AN AMERICAN HORROR.

Evening Star, Issue 5560, 3 January 1881, Page 3

AN AMERICAN HORROR.

» A tragedy of the most revolting and really peculiar kind happened two days ago (writes the Sin Francnoo correspondent of the ' Auckland Herald'), filling the whole community with horror profound. At midnight a respectable-looking man walked into the old city prison and confessed in the coolest manner possible that he had murdered hlB sister-in-law. " I loved hrjf Rlore than any woman on the face of the earth, and she was going to leave me for another man," he said; "so I took her on my lap, l*'d her head upon my shoulder, and, kissing her fondly, told her I was going to kill her, and baie her not cry out. She struggled somo) and I placed ono hand over her montli, anl grasping her throat strangled her to death, holding her tightly clasped in my arms, When she was dead 1 took her olothes out of her trunk, and paoked her nicely !*)» replacing her clothes. I theft fend Bome letters, took a walk, Mid here I am." Astonishment fell upon his hearers, and dismay reigned on eveiy faoe; but at la«t the police offioers recovered themselvefl, and, securing their man, set off to find the bedy, whioh was nicely padfced in the trunk. She wai a small and handsome woman of twenty* one, and fitted easily into the largrj trunk. The story is one of unui>u»l horror ns told by the wife of the man (George Wheeler), who was wakened from her sleep to be conducted to the trunk ooffin In which lay her sister's oorpse. Her grief was terrific, interrupted by fainting fits. She told, in disjointed, ecreaming tonee, that she had been married to her husband eleven years, and that, taking her sister, who was beautifdl t> live with hw, sho at last found out that her husband had seduced her. A child was born to the guilty pair] and, urged by the husband, she had weakly oond>ned the crime, and ever after permitted her sister to livt. as the wife of Giorge Wheeler; while she herself took a separate room and took the plaoe of her sister, passing for suoh. It seems too horrible to contempt *",' BUoh ." tte trutn - I-fedy a friend of Wheeler took a fanoy to the dead girl and she confowed to Wheeler tfort ifo **,

intimate with this new love, Peckbsm. Tiu«, hor brother in-law, moved by mad jealousy, took her life—an aot whiah he had premeditated five days previously. It sppe&ra that the poor wife i 8 almost heart-broken, and haa been living for two years in the extreraest state of unhappiness owing to her false position. Wheeler pleads insanity. ■—— i —: