Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1862-03-01

The MURDER IN Lewiston, ME.-The
Lewiston Evening Journal gives the following
particulars of the horrible crime recently com
mtted in that town BY Patrick Griffin, in the
murder of his wife -
at appears that Griffin, who is miserable,
drunken fellow, nearly 40 years of age, has
frequently been in Jail tor drunkenness and
abuse OF his family, and that he had many
times threatened to kill his wife for causing,
AS he alleged, his arrest The neignbors say
he was frequently intoxicated and as frequent
ly abused his wife, who was a most industr-
Gus and respectable woman OF about SO years,
with seven children, five OF whom she had by
her first and second husbands Griffin being
the third, and two by the present one. Sun
day night Griffin was not intoxicated it
appears, but nevertheless he commenced abus
ing his wife and threatening her lie. About 10
O'Clock in the evening she was called by her
married daughter, who, with an infant, occu.
pied one OF the rooms in the second story of
the house, to bring to her some medicine for
the child. Having prepared it, Mrs Griffin,
acc )mpanied by her own child of one or two
years, went up stairs to do the errand.
In going to her daughters room, she had to
pasn through very small bed room at the
head OF the stairs. Griffin, it appears, followed
his wife, and overlook her in The small bed
ROOM where he clnched her and a strus gle
followed, in which he threw her over a chest
and in this posture cut her throat in most
horrible. manner, severing the windpipe and
all the blood vessels on the right side of the
throat, and reaching the spiua column. As a
razor case was atterward found in the house.
it is supposed that a razOr was the weapon
used. The noise OF the struggle alarmed the
children of the house, and they fed some of
them going 10 the house of officer Hamln and
aotitying him.
Officer Hamln hurried to the scene, but the
house was deserted. Borrowing a lantern of
some neighbour who had been aroused by the
cutlery, he went into the lower room, then up
stairs, where terrible scene met his eyes.
There, stretched across an old chest lay the
lieless body of the murdered wife and under
her head a pool of blood. On some old bed
clothes piled up in one corner Of the room was
| the child OF the woman, which had been
| thrown there in the struggle. Lifting the
woman's body he found that lie had already
departed. Under the body he also found a
broken candle which the woman had in her
hand when she went up stairs, and which had
been eXtnguished in the struggle
Officer Hamlin caused men to be distributed
| at all the points where the murderer would be
likely to attempt an escape, aud then sent for
officers Porcher and Tarbox to come to his as
sistance. These officers soon came, and in
passing the depot, man Suddenly showed his
head at the door of an empty box car standing
on one Of the side tracks, and at the same time
cried out, You needn't hunt any more; Pm
the man! Immediately jumping from the car
and coming toward the officers. They at once
arrested him, and lodged him safely in Auburn
Jail
Griffin was arraigned before Judge Smith OH
Monday He nlaad cruiltv =.
ted to Jail to await his trial at the April term
OF the supreme judicial court. Griffin remark
ed, on being returned to Jail, that he wished
he was as dead as his u lie was He has shown
the hardest of hearts, and does not appear to
regret the murderous act of Sunday night"