The Shropshire Examiner and all round the Wrekin advertiser. — 1876-12-08 (Wenlock, Shropshire, England)

SHOCKING MURDER AND ATTEMPTED SUICIDE IN DERBI SHIRE.  Between three and four o'clock on T tuisday morning a Mall named George 011erenshaw, who resides in Back lane, Ashbourne, Derbyshire, murdered his wife by cutting her throat with a razor, and almost severing her head from her body whilst she lay asleep in bei. The alarm was given by a daughter of the murderer, who lived in the house, and Whom he also attempted to murder. She, however, escaped by jumping through the window. The murderer afterwards attempted to commit suicide by cutting his own throat. He had recently been a labourer in the employ of the late Mr. liarplee, of Ashbourne, but has lately been engaged in no occupation. He went to bed on the previous night with his wife about nine o'clock, after, as usual, locking the front door and taking the key with him upstairs, he having entertained feeling of jealousy with regard in the old woman. On Tuesday moming, about three o'clock, loud screams of murder were heard in the house, and the daughter, who slept in an adjoining room, went to see what was the matter. On going to her parents' bedroom, she saw by the light oi a lamp which 011erenehsw always kept burning in his bedroom, her father kneeling upon the body of her mother (who was lying on the floor), and in the act of cutting her throat. The daughter rdshed downstairs, and jumped through a window, Her father followed her downstairs, and at the BeMB time a man named Edwin Goodwin, a neightnur, came up to the window through which the women had escaped, and saw 011erenshaw covered with blood, holding the razor in his hand. °Berem shaw asked who had gone through the window, and Goodwin then managed to get into the house. 011erenshaw ran upstairs, and by the time Goodwin got to him he had out his own throat. He asked Goodwin to stand out of the way whilst he went into his daughter's room to quiet her child, but Goodwin pushed 011erenshaw into the bedroom in which was lying the murdered woman, and locked the door. On opening the door again, when assistance had arrived, a dreadful picture presented itself, the wife lying on the floor, in a pool of blood, quite dead, the husband lying at her feet Weeding profusely from a wound in the throat he had himself inflicted. Dr. Goodwin, of Aelibourne, was soon in attendance, and pronounced life to be quite extinct in the case of the old woman. The wound in her husband's throat was stitched up, but he was at noon considered to be in a very prec,ariou,i condition. There seems to be little doubt but that the murderer was the victim of insanity, for since the death of his former master, Mr. Marples, he hse been a patient at Mickleover Asylum, and was at the time of the tragedy an outpatient of the Derby Infirmary, which he had visited on Monday. He had hitherto borne a very good character, and no traces of insanity were obser,ble until after the death of Mr. Marples. It seems that fears were entertained of 011erenshaw, for his razors were always watched. and on Monday, when he visited Derby, it was found that the weapon was gone. 011erenshaw is in charge of thepolice.