Connecticut western news., 1878-05-16
THE ALLEGED MURDERER
BRIEF SKETCH OF HIS LIFE. IN JAIL
 AND ELsEWHEREl
Drags His Wife into the Street at Midnight by the Hair
 of her Head! Razor! Child On Her Knees Begging Him to Spare the Life
 of Her Mother!
AND THE VERY DEVIL IN
 CARNATE!

being in the jail at Pittsf1eld Ten Eyck has ! blood in hlm, but his wife at recent inter view stated positively that he had repeated. | ly told her this was fact, and was surpris- ! ed to hear that he now denied it, and says further that his mother now lives ''off in | York State somewhere" but she didn't know exactly where, and that he has a wife and two children now living in Westfeld, Mass, this wife (No. D being compelled to leave him on account ot his excessive cruelty.
 Ten Eyck now claims he has a sister llv- ing in Canaan, but that his mother is dead, . statement that appears in keeping with nearly everything else he says, and which has reflected somewhat upon his character for veracity. This claimed ''sister" is the wife of Mir. John Lepyon; but as this Isis ter's" mother is still alive and is living with her daughter here, the statement bears very fair evidence of error, which is not entirely unlike pretty much everything else he says; for enough of his ''error" has been dlscov- cred to satisfy most people that his whole life has been tissue of lies from the begin ming. Mrs. Ten Eyck, the mother of Mrs. Lepyon, inform. us positively that John Ten Eyck has never crossed her threshold and furthermore she has never seen him and dlG not know such a man was in exist ence until the murder in Sheffield.
 Ten Eyck married his present wife in Otis six years ago, and she says when sober was pretty good husband. but when he had been drinking was always ugly. Last September. she said, he came home late one night drunk, and seizing her by the hair of her head dragged her out of bed and out doors and entirely across the street, and when he was about to strike her she raised her hand and caught bis arm, and in so do- ing was severely cut by a razor he had in his hand. Her little girl, she said, jumped out of bed and followed them, and on her knees begged for her mothers life. Such cruelty she said she endured till it became intolerable. and she left him a short time before he was arrested for the murder of the Stillmans. Mrs. Ten Eyck says her husband has written her frequently from his prison cell, and his letters received of late have been full of gloomly forebodings; is % lonesome and feels as if he hadn't @ frien1 in the world. except God is very re- hgious indeed and said in one of his recent letters: "God and I are good friends"C) To these letters Mrs. Ten Eyck says she has during the past few weeks occasionally re- piled, as he begged of her so hard to write. She says she has no knowledge whatever of the crime for which he is charged. for she left him some time before, 0 statement un- doubtedly true; at least it is SO regarded and accepted by those who live near her and know her best.
 z. The natural, inborn iniqulty of John Ten Eyck appears to have made itself manifest aat an early period in his life, and Cropped out'' in all manner of crime. We are able to trace his career back to period of more than quarter of a century ago. In 1850 or 1851. twenty-seven or twentY-eight years ago. (our informant is not positive which of these years) Ten Eyck came to Peru in Massachusetts and took job chopping wood. He lived in a cabin with another negro, and one day when he saw our in fsrmant ride off horseback he crept into the barn. Our informant while riding about his farm happened to look toward the barn and saw his sheep running about the yard In an unusual manner. Putting spur to his horse be was soon at the barn, and dls- lvr iv,o at Ike oe barn and found Ten Eyck with a sheep doundering in a low deep manager, where he had got the animal to better secure and tie 1t for convenient transportation when the shades of night would enable him to do so unobserved. From this he is heard from in Chester, Blandford and other places in that region where he lived, or stayed. from time to time, and where be committed various crimes from petty thieving to forgery, re- siding some of the time in Springfield jai and considerable of the time in Lenoz jail. In 1858, Mir. Joseph Knight, who it now, and has been for some years past. ont of our good citizens of Lakeville, was keep CT of the jail in Lenox. Mir. Knight in forms us that when he began his duties a this jaiL he found Ten Eyck there as on, of the prisoners. under sentence of thre, years for forgery, having already served about six months of this term. After com pleting his three years and he Was released he was gone tut few months when he wal again escorted by an officer back to his olC home in the jail for a SIX months term, fo taking . horse and carriage from in iron of hotel in Pittsfeld, where he had gont on . visit, and driving to Washington, som, miles southeast of Pittsfeld, where he wa then living, and after arriving home turned the horse about and told the animal 'sto gt home," where 1t arrived sometime durins the night with the carriage pretty badly smashed. Mir. Knight says while Ten Eycl was In jail he was very orderly, but he wal regarded as very sly and ''foxy," and would steal from the other prisoners at every op portunity.
 Thus it is: this vile rascal, thief, forgel end unadultersted scamp generally has liv ed and committed his depredatlons upor humanity, and what is t0 be his end Is ht by some technical flaw in the evidence against him as the murderer of Mir. anC Mrs. Stillman, skififully sought and obtain cd by his counsel, who are working as il seems men never worked before, to cleal the hendish wretch, to be again let loose upon society," God forbid If he commit ted this dreadful murder, he should suffer it's penalty, aud no so-called ''sAade of a doubt" in the mind of 6 juror should be permitted to thrust such an outrage upon society as to give him it's benefit, and his freedom, for the great Jury, the whole peo. pie of this section, who have before them evidence as positive as circumstantisl evi, dence can possibly be, have declared John Ten Eyck GUILTY of the foul, brutal, Gendish murder of two of the most respect ed, esteemed and loved citizens of our re- zion and the blood of the victims cries for