gruesome Pike County double homicide.

Van Wilson gunned down neighbors Frank and Mary Snedigar at their farm. It happened near the tiny village of Spencerburg on February 28, 1916.

The carnage might have been worse had Mary Snedigar not hidden the couple’s eight-year-old son and six-year-old daughter before taking three bullets. Her husband was shot twice.

Mary Snedigar managed to use a device that was uncommon at the time. Only about one in ten households had telephones in 1916. Mary called her parents, who then alerted authorities.

There are multiple accounts of how the shootings happened and a motive was never clear. One newspaper said Wilson and the victims had a dispute over a cattle deal. Another paper said discord arose over problems with a road.

In any event, the children were found behind a bedroom dresser. They told investigators that their mother had put them there right before something went “boom, boom.”

Nine months later, a Pike County jury convicted Wilson of first-degree murder and he was sentenced to life in prison.