The Cannock Chase Examiner. — 1877-08-03 (Cannock, Staffordshire, England)

THE WOLVERHAMPTON MURDER.  The last sad scene in the eventful tragedy which has horrified Wolverhampton during the last month was enacted within the precincts of the county gaol at Stafford, on Tuesday morning. The whole of the particulars of the crime are so fresh in the minds of our readers that a detailed repetition of them is absolutely unnecessary. The root of the crime was perverted passion, jealousy having evidently had a powerful influence upon Rogers. The life of the unfortunate man had in some degree prepared him for the fearful deed, he having been unused to restraining his passions even from an early age. One of the characteristics of his boyhood was a delight in torturing dogs or cats, which evinced an unnatural enjoyment in seeing or causing pain. He used to go out with his father, when a youth, whitewashing, and he could with difficulty be restrained from indulging in his filching propensities, which at an early age brought him in contact with the police, and within the precints of that gaol where on Tuesday he met his fate. For five years he was confined in a reformatory. This no doubt interfered with his being brought up to any regular trade; as when he came out he did not seem to have done anything but whitewash, and act as a jobliag plasterer. So on after his marriage to his unfortunate wife at Blakenhall Church about two years ago, he commenced a vagabond life, into which his wife seems to have readily fallen. Tramping from town to town, sleeping in lodging houses when they could, or in barns and fields, or under haystacks when their funds ran short, it would have been more than Rogers had a right to expect, if his wife had kept untainted, but nothing has transpired to justify his allegations of frailty. When, however, they returned to Wolverhampton only a few days before the murder—he had conceived a bitter feeling of jealousy, which in the course of their wanderings had led him to attempt her life in a field. When in his native town he brooded over his murderous purpose, and told his relatives what he intended to do. He took his father's razor, decoyed his victim into the field in Dunstall lane, and after sleeping part of the night away, he attacked the woman, and, after a fearful struggle in which she fought "like a tiger" and "nearly bested him," he knocked her senseless with a piece of wood, and then, as he callously said to a fellow prisoner in the lockup, be "did it proper." The wild conduct of the prisoner before the Coroner, and at the magisterial enquiry, his horrible imprecations and -his fierce passions showed the unrestrained brutality of his nature. Even before the judge at Stafford this broke out, though the terrors of the gaol, his impending fate and the ministrations of the chaplain had calmed him. He heard the verdict of" Guilty" with impassive features, and when asked if he had anything to say why sentence of death should not be passed upon him, he said in a very matter-of-fact style, "I have nothing to say against that," and added that he had been driven to the committal of the awful deed, and that he was resigned to his fate. He heard the sentence of death without a word, and he left the dock with a firm step.