Holmes County Republican. [volume] (Millersburg, Holmes County, Ohio) 1856-1865, 1862-01-30
Murder and Suicide.

The sellers of the whisky-fend hsye
much to answer for. The Utica Herald
records a murder and suicide of the most
revolving character in that city, in which
liquor was the moving cause.
James Dunn, an Irishman aged forty
years, a carriage trimmer by trade, and
very dissipated, got excited with whisky,
came home, and then brutally cut ths
throat of his wife and his own. The fam
lily occupied three rooms in the lower part
OF sort of lodging house, and John
Connolly the upper part. One of the apart
meHts of Dunn was small bedroom, in
which were two beds. The Herald saws:
In this small room where light can
hardly penetrate in the brightest day, the
murder and suicide was done, so silently
that its discovery soon was By mere acci-
dent. A daughter of Mr.. Connolly was
coming down the stairs with pail Of slops
TO empty in the street, and in passing a
narrow window in the wall of the little
bedroom, saw Dunn upon his knees, over
the PROSTATE body of his wife, cutting
and slashipg her with razor. The girl
screamed with alright, dropped the pail,
and ran up stairs to tell the horrible tale
to her father. Dunn's little daughter, on
ly eight years old, was in Conolly's room
st the time. While Conolly ran for help
this little child went crying down to the
room where her parents were. In passing
the window in the wall she saw her father,
in a sitting posture, his back against the
bedroom door; saw him with the razor in
his hand; saw him draw it twice across his
throat. Thus the murder and the suicide
were both witnessed, and by different spec
tators. The child ran round to the bed
room door and tried with all her feeble force
10 open 1t, but the body of her father
against it was too much for her strength,
and it was not until Connolly returned with
help that the door could be opened. When
that help reached the spot, the murderer
and suicide was still alive, making horri-
bic gurgling noise through his gaping
throat.
The Coroner was summoned, and the
human slaughter house was entered. Cor
oner Van Ness, man of unusual nerve,
was appalled, at the sickening sight. The
woman lay at full length upon the floor be-
'ore the bed, in pool of blood, the right
side of her neck and head covered with
CHASTITY wounds, gashes from the razor
across her face from the forehead to the
hin, some of her teeth broken of, her fea-
ures distorted as if she had died in terrible
ear and pain. Gloves were on her hands,
md she was otherwise attired as if, before
he was struck, she had intended to 90 into
he street. Fhe murderer was leaning.
against the door, his throat cut across and
lcross again, by the bloody razor be held in
lis hand. Every thing was in the widest
bed clothes, some articles of wear
ng apparel, and straw from the beds strewn
'ver the floor and soaking up the blood.
The theory of the murder is that Dunn
anne home drunk about five O'Clock, and
ound his wife preparing to go out because
here was no wood in the house with which
o make fire; that bis brutality commenc-
d and be struck her with Ratchet or an
xe (which cannot, however, be found}'
vice or three times on her neck and chin,
nishing the bloody work with razor
Gbich be has long kept in the bed. This
pinion is strengthened by the fact that no
utcry was heard; that the woman was
tuned by the first blow from the hatchet.
Whether insanity, or sudden romorse, or
ear of consequences of his deed, prompted
be murderer to destroy himself, is sub
'ct for conjecture. s-g
Only couple more victims of the. ."rum
end" Two little children, girl ofeiget,
nd boy of nine years are orphaned, and
hiskey remains "steady and unchanged"