The Sun.
London, England, 1852-04-14 00:00:00

past twelve o'clock, she beard a great noise in the
rooms of Mrs. Wheeler. It was a scuffling noise,
succeeded by a heavy fall. She was at once im-
pressed with the idea that some mischief had been
done, and she ran upstairs calling Mrs. Wheeler by
name. She tapped at the door, which was opened by
Mr. Wheeler. She asked if Mrs. Wheeler was at
home, and he answered very sharply that she was not.
His appearance alarmed her, and she ran down to the
last witness and told her what she thought. He had
something in his hand when he came to the door, but
witness did not see what it was. He appeared anxious
to conceal it. The scuffling noise lasted about a
minute. She heard Mr. Thomas Wheeler come out,
and she went upstairs with Mrs. Thompson. Mrs.
Thompson opened the door, and drew back imme-
diately, screaming out, " Blood, blood !" She had no
doubt that the act was committed by the son, Thomas

Wheeler.
Lockyer, the police-constable who took the pri-
soner, proved the fact. His attention was directed to
him by another person who followed him. He was
walking at a sharp pace, and had a big in one hand
and a coat and stick in the other. (The witness then
proceeded to detail the admissions of the prisoner,
which have already appeared in print.) Upon him
was found a tableknife, with the blade bound up in
rags. He was asked if that was the knife he com-
mitted the act with, and he replied, "No ; that is the
knife I meant for myself." Witness left him at the
station, and went to the house where the murder was
committed. Inspector Cowling produced a carving •
knife and hatchet covered with blood. The room was
also covered with blood, and he saw in the basin a
quantity of water tinged with blood, as if some person
had washed his hands in it. The head was not lying
on the table where the dinner was, but nearer to the

room door.
Mr. Thomas Hutchinson, assistant to Mr. Berrell,
a surgeon, stated that on Saturday last he was called
upon to see the deceased woman. He went to No. 1,
Durham-place, and upstairs to the top front room. He
saw there the body of a woman lying on her chest,
the legs extended towards the door. The body was
then warm, but pulsation had ceased. He did not
notice that she was decapitated, and his attention was
first drawn to the fact by one of the women crying
out that there was a head on the table. He applied
the head to the trunk, and was satisfied that they
were parts of the same body. He had examined the
spinal column, and found that the separation had
taken place about the first cervical vertebra. The
bone had been chopped through, and the ligaments
divided with some cutting instrument. There was a
wound on the top of the head which cut through the
scalp and bone. Could not say whether death was
caused by decapitation or the blow. The cut which
divided the ligaments had been carried round in a
sawing manner, and, the two extremities of the cut
not meeting, a cross incision had been made. Was
of opinion that the first blow was given with the
hatchet.
The CORONER then summed up the evidence with
great care. He said that he had carefully avoided
touching upon the state of mind of the prisoner, as in
all cases where injury was inflicted upon another, and
death resulted, that court could not take cognizance
of the mental condition of the person inflicting that
injury. In cases where persons destroyed themselves
it had the power to inquire as to their mental condi-
tion at the time of the act, and that was the only ex-
ceptional case. It remained for them simply to de-
cide from the facts adduced whether Elizabeth Wheeler
came by her death at the hand of her son, Thomas
Cathie Wheeler. The state of his mind would be
investigated by another tribunal.
The jury, after a short consultation, returned a
verdict of " Wilful Murder against Thomas Cathie

Wheeler."
It will be recollected that Lockyer, the officer who
apprehended the wretched matricide Wheeler, in his
evidence before Mr. Norton, on Saturday last, stated
that the prisoner, upon being removed to the station-
house, desired him to be very particular in taking
care of some letters which he would find in his mo-
ther's room. The officer found a number of docu-
ments in the prisoner's handwriting ; one, of which
the following is a verbatim copy, appeared very re-
cently written, and was in a distinct legible hand :
" June, 1847.-4 start from London, London Docks,
for Bahia, South America, as clerk for a Jersey house
there, in their own ship, the only passenger. The same
year, Nov. 29 or 30th, I reach England back again,
the situation not suiting me. I was five months gone
—49 days' passage out, 57 home, and one month there.
I land at Falmouth, December. I came to London by
mail and G. W. Rail, direct to my father's house.
The first night at home I am very well, just as tho' I
had never left the country; but the next day or one after
that night, I walked over to an uncle at the West-end,
just to let him know I came back. I take tea there be-
fore a large uncommonly hot fire (from which I did take
the precaution to remove to the far end of he room), and
almost immediately after I am obliged to rush to the
private place. I leave the house on my way home, pass
into the open air, and I then find my whole system
changed, and that I must have been poisoned. I tell
my father that I'm poisoned the next day or so. He
says, You're mad, it's the change of climate.' My
mother replies the same. Well, after some time, and
a great deal of unpleasantness has passed between
us all (my father, mother, and sister), and I have charged
them with conspiracy against me, I suffer myself to be
taken to Bethlehem Hospital. Nine months after my
mother and sister take me out, after a great deal of my
entreaty and trouble. My father has died in the mean-
while, three months after I was there, that I don't
see any more of him, neither does he come to see me
while I am there, which he was well enough to do,
I think ; and I go to live with a relative, who
had offered to keep me for a few weeks, until
I could get something for myself. I stay with them five
weeks, and I ass then obliged to go before a magistrate
and request to be sent to some lunatic hospital in the
country. lam sent to Wandsworth. I stop a twelve-
month there, hoping to get well. Then, after more
dreadful miserable trouble and perseverance, my mother
takes me home to live with her, February, 1851; this is
1852. A fine time I have had with her. She is kill-
ing me daily with her tongue and temper. As to go
before a magistrate to get sent to another lunatic
hospital, I won't do. I have had quite sufficient of
those horrible places; besides, if I was to go to lay
any charge against her, the woman is such a fearful liar
that the charge would rebound back upon myself. So,
therefore, I bear this dreadful fate, day after day, till I
shall now very soon be dead. You'll say, why do you
not commit suicide? but that Ido not like to do. The
case is clear to me that I fell into a trap, and this uncle,
Mr.—, was the prime cause to be revenged upon me for
some alight I had put upon him. He answers an adver-
tisement I had put in tee Times' paper for a clerk's
place, or goes to do so, the people, by-the-by were
no more in want of a clerk than they were in want of a
black man, ss they can get thousands (clerks) at Bahia. It's
a regular plan to get young men to go out as clerks, and
then annoy them till they are dead, or mad, or some-
thing ;of that. There is something about it, too, of a
Catholic combination, for these people only look out for
decent-looking persons to go out to South America,
and Igo out unsuspectingly. No sooner do I get there
(there is no running away from the place; you have to
get a passport before you land) than a low-minded per-
secution sets in. I am insulted in all manner of ways,
and after a month there I find it not possible to live
with them, or in the place at all. The treatment
would have drove me mad. A regular dead set per-
secution at you, and if I bad stopped there mad I
should have gone, and there is plenty of places I dare
say to put you away, never to be heard of more. Depend
upon it it don't take much scheming to say that a man dies
under the tropics. Well, I bargain with the captain
that brought me out to take me back. I had some
clothes to offer. After great difficulty he and the firm
consent. I agreed to pay the passage money back.
After fourteen days at sea the captain plays the very
devil with me. I found I had jumped out of the frying
pen into the fire. I expected every day to be thrown
overboard, but after thirty-six or forty days of deathly
suspense and anxiety I land at Falmouth. I was too
grateful to make any charge against him (although that
is what I ought to have done), as I could well see I was
the victim to some clique or system. Four years
or more has thus gone on, and I feel it to be my
duty to put it before the public, if I can, to make
the best of it they can, to let them see how easy and
possible it is to impose upon a man, and rob him
of his existence conjointly by sea and land, and
by your relatives, too. I have heard of the remark, Oh,
save me from my friends.' I have been the victim of the
most dreadful system it is possible to suppose; in fact, it
is tonot;ubtllecaton be
m make supposed.statements
It's only
rep
et
ee t bt
ne
g lknownlunatic
be yh the
reality. •
iicnsploiusoning that will excite hatred
tions of the country. I don't
mean to assert is, that madness,
future. What
satiny it can be
Inhered, but that remains for the
yfosrtetmheat
result of
neither more nor less, except in
hos-
pitals
a base poison,
horroran d s
nato cases. I mean to say that the
as it exists in this country, is the
some few unfortu
Why have you vacillated so long?
manner. If you say—
Itr dof entering into anything I had
is because I am afraid
h with. If you will allow your
stomach has been acted upon previously in some subtle
not strength to go throng
Paper to be the means of p
you will greatly oblige lacing this before the public

" THOMAS C. WELEELER.
In the other documents the unfortunate man attributes
in •
SaultY solely to poisoning, and evinces the greatest
possible horror of Popery.

taken
nestberdfay morning ---
TILE MURDERS AND SUICIDE AT
PUTNEY.
"re Mr. IW. Carter, the coroner for East
Surrey, a Queen's
and a respectable jury, at the
Bead public-house highly a lengthened investigation was
• - le-house, in Wandsworth-lane, Putney,
touching the re
ears
deaths of Nathaniel John
Spankhurst
'
aged 39 y a basketmaker, of Bark-
ing, in &sex, and histWo sons, Nathaniel Joseph
Spankhurst, aged
years, and William Spankhunt,
aged 6 years, who
were found drowned on the morn-
ing of Good Friday last near the residence of the
10
late Vice-Chancellor, under circumstances of a very
1
painful nature.
Full particulars of this melancholy event appeared
in this journal on Saturday last, and it will be remem-
bered that the bodies were discovered in a small piece
of water near the river, under the high bridge, ad-
joining Barns Elms. The two boys were fastened