A TERRIBLE TRAGEDY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 9010, 15 October 1892, Page 2 (Supplement)

A TERRIBLE TRAGEDY.

MURDER AND SUICIDE IN BROMPTON CEMETERY. ' - At seven o'clock the other night two young women presented themselves at the gates of the Brompton Cemetery. The gatekeeper pointed out to them that it was after the hour at which visitors were admitted. They pleaded hard to be allowed to go in, if only for a few moments. The gatekeeper hesitated. One of the girls bore a wreath of fiowera in her band. There was a few minutes' discussion, and at last the gatekeeper relaxed the rules of the cemetery and allowed the girls to pass in. They walked along the central pathway to a grave. It was that of an aunt of one of the girls named AliteJHarriet Franklin, domestic servant to a family in Brompton Crescent, Kensington. She laid the wreath reverently upon the grave. She knelt down for a second to whisper a prayer, and then she rose. At that moment the sound of a shot from a pistol rang out upon the still night air. The girl Franklin - cried out, " My God, I am shot,", and fell to the ground. Five minutes afterwards she was dead. / THE GIRL'S ASSAILANT. It appears from the story of her companion that when the girls reached the grave of Franklin's aunt, there was at a grave some 20 yards away an evil-looking man. He was of about 30 years of age, dark hair with moustache, but of fair complexion, and he wore a diagoual checked Jacket and vest, and soft felt Alpine lawncoloured hat. He was kneeling when first the girls saw him, apparently in the attitude of extreme devotion. Then he sprang to his feet, and drawing a revolver from his coat pocket fired on the two girls, with the unfortunate and fatal effect already described. Then he turned the pistol upon himself. Four shots did he fire. Two bullets penetrated just below the heart; the two others took effect just over the abdomen. The man fell in a heap on the gravel pathway. There he lay till the doctor was called. He was th6n removed to the Queen's Jubilee Hospital, Brompton Road. An hour afterwards he died. The girl Franklin, afar being shot—the bullet entering under the left shoulder blade and penetrating the heart—ran some sixty or seventy yards. Her motive was to gain the outer gate. She screamed as she ran. Her companion was too much terrified by the fact that firearms had been discharged. She hesitated a moment as to what to do, and then ran after Franklin. When the doctor arrived he found the one woman supporting the other, but he. also found that Franklin was dead. The wound had caused what may, for all practical purposes, be termed death. The pistol which the man used, and which was found lying close to him, is a five-chambered revolver of old-fashioned pattern with percussion caps. It had been fully loaded before the tragedy was entered upon; it was empty when all was over. This is accounted for by the fact that the man had four bullets in his body ; the woman had one. The Brompton suicide has been identified by his father as James Boursell, aged 26 years, and living with his brother-in-law and sister, of 7, Vesper Road, Shepherd's Bush. "There are two families living at No. 7. The landlord of the house occupies the upper floor and Bout-sell's relations the lower floor. ' * An inquest wa3 held in the Town Hall, High-street, Kensington. Louisa Franklin, a neatly-dressed, nicelooking girl of about 18, was the first witness examined. On the day of the murder she went with her sister Alice and two fellow-servants of her sister's to Brompton Cemetery. Her sister and herself went there for the purpose of placing a floral tribute on the grave of their aunt. As they were returning they passed a man whom they bad seen on their -way to the grave. They had gone only three or four yards past the man when she heard three loud reports. Alice screamed, and as witness turned round she saw fire coming from a pistol at her elbow. She screamed and ran, her sister and the other girls doing the same. As Alice got into the path facing the gates she felL In running off, witness saw, prostrate on the grass, what she believed was the body of the man whom they had previously encountered. He "was an entire stranger to them all, and as far as she knew he had no motive for firing the pistol at them. Harriet Rogers, a domestic servant, employed at 42, Brompton Villas, gave corroborative testimony. Robert Boursell, father of the deceased, said his eon was 26 ye/Srs of age, and resided at lodgings in No. 7, Vesper Road, Shepherd's Bush, and was a single man. He had been seen on the previous Monday, 0 and he was then in very good health. He was good - tempered and very harmless in ' his ways. He had, the witness said, a propensity to buy revolvers. Two years before a neighbour bold witness that he' had seen deceased Bring shots at a board with a revolver. Unknown to him witness broke open his box, and took from it three pistols, and his •mother had asked him particularly not to use such things. Deceased had, however, an earnest desire to become a good marksman, and to go to Canada was his great wish. Qn the Monday previous to the event he found he was not working, and • asked him the reason. Deceased said he wanted to take a bit of a holiday. » John Howard, formerly a stableman at Buffalo Bill's Wild West, gave evidence to having been with the deceased on Friday. He had the revolver with him. He was telling him that he had been out in America, and .wished to return again. He noticed nothing peculiar about the man. Deceased a'nd he had both been in the cemetery on the afternoon of Friday with l-.wo girls, whdm they met casually, but they all left shorty after five. Dr. Walsh suggested that there should be & postmortem of the deceased man with a view of testing the question of his sanity. He had held the post of pathologist in Wakefield County Asylum—one of the r . largest asylums in England—and in his experience he had found that painters suffered largely from insanity as the result of lead poisoning. He did nob know whether there was any history of fits so far as the deceased was concerned ; but he had been told"fchat a sister, or other near relative of deceased, was'in an asylum. ... The coroner said that, unfortunately, ' ■post-mortems had been tried, and failed to reveal what Dr. Walsh had suggested might be revealed in the present case. The coroner then reviewed the evidence, and the jury returned a verdict to the effect that the deceased, Alice Franklin, had been murdered by James Boursell, who had -hot himself,, while of unsound mind.