The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-07-24 00:00:00

AWFUL MURDER AND SUICIDE OF THE MUR-
DERER, IN LAMBETH.

On Monday morning, about ten o'clock, the greatest con-
sternation and horror were excited in the neighbourhood of
St. George's Road, Lambeth, by the intelligence that the
above tragical event had occurred at No. 4, Caroline Build-
ings, near West-street, West-square, Lambeth. The parti-
culars obtained at the station house, in Tower-street, Lam-
beth, are as follow :
The house in which this melancholy event took place is
inhabited by a man named Wetherley, who obtains a preca-
rious subsistence by showing a seal about the streets. We-
therley's wife some few days since left her home, and lived
with a shoemaker named William Heeley. On Sunday
night, the misguided woman changed her mind, and, meeting
casually with her husband, she listened to his promises of
forgiveness, and assurances of renewed comforts, and re-
turned home. The husband kept his word, and not a sylla-
ble of her error was addressed by him to her ; and at an
early hour on Monday morning, Wetherley quitted the house,
with his seal and barrow. William Heeley, upcn assuring
himself that he was deserted by his paramour, and that she
had returned to her natural protector, vowed vengeance on
her, and he was seen before light on Monday morning, try-
ing the temper of a carving knife. At ten 'o'clock the
neighbourhood was alarmed by piercing screams proceeding
from the residence of Wetherley ; and before the cause could
be discovered by breaking open the door, Mary Wetherley
rushed out, with her throat dreadfully cut, and the blood
gushing over her dress and upon the pavement around. The
poor creature could not cry for assistance, the blood choking
her utterance ; and, after running a few yards, she sunk
dead on the ground.

The murderer now appeared at the door, and it was evi-
dently his intention to follow his victim, and, if necessary,
finish the deed ; but the sight of some of the neighbours
caused him hastily to close the door—not before he had
flourished the bloody knife, and with dreadful imprecations
vowed instant death to any person who dared to follow or ar-
rest him. The police now arrived, and, a forcible entrance
being obtained, they proceeded to search for the murderer,
whom they shortly after discovered lying upon the floor, with
.his head, except a small portion of flesh, severed from his
body. The place was all the forenoon perfectly inaccessible
from the dense crowds congregated upon and around the spot,
and multitudes were every minute arriving to obtain a glimpse
of the scene of this tragic occurrence. The neighbourhood
is a low and mean one, through which there is no thorough-
fare ; and it is but a short distance from the spot where
Oxford lodged.
In the confusion which necessarily attends so horrible a
transaction as this double deed of blood, it is very difficult to
ascertain the precise facts of the case; and the different ac-
counts received consequently disagree in some of the details.
The brother of the unfortunate woman who has fallen a victim
to the unhallowed passion of her paramour, states that We-
therley was a fishmonger; that formerly he was doing very
well in that business, and was possessed of money ; but that,
through his intemperate habits, he had latterly been very
much reduced in his circumstances, and had hawked fish
about the streets in the neighbourhood of Greenwich, where
he and his wife had lived for the last three years. About two
years ago, Heeley, who is a shoemaker, came up from the
west of England, and took lodgings with Wetherley and his
wife at Greenwich, where he attended to his business, with-
out any thing occurring to disturb the harmony of the family
beyond the occassional drunkenness of the husband. He had
not, however, lived long with them before he became very
much attached to Mrs. Wetherley, and, in the language of
the brother of the deceased, " was so fond of her that he
doated upon the very ground on which she stood." His
attachment and attentions to the wife soon excited the

lealousy of Wetherley, and frequent quarrels among the
three were the consequence. They still, however, con-
tinued to_ live together; and although both Vtrether-

.
ley and his wife often attempted to induce Heeley
to get lodgings elsewhere--for the poor woman was
wearied with the constant dissentious to which his unfortu-
nate attachment gave rise—he still persisted in retaining his
ground, and would not be persuaded, by kind words or other-
wise, to quit the house. Finding that all their efforts to
eject him from the lodgings were useless, Wetherley and his
wife agreed that they would take lodgings in London un-
known to Heeley, and leave him in possession of the house
at Greenwich. This they had done about a fortnight ago, to
the great annoyance of the infatuated Heeley, who hnme-
diately resolved upon finding them out. On Saturday he
met the wife in the neighbourhood of the New Cut, Lam-
beth, and tried to make her divulge the place of their retreat.
This, however, she refused to do, and did all in her power to
induce him not to persist in a course which interfered with
the happiness of her husband and herself. He was bent
.upon revenge, and on Monday morning dogged the steps of
the husband home, by that means discovering their dwelling.
He then watched him (the husband) out with his barrow an%
seal, and thereupon proceeded to the house, when, finding
the wretched woman alone, he despatched her as above de-
scribed.
The passage of the house in which the Wetherleys resided
resembles the floor of a slaughter-house, deluged with blood,
and_ the window-frame on the ground floor bears the marks

of the blood-stained hand of the ill-fated woman, whose first
act, after she received the fatal wound, was to throw up the

window to alarm the neighbours.
Heeley, after he had killed the woman, deliberately stood
before the looking-glass, and cut his own throat from ear to
ear. He then sat down iu a chair opposite the glass, but was
seen by a pot-boy of a neighbouring public-house, almost im-
mediately to fall lifeless from the chair. The wound in his
own throat is one of the most desperate that could be inflicted
by a man's own hand.