Stockton Herald, South Durham and Cleveland Advertiser. — 1887-12-24 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

MURDERS AND SUICIDES.  At Wicklow Assizes on Friday week an elderly man named Dennis Flanagan was sentenced to death for the murder of his wife at Stradbally, Queen's County, last July. His two children gave evidence, and it appeared he stabbed deceased three times. An umbrella mender, named James Waddell, who was locked-up in the police cell at Glasgow on a charge of drunkenness, hanged himself on Friday week. At Wednesfield, near Wolverhampton. last Saturday, a publican named Robt. Esp got out of bed in a very excited state, and, after alarming his wife by threatening to " blow her Leah out," shot himself in the temple with a loaded revolver, and fell dead on the bed-room floor. It is supposed he was suffering from detirsum tremens, the result of excessive drinking. Jonathan Wilson (66), of Wheatbottom, Crook, was found lying dead on his bedroom floor on Monday morning with a cord round his neck, and tied to the bedstead. He went to bed on the previous night in his usual state of mind. On Sunday Mary Ann Wallace, a married woman, residing at St. John's Chapel, Weardale, died of injuries inflicted by herself on the 23rd ult. On that date she was on a visit to an aunt, and was found in a field by a boy with her throat cut. At the Old Bailey on Tuesday the jury found Daniel Dohesty, an American, guilty of manslaughter by shooting George Graham, under circumstances already reported. Mr Jastice Stephen in passing sentence said there was no doubt the prisoner was angry and that he Wit; aggravated by the deceased telling him he ought to pay his gambling debts. The jury, however, would have been perfectly justified in convicting him of wilful murder, and if they had done so he would have been hanged. Prisoner would be kept in penal servitude for life. An inquest on Major John Francis Green, of the Bth Dragoon Guards, who shot himself at Clarenden Hotel. Leamington, was opened at the Muni-1 eipalHall,Leamington, on Wednesday. Evidence was given that deceased went on a visit to Leamington and stayed at the Clarendon. where on Monday a lady paid him a visit; and that shortly afterwards she raised an alarm, when he was found on the floor of the sitting-room surrounded with smoke.—Ann Sophia Rayner, , widow, of Maidenhead, said she was engaged to deceased, and hearing that he had broken his engagement, and made an engagement with someone else, she went to Leamington, and found him very unhappy. He threatened to kill himself, and, leaving, the room for a moment, she immediately afterwards heard a report. She rushed into the room. Here witness fainted in Court.' Resuming, she said she found the Major lying in a pool of blood, with a gun beside him. He had mitten from Scotland saying that "he had looked lovingly at his gun."—Dr. Whiteley stated that deceased said, "Kill me, doctor, kill me." When asked if he fired two barrels, he replied that he had only fired one. He repeatedly appealed to witness to end his misery. The deceased was conscious for some hours before death. He stated that he shot himself while in a frenzy.—A verdict of "Suicide whilst suffering from temporary insanity" was returned.