ERUTAL WIFE MURDER.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXI, Issue 124, 26 May 1900, Page 5 (Supplement)

ERUTAL WIFE MURDER.

A. TERRIBLE CAJ E

St. Helena, U.S.A., was the scene on April C. of a shocking case of murder and suicide. A man named William Alexander shot and killed his wife and then committed suicide by cutting his throat with a razor. The tragedy was> probably the bloodiest that has ever occurred' in the district, ana had many pathetic incidents. While the drunken and enraged husband was beating and stamping on his wife before he shot her the woman's little boy and girl by a former marriage vainly endeavoured to save their mother's life by throwing stones at her

assailant.

About three years ago Mrs Mary Harman, then a widow with two children, a boy aged 11 and a girl aged 9 years, married Alexander, and up to the time of the tragedy they had lived in a shanty on a farm about three miles from St. Helena. Quarrels yere frequent and the children often had to seek refuge in the barn from their step-father's abuse at night. About a week before the tragedy Mrs Alexander left her husband, but three days before the murder he induced her to return to him by promises of reformation.

Thursday night, however, Alexander went to St. Helena and reached home about midnight intoxicated. When reProved by his wife he went to beat her, a nd she determined seek refuge at the home of her father, C. C. Griffith, who lives a mile from the scene of the tragedy.' Mrs Alexander, therefore, starte<l downstairs with a lamp to get her clothing, when the man, coming tip bei hind her, knocked her down, kicking and damping on her. The two children f°ught the.husband off and he went out.

When he returned with a shotgun the woman had crawled outside, and the two children tried to keep the man away from their mother by throwing stones at him, but he finally shot his wife. The shot entered her right shoulder from the back, shattering her arm and piercing the lung,, which caused her death.

The boy then ran to a neighbour's for distance, and-Alexander tried to shoot but failing, went to the cellar, g°t a razor, and cut his throat. He staggered hack up the steps to his wife, .id would have, fallen across her body -Ut for the little girb who pushed him •Way.; His head was nearly severed from the body. The little girl, not realising that- her "Wher was dead, placed a pillow under "Wjead and covered her where she lay on the ground in her night clothes. When tne neighbours arrived they found the 'tightened little girl besmeared with J,oocLkeeping watch beside the two boclut v The raom and stairs were red witn WWdv The Coroner was-notified by teleand ordered the removal of the J-man's body in to the house, but 01ZfJ? th^ the man's body should rena in as it fell. With a jury he visited Lv,L s,cenG ahd a verdict of murder and "uicide W as returned.