The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser. — 1842-01-21 (Liverpool, Merseyside, England)

BIRMINGHAM, JAN. 18.—A murder of an atrocious character has been perpetrated in Birmingham within the last week or ten days, which has created great excitement there. The unfortunate victim of this tragical occurrence was the wife of a man named Ezra Steapenhill, a house-painter, who lived in Heneage-street, and who enjoyed the reputation of being a steady, and even " serious" character, on which account, as well as the respectability of his connections, he had been appointed to the office of beadle of St. Matthew's Church, at Ashted, in the neighbourhood of which he re. sided. It appears, however, that Steapenhill had treated his wife (a young and interesting looking woman, to whom he. had been married only two years) with systematic unkindness and brutality, having, on more than one occasion, threatened to shoot her. This threat he put into execution on the night of Friday wed(' the 7th instant, but in st,ch a manner as to lead to the impression at the time that the death of his unfortunate wife was the result of accident. On the above evening, while engaged cleaning a gun, on a table at which his wife was working, the piece was discharged, and the contents lodged in the breast of the unhappy woman, who fell dead at his feet. The only person Present at the time of this dreadful occurrence was Steapenhill's apprentice, a lad about 14 years of age, who gave two different accounts of the transaction ; but no suspicion existed at the time that the unfortunate woman had come unfairly by her death. On the occurrence, however, becoming generally known, a variety of circumstances were brought to light which led to a different conclusion, and Steapenhill was taken into custody to await the coroner's inquest. The inquiry occupied altogether thirty-nine hours, and twenty-four witnesses were examined. In the course of the inquiry the confidence of the prisoner seemed to have forsaken him. He became painfully depressed, and generally sat with his face buried in his hands, with his elbows leaning on the table, evincing but little consciousness of what was going forward. He was respectably dressed in black, with black kid gloves, and generally kept his face hid iu his pocket handkerchief. The evidence of the surgeon was very unfavourable to the prisoner's account of the affair. The prisoner said he was cleaning a gun, which lay on a round table, by the side of which the deceased sat sewing. The discharge entered her eaest, making a wound of an inch and a half in diameter, internally wounding and lodging a splinter of bone in the coats of the heart, and fracturing the ,third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth ribs. Dr. Daemt, surgeon of the Sixth Enniskillen Dragoons, said it was a literal impossibility for such a wound and its consequences to be produced by a gun if held in the position described by, the prisoner 'a apprentice, when that person was cleaning the gun. The supposition therefore is, that the prisoner must have altered its position for some reason. The coroner summed up at great length, and the jury, at half-past nine o'clock, returned a verdict of " Wilful murder against Ezra Steapenhill." The prisoner, on hearing the sentence, seemed greatly distressed, and covered his face with his hands.