Jan. 14, 1959: Paul Coates has the amazing story of three boys, ages 7, 9 and 10, who shot their father to death as he slept. Coates says that the mother (and the boys planned to kill her as well – they thought they had been unjustly punished) had regained custody of the children and was struggling to get her slain husband’s Social Security payments. The boys were denied their Social Security benefits.

Coates says: Because the children were never charged with a crime, they can’t be cleared. That apparently, is the logic of the Social Security office.

The column originally appeared in the L.A. Mirror in 1959 and was republished on latimes.com in 2009. It is available via Archive.org.