Brighouse & Rastrick Gazette. — 1890-03-15 (Brighouse, West Yorkshire, England)

THE FINSBURY PARK MURDER.  HOW BARRETT CHEATED IHE GALLOWS.  The American mail despatches give particulars of the death of Richard Barrett, the Englishman who cut his throat in a cell in the New York Police headquarters. His case from the first was hopeless on account of the great loss of blood. The surgeons tried vainly to repair the loss to some extent by the transfusion of blood, but 13arrett was too far gone to be saved. He died apparently content with having cheated the gallows. That the prisoner was the Richard Barrett, or "soreeyed Dick," wanted at Scotland-yard for the murder of Edward Thomas Williams, in Cliftonterrace, Finsbury Park, London, is not doubted. A letter was received at the police headquarters from Scotland-yard on February 10th, asking for Barrett's arrest. It was written by the Assistant Commissioner B. Anderson, on information furnished by Inspector Peel, that Barrett was then in New York, and gave the locality up town where it is said he ought to be found. A full description of him, with a woodcut, by means of which Barrett was easily identified, accompanied the demand for his arrest. Detectives Crowley and M'Naught were charged with the duty of hunting Barrett up, They found him in the locality of 545, West Fiftyseventh-street, and working as a plasterer for Power Brothers, of 1,784, Broadway, making good ‘vages. He went there by the name of Richard Collins, and had been known also as John Murray and Richard Barrett. Ile drank hard at times. The detectives arrested him in an Eleventh-avenue saloon. On the way to headquarters the prisoner, who had said little or nothing when arrested, asked what it was for. The detectives told him it was for murder committed in London. " Oh," said the man ; " is that all ? ' At the police headquarters he was searched most carefully by the detectives, and a knife and some papers were taken from him. The orders of Inspector Byrnes on this point were exceedingly strict, and likewise in tee matter of watching the prisoner. In the headauagers cell central ()feet) door-men are  on iged to Milne Lilt r loUlidS every to minutes instead of every half-hour, as lathe rule cf the department. In one of dm 15-minute intervals Barrett cut his throat. The wound looks as if he had prodded many little holes with a sharp nail, and then with his fingers torn (.ut the walls between them, until it made one great jagged cut. The utter mystery Is %.tiat he did it with. There is absolutely nothing in the cell that could have been used. The closest search has failed to discover ally nail or ally implement with which he might have cut himself. 'I. he one thing he might have used, the buckle of his suspenders, is free from stain of blood. Seigeant Bird, who is in command of the office, cannot account for his suicide at all, lie will not believe that the man could have torn his throat with his finger nails. The thing seems fairly incredible. Yet there is his torn throat, and no way to account for it. The murder for which Barrett was wanted in Loudon was committed On January 19, 1889. That morning there Mil a disturbance in the house, and Williams, the murdered man, left his room te see what was the cause of it. He entered a halfway where he found two men. They were abusing an old woman, and when Williams remonstrated with them one of the men fired a pistol at him, the bullet taking effect in the abdomen. IVilliams staggered to the street, where he informed a pcliceman of the shooting. They returned to the house, and Williams identified a person named Charles Turner as having been with the man who had shot him. The man who really did the shooting had escaped, and this Man, it is said, was Barrett. Turner was arrested, and on the following morning Williams died from the result of his injuries at the North Central Hospital. In England Barrett was known under a number of &lases.