The Weekly Gazette for Middlesbrough, Stockton, Hartlepool and Cleveland District. — 1880-08-21 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

TRAGEDY NEAR BISHOP AUCKLAND.  MURDER AND ATTEMPTED SUICIDE. A terrible tragedy was enacted on Wednesday at Evenwood, a mining village about six miles from Bishop Auckland. The murderer is a young man named William Brownless, 22 years of age, a shoemaker, and a man of dissolute habits, and his victim a woman named Elizabeth Holmes, 25 years of age. The father and mother of the girl formerly kept the Cross Keys Inn at South Church, and afterwards lived at Canney Hill, near Bishop Auckland. The mother, who is now a widow, at present lives in Broughamplace, Bishop Auckland. The victim, who is very stout and of short stature, was a farm servant with Mr Ralph Vart, of Buck Heads, Evenwood, and recently has been working daily in the fields. She was living with her sister, and since she came there she had wade the acquaintance of Brownless, who paid his addresses to her, but she gave him no encouragement. She was relieved of hia importunities for a short lime owing to his leaving tbe neighbourhood for Lunedale, Veer° he was employed in hay making. Brownless raturned to Evenwood on Saturday, and on Monday went to Mill's house to see Arias Holmes, when she told her sister that she would have nothing whatever to do with him. After staying for some time talking with her, the young woman mustered up courage teitell him that he need not pursue her any more, as she did not desire his attentions. He then went away, apparently in a surly or disappointed humour. On Wednesday morning the girl left the house about a quarter to eight o'clock, and proceeded across the fields to her work, taking her way by the footpath leading to Cockfield, carrying a hoe and satchel con. taming her dinner. Brownless, who had been working on the previous day for Mr Robert Shaw, of Butterknowle, shoemaker and clogger, left his own house about seven o'clock, having with him a shoemaker's knife. He seems to have gone in the same direction as Miss Holmes, and to have waited for her about three hundred yards from Mr Vart's house, where there were marks of a desperate struggle having taken place. The grass was very much trampled, and the ground cut up. The shawl of the poor girl was found in one place, the hoe in another, and her hat in a third. Some blood was also observable on the grass, and about seven yards further there was mere. Still farther, on there was a very large pool of blood near to where the bodies of the girl and her destroyer were found. Strange to say, there were women at work in a field close by, but they state that they heard nothing to alarm them. About half-past nine o'clock, however, a young man named William Teesdale, who had been seeking work at St. Helen's Colliery, was returning to Cockfield, and on passing through the field he came upon the bodies, which were lying Eide by side face downwards in a pool of blood. He turned the man and spoke, but he made no reply. His eyes were closed at the time, and when he spoke he opened them slightly. Teesdale immediately alarmed the women at work in the adjoining field, and they all came to the place. Miss Holmes was quite dead, her throat having been cut from ear to ear. The windpipe was completely severed, and death must have been almost instantaneous. There were also two ugly gashes underneath the chin, leading to the inference that the man had not at first succeeded in his design. On examining Brownless he was found not to be dead, but there was a fearful wonted across the throat, as though he had drawn the knife twice across—that is, backwards and forwards. He had lost a large quantity of blood, and appeared almost in a comatose state. He was at once removed to the Drovers' Din, kept by Mr Maughan, and here his injuries were attended to, but the doctors are very dubious as to whether or not he will recover. There is great excitement in the district.