The Express.
London, England, 1866-12-27 00:00:00

DOUBLE MURDER AND SUICIDE.

Yesterday morning a shocking occurrence took
place at Lowe • Edmonton. For some years past a coach-
smith, named William Gudgeon, and his wife, Anne, a
very quiet, hard-working woman, have occupied a six-
roomed house opposite the Great Eastern Railway sta-
tion at Lower Edmonton. They had five children, the
eldest of them being a girl of 14 years of age. On Cl,
the mother of the children complained to her
husband of being unwell, and she went to bed at seven
o'clock in the. evening. At 11 o'clock at night she
got up and went downstairs and joined her husband
and children. They remained together for an hour,
and then the whole family retired to rest. The
husband state that he and his wife slept in a bed in the
front top room of the house, and that in • corner of the
same room a bed was made up for three of
the children. When the woman was going to
bed she looked very " wild," and said to her
husband, " The light of the candle stares in my eyes, put
it out." Ho did so, and he then fell asleep. At that tune
the youngest child, a baby aged six months, was lying
asleep in the father's bed. At two o'clock in the morning,
Selina, a little girl aged ten years, was awakened by a
quantity of blood beiag " spurted " over her face. She
states that when she opened her eyes she saw her mother
kneeling upon the dead body of her little brother, Timothy,
who had been lying asleep alongside her sister, Sarah Anne.
The little boy' a throat was cut in a fearful wanner, and
blood was gushing from the wound. The mother looked
much excited, and she held an open razor covered with
blood in her right hand. When she saw that she woke
the girl Selina she leant over towards her, and caught
hold of her. The girl screamed, and a fearful struggle
then ensued. Selina, for the of
tecting her throat, caught bold of the a
clothes, and held them over it. She cried out,
and then wriggled out of the bed and rushed down the
stain, followed by Ler mother, who continued to hold the
open rarer in her band. When the girl reached the
bottom of the stairs she ran into the lower front room.
Her mother rushed past her and ran to the fire-place. The
girl felt in the dark and found a match-box lying on the
table. She struck a light, and then saw her mother by
the light of the match cutting her own throat. The light
then went out, and she heard her mother fall upon the
floor. The girl then ran upstairs, and went into her
father's room, and with great difficulty succeeded in
awakening him. By his side was lying the dead body of
the baby, aged six months, his throat being also cut. The
wretched woman was found lying near the fire-place in the
parlour befor,inentioned, her head resting on the fender,
and there was an open black-handled razor lying on her
breast. There was a severe gash across her throat, and an
iron pail partly filled with blood lay near her heaa.
Dr. O'Brien, who was called in, said that the
wound WAS self-inflicted, and that it must have
caused almost instantaneous death ; and this app
also to be the case with the two deceased chirdrea7dn.
There seems to be every probability that if the girl Selina
had not fortunately aweker ed when she did, she and the
rest of the family would have been sacrificed. The de-
ceased woman had been latterly very ill and under the care
of a doctor. Some short time ago her brother-in-law
died and left a widow and five children, and the fact that
they were badly off and that the deceased could not do as
much as she desired for them, it is said, preyed very much
-'on her mind.

DEATH 04 THE Noire COUNTY CORONER. —MT.
Christopher Swann, coroner for the county of Notting-
ham, died suddenly at his residence at Sherwood, near
Nottingham, on Monday, the 24th inst. Mr. Swann was in
his 74th year, but has for some time past been sinking
sander the pressure of infirmities, and his mental anxiety
has been increased, it is supposed, by the protracted in-
quiry into the case of the Carlton murder, which, as
county coroner, has been under his direction.
CAPTURE of • FOROER. —Amongst the arrivals
by the City of Paris from New York were Superintendent
M'Call, of the Glasgow detective force, and Bohn Henry
Greatrex, who was captured in New York on the charge
of forging upon an extensive scale If. notes on the Union
Bank of Scotland, in connexion with • man named Grim-
shaw. Greatrex was accompanied by the young woman
whose description wns circulated in advertisements along
with that of the prisoner. 14'0111 and • clerk of the
Union Bank went to New York some time ago in search
of Greatrex, and by advertising for a first-cla-si photo-
grapher got a eine to his whereabouts, Greatrex having
been known in Glasgow as an excellent photographer.
They discovered him in consequence of his putting hishead
out of the window of his lodgings to look after a military
band which was pawing, sod at once arrested him. In
Glasgow Greatrex was also known as a street preacher and
revivalist in connexion with the Plymouth brethren. He
is a native of Gravesend. is 38 years of age, somewhat
commanding in appearance, and most fertile in resources.
His companion, with whom he eloped from Glasgow, was
an assistant in a photographic studio there. °metres
was sent to Glasgow yesterday.
THE MYSTERIOUS DEATH IN NORFOLK.—Yester-
day an inquest was held at Postwick, Norfolk, on the
body of Mr. Christopher Robinson, whose lifeless body
was discovered on Sunday morning in a field in the village.
The sad particulars o
returned as in Tuesday's
paper and the jury uas their verdicl; that the
deceit:led terminated his existence while labouring under
temporary insanity. The dreadful wounds which the de-
ceased appears to have inflicted on himself led at first to
the inference that he bad been murdered.
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