The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1882-03-16
THE VERMONT TRAGEDY.
Further Details of the Double
Murder at Waterbury.
THE TERRIBLE DEED OF A LUNATIC

WATERBURY,, VT, March 15.-Excitement
continues high over the horrible double MUIR
der that came to light last evening and which
had remained undiscovered for over forty-eight
hours after its preparation. Not since the
butchery of whole family of four persons in
Sheffield, Two years since, by lunatic, has SO
shocking crime been committed in the state.
although the poisoning of little Alice Meaker
here shortly afterwards stirred the community
to the very depths Further details OF the ter
rible tragedy here have been discovered tins
derer is Michael McCaffrin, an Irishman fifty
wears of age who lived with his family, con-
sisting of his wife and seven children and his
mother, in the locality known as Cotton
Brook. Some two years since McCatrle, was
sent to the Brattleboro Insane Asylum on ac-
count of mental alteration. A few months
since he was discharged, being apparently
cured. On the fatal Sunday, however, Nc
Caffrie gave signs of insanity, and at night his
frenzy became uncomfortable. The seven
children, the oldest of whom is fourteen years
of age, and the youngest scarcely year old,
were early sent to bed, but their slumbers be-
came soon disturbed by piercing shrieks from
below From all accounts it appears that the
maniac husband seized long knife and rushed
in upon his wife while she was retiring and
stabbed her several times, and finally cut her
throat and threw the body of the dying wife
down the cellarway. The demon then attack
ed his venerable mother who was very
feeble and over so years OF age. She was
soon despatched in the same shocking
manner and her corpse thrown down the cellar
way. All through that terrible night, and all
day Monday and Tuesday the murderer kept
watch over the cellar door, and kept the awful
secret locked within his own heart. The child
rem cried in vain for their mother. but the
crazed father maintained stolid indifference
to their piteous appeals. Finally, tuesday
night, the murderer took his seven children
and came to Waterbury village, where they
wandered about for some time, when the eldest
son casually told some one that he guessed
something was the matter at hone, as he had
heard an awful noise Sunday night and hadn't
at once notified, and taking McCaffrie into
custody proceeded to the house, on the out
skirts of the village Arriving there they found
the cellar door fastened, and breaking 1t open
they proceeded below, and in dark corner o
sickening sight met their eyes, as there, in a
heap lay the corpses of the murdered women
covered with blood. The murderer glared
with fiendish glee on the terrible scene, and
exhibited the blood-stained blade with which
he had killed his victims without the slightest
hesitancy. McCaffrie confessed to killing the
woman, but said with maniacal shrewdness
that the woman attacked him first, and that
he had fought in self-defence, and added: II
think have done right, and made 1t hot for
Them" The murderer is now in close confine-
ment.
McCaffrie has had bad spells of insanity since
he came from the asylum, and his wife's BROTH
er, Peter McCuen, has lived in the family ever
since to watch him and keep him quiet. Nc
Cuen has remained there all the time till last
Friday. He went to Greensboro to be gone a
week. McCaffrie killed his wife and mother
the Saturday night after that, and putting them
in the cellar. Tuesday, he took the children on
sled covered with loose boards. One OF the
twins, IL months old, got its foot through the
boards and lost its shoe and froze one foot He
went to the house of Daniel Hopkins. Select
man, who suspected something wrong from Nc
Caffrie's strange appearance and sentlnlm 10
his house and found the dead bodies. Mccall
rie has a brother that was insane. He wander
ed into the roads, taking one OF his chilnren
The child came back, but he was not heard OF
till the next year; he turned up in Minnesota.
Jimmy McCaffrie, IA years old, says he slept
up stairs; at o'clock Sunday morning ne
heard cries, went to his mothers room and saw
his father jamming his mother up and down
on the floor. His mother and grandmother
both cried "don't." He f1ourished butcher
knife, and ordered the boy to get into his moth
ers bed. There he lay till it was all over. His
mother spoke and babe him goodbye. his
father pounded her with chair till she was
still and then cut her throat with a butcher
knife Then he pounded the old lady and cut
her throat the same way, and dragged Them
both to the cellar door and tumbled them
down.
DIR. WaShDurn attenueu tne mcOaHrio III
quest. He says the wife was cut over the right
temple; skull not fractured; cut at corner of
right eye through the temporal bone to the
base Of the brain; upper maxillary boae on the
left cheek broken; cranial bone frac tured; left
eye protruded on to cheek; large cut on left
side of the neck. Death was caused by the
fractures from blows; nose smashed in. The
old lady had cut in the corner of the left eye,
reaching the brain; upper maxillary bone
fractured; cut behind the left ear to the brain
and the brain protuding; left temporal bone
fractured; both had bruises, more or less, all
over the body, and several cuts that were flesh
wounds, not sufficient to produce death. In
quest adjourned to Friday. The bedroom floor
and walls are all sprinkled with blood. Two
sticks of woad, covered with blood, and one
with reddish hairs and the other with gray
hairs were found near the bodies in the cellar.