Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1870-02-18
FEARFUL FREE.LOVE MURDER.

fEARFUL FREE-LOvE uUBDER.
A Husband shoots His WiEe-6he Dies
I'm . Ro0m with Her HafamO0f!The
Murderer Arrested.
[From the New York World, February H.
The holocaust of murderous crime which has
been offered up by the thieves and ruf6ans OF
this city and Brooklyn for some time past, cul-
minated last night in another murder-another
murder in which free-love caused the taking OF
human beings life, anh oeingG .;N woman:
shot his wife, Margaret, dead, when she was in
q room with her paramour, man named Mich
The murder took place at $40, in the three
story frame house No. 5H West Forty-tirst
street, between Tenth and Eleventh avenues.
The murd,r red Woman and Powers have lived
eTe ss MAN and Wife s bed room
four months past. Sheridan. it appears, entered
their apartments about $50 last night, and
found her talking to Powers, who was in the
room. Some words ensued, and he drew a Smith
& Wesson revolver and fired two shots at her.
The first entered her chin, and passed out be-
hind her right ear; the second took effect in the
tight cheek, and, it Is supposed penetrated the
Gre room for a moment or two, and fell to the
floor q corpse. Powers seized the murderer and
the people of the house gave the alarm. Officer
Halliday, of the twentieth precinct, rushed in
and arrested Sheridan, who was taken to the
station house. Powers accompanied the officer
to the station house, and stated the fact that
Sheridan had murdered the woman in his pr,s-
ence, butAothing more.
Powers, on making this statement, was al
lowed to leave the statiOn-hOuse and go at lib
erty, though he was the only one present at the
and, therefore, the only person whose evidence
is vitality important i'm the case. The curious
may ask why was this thus? 1t is hard to an
swer. One fact, however, is known, that on
visiting the scene of the murder at l1:3O last
night, Powers was not by the side of the muir
dered woman: he had gone out; the people of
tlx.h xl,I -l.z..
or when he would come back, if he came back
at all.
The body of the murdered woman Law on the
Moor by the sewing machine, her feet toward
the chair. She appears to have been a hand
some woman in her day, OF medium height with
long black hair. Her appearance denoted pow
erty. She was dressed in a common black serge
dress. Her face and neck were spotted all
over with the powder from the pistol, showing
that the shots must have been fired close to her
head. The suppOsition is that she was sitting in
cna1r by the stove when shot, that she stag
gered to the chair by the sewing machine and
slipped from 1t to the ground-dead.
Sheridan, looking out through the bars of his
cell, told reporter Of the World last night the
story OF this tragedy. He was married sixteen
years ago to his wife, who was then fifteen wears
Of age. She was willed by her father a farm.
fOrty-two miles beyond Yonkers, worth $500
in trust for her children, after DEATH He was nv
trade a pickle manufacturer, and his brother
now carries on the trade in Twenty-ninth street.
They lived happily together until some time
UeioIe inc breaking out OF the war, when her
conduct became not what it ought to have
been. In 1861 he enlisted in the Seventy-ninth
New York Regiment, and went to the war.
He returned In 1854, and stopped on her
farm, working for her for three months. She
treated him badly; he left, and then re-enlisted
In the same regiment, serving until 1865.
He re NAMED with her two or three weeks. but
found his home was not what he would wish
lie went West and returned to this city three
weeks ago, putting up at his sisters, 2Oi First
avenue. He discovered that she was living
with Powers, in Forty-first street. He went
there about six times in the past three weeks,
and tried to persuade her to came back. He
found she had sold the farm and spent the
money, beggaring his children, whom she had
living with her. She threatened him. Last
night he went to james Healey's liquor store.
corner Of Twenty-sixth street and ninth ave,
nue.; he took supper there and left about eight
O'Clock. He borrowed the pistol last night to
protect himself. When he went into the room
she told him to clear out, and struck at him
with something she raised from the stove. He
shot her.