Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1898-01-26
MURDER AND SUICIDE.
]. H. Matthews the Slayer Of his Wife
Children and Himself.

daily papers last Wednesday. Tht
press description satisfied every BODY
that it was the same family that resid
ed in this city few years ago, but L
obtain positive information a message
was sent to New York asking for the
facts. 1t was not long until a reply
was received stating that the unfortu-
nate family were the Matthews who
| formerly resided here.
| The tragedy has few parallels. MIR
and Mrs. Matthews were regarded al
nice people and made friends while re-
siding here. Hence the news was
quite shock.
The Matthews family came to this
city from New Mexico. At that time he
was engaged in the sheep business and
made great deal of money. A year
later he sold out and removed with his
family to New York City. engaged in
the mercantile business and recently
failed. This apparently led to the
murder and suicide. The best account
of the affair we have seen appeared in
the st. Louis Republic, which we pub
lish below. It would seem, from this
version, that Mrs. Matthews, herself,
was party to the crime. 1t was, at
least, cold blooded, inhuman butch
cry:
New York, Jan. 17.-Since NewYork
became city Its records have known
no crime approaching the tragedy en-
acted during the early hours this morn.
ing, when John Herman Matthews, a
grocer, of No. 426, Columbus Avenue,
hacked his wife and two children to
death in thir beds with Ratchet, and
then committed suicide.
So frightful are the details that when
Coroner's Physician O'Hanlon arrived
on the scene he tented before he had
finished the autopsy.
A strange part of the story is that
Mrs. Matthews was consenting party
to the crime, and that she and her bus
band had discussed the tragedy for the
last five years. They had canvassed
the methods of child murder and of
self destruction. In the leisure of their
family life, their social goings and com
ings, they had talked and planned and
weighed all the pros and cons of the
whole matter in conjugal fashion.
Mrs. Matthews sat up in bed and
watched the inhuman butchery OF her
little ones and then calmly permitted
her own death. The fact is explained
in a letter written by Mrs. Matthews.
Then the blood-crgzed husband faith
er put bullet through his own heart
and fell dead. Shortly after 8 O'Clock
this morning the man whose business
it is to start the fires In the basement
of the building In which Matthews kept
grocery became suplclous because the
store was not open. He went up to the
store and, seeing no evidence of life,
proceeded to the various rooms until
he reached the bedroom. There he
stumbled over the body of Matthews,
which was lying in pool of his own
blood, which flowed from a wound in
the chest just above the heart.
The room looked like a slaughter
house. On the bed near where Mat
thews' body lay was the body of his
wife, lying half propped up IN the pill
lows. The head and face had been al
most cut in two, but smile resting on
the upper part of her countenance
could be seen through clot of blood.
On the bed beside her lay the bloody
Ratchet with which she had been killed.
The pillow and bed clothing were sat
urated with the crimson fluid.
Diagonally across the room, beside
two windows. looking out upon a va
cant lot, was another bed, the covering
Of which was also blood stained. The
man rushed over and, turning down
the bed-clothing, was Mortified at the
scene that met his gaze. The little girl,
Hattie, was lying on her right side,
with her face toward her brother, who
was lying on his left side. Her skull
had been cleft nearly in twain and the
great cash made by the Ratchet had
split the little ones eye in two.
The little boy, Paul. had been killed
Al - oitAAi0A AA0uACL. OOSLQ0S HAVING
his skull cut nearly in two, the father,
in his mad frenzy, had hacked up the
bodies in fr1ghtful manner.
Bloody tracks on the floor showed
where Matthews, after wading in the
blood of the victims. proceeded to put
an end to his own existence. All the ev-
ldence goes to show that Mrs. Matthews
sat up in bed and watched her husband
hack her boy and girl to death and then
smilingly stopped over and waited for
him to strike the blow that would end
her life also.
One of several letters found after the
discovery of the bodies gave clue to
the motive of the crime. 1t was writ
ten by Mrs. Matthews to her cousin,
John Langfield, and the substance of
it is this:
II have been sick, and so has Herr
man. We decided upon this last night
Herman was determined to die. I
would not stay behind. so we are going
to die together. am going with him,
and we are going to take our darlings
with US, too. Please put my girl in a
white casket. Use your own Judgment
about the boy. Please bury us at High
land, n. Y. Herman has been a good
husband to me, but we have lost a lot
0f rr,onav -