The Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle. — 1865-08-26 (Stourbridge, West Midlands, England)

ANOTHER TRIPLE MURDER.  Another sad case of triple murder is reported in London. The scene of the crime was a narrow alley known as Skin Market-place, Southwark, and the perpetrator is a woman named Esther Lack, aged forty-one years, the wife of John Lack, night watchman in the service of Messrs. Pegg, extensive coal merchants carrying on business in the same neighbourhood.  It appears that the accused, with her husband, her son-in-law and his wife, together with three children —named respectively Christopher, aged nine: Eliza, aged live; and Esther, aged one year and eleven' months—residing at No. 10, Skin Market-alley; and, with the exception of the husband who went out to discharge his night duties, all retired to rest on Tuesday night as usual, the accused seeming in her customary health and spirits. At three o'clock on Wednesday morning the husband came home after being relieved from duty at the coal wharf, and then he found his wife and the three children comfortably in bed. He went out again, as was his practice, to call up several workmen and tradesmen in the neighbourhood, and after an absence of threequar:ers of an hour he returned, and again let himself into the house. On entering, his wife (the accused) called out to him, " Mate, is that you 1" on which he responded, "Yea, all right." The accused called out in reply, "I have done it. I have killed them at last." The husband rushed upstairs, and foundhis wife standing coolly near the mantel-shelf, and the body of the eldest child lying on the floor in a pool of blood, and the other two children on the bed, all three with their throats cut.  The husband immediately gave an alarm, and his son-in-law, went at once for a surgeon, who promptly attended and pronounced the three children to be dead. The husband afterwards called in the aid of a police constable, who at once entered the apartment, when the woman on seeing him voluntarily declared "I did it with a razor," and on searching the room the constable discovered a razor covered with blood on the mantel-shelf.  The wretched woman was immediately taken into custody, and conveyed to the station. On her being searched there were found upon the pri. son.-r, two other razors, a purse, five duplicates, a reel of cotton, two letters, and several religious tracts. The charge having been read over to her and after she had been duly cautioned, the prisoner made a statement that she had done the deed; that her husband was a very industrious man, who worked night and clay for very little money—not enough to keep the children, who wanted shoes to their feet; that she herself was about to go to the hospital to be treated for a bad leg, and that she had killed her children in order that they should net die of starvation. The truth of this allegation was denied by the prisoner's son-in-law, who declared that the prisoner never received less than ta per week from her husband, and that from other sources the family was in tolerably comfortable circumstances.  Another account says that the son-in-law, Gardner, on asking his mother what was the matter, and obtaining no satisfactory answer went downstairs, where he saw his father in the greatest agony of mind, but before he could reach him, the father ran out of the house. The son then retraced his steps upstairs, and when on the landing he saw his mother wiping a razor on her chemise with one hand while holding a candle with the other. He was terrified, which his mother observed, when she said, "Don't be frightened —no one will hurt you—don't be frightened." He went into the room where his bruthen and two sisters were put to bed, and the first thing he saw was Esther and kliza lying on the bed with their heads nearly out dr and deluged in blood. He then turned his head, and in a corner of the room he saw his little brother smothered in bloml, with his throat also cut. He came out to his mother and said, " Why did you do this?" but received no answer. He then Caine downstairs and called for assistance, and the tragedy was then revealed.