The Weekly Gazette for Middlesbrough, Stockton, Hartlepool and Cleveland District. — 1880-11-20 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

TERRIBLE TRAGEDY AT HULL.  MURDER AND SUICIDE BY A  POLICEMAN. On Wednesday afternoon, about half-put four o'clock, a most terrible tragedy was reported at toe Central Police Station, Par. liament-street, Hull. One of the police. officers (Police-Constable Plant. 89) ought to have paraded at 12-30, being the usual Wednesday pay parade, but he did not make his appearance, and Sergeant Crossland was requested by one of his superior officers to ascertain the cause of Plant's non-appearance at parade, as during the twenty years he had been in the force he had been tolerably regular in his attendance at parade and other duties. Crossland reports that he went down to Plant's residence, No 5, Grosvenor-terrace, Grosvenor-wtreet, about half-past three o'clock in the afternoon, little imagining the terrible nature of the tragedy which accounted for the non-appearance of Plant on parade. Crossland took with him Pohoe-constable Mawhirmie, and when they arrived in Grosvenor-terrace they found that the front door of Plant's residence was fast, although the front room window abutters were open. Crossland made enquiries of some of the neighbours as to whether Plant or his wife had been seen during the day. Some of them had seen the officer during the forenoon, and others said they had heard both their voices as though they were quarrelling. The sergeant was informed that Mrs Plant , had an aunt residing at No. 23 in the same terrace, a Mrs Elizabeth Barmfortli, a widow. Crossland went to No. 23, and asked Mrs Barmforth whether she had seen anything of the officer or his wife, but she said she had not. She, however, offered to get into the house if she could, and accompanied the offioers to No. 5. She tried the door, but could not get in. She next tried the front window, which she opened, and, getting in that way, unlocked the door and let the two policemen in. Sergeant Crossland at once went into the kitchen, and there he was horrified to find Mrs Plant lying on a sofa with her head as nearly as possible severed from her body. On. the floor there lay a bread knife, the handle and blade of ' which were covered with blood. There was but little blood upon the floor, the deceased woman's head being thrown hack against the back of the conch, and the blood had been caught up by the cushion of the couch, which was so saturated that it had oozed through on to the floor beneath. The sergeant and the constable then went upstairs, and then the latter noticed his late ' comrade suspended by a piece of line to the bannister at the head of the attic stairs. The body was at once cut down, life having been apparently extinct for several hours. As a matter of form Dr. Thompson, the police surgeon, was fetched, and examined both bodies. He stated that life had been extinct for some hours. He also stated that the wound in the woman's throat would result in instantaneous death, as all was severed except the vertebrate column and the muscles at the back of the ' neck. Several of the neighbours have made statements to the police, from which there can be no doubt that the tragedy occurred between ten and eleven o'clock in the fore' noon. One of them, living next • door, states that about ten o'clock on Wednesday morning she heard Plant go into the yard, and at the time he was evidently quarrelling with his wife, but she does ' not know what he said, and took but little I, notice of it, for, as she states, quarrelling was • a daily occurrence, on account of the waman's drunken habits. It is supposed ' that Plant on coming downstairs had, unseen by his wife, possessed himself of the bread knife, forced her on to the couch, and then cut her throat in the shocking manner described. In the house the police found a sheet 0 note-paper smeared with blood, and on it -in a firm hand Plant had written, "Telegraph to my daughter at the address on, the envelope, Mrs W. R. Medd." An envelope also fouud near the sheet of paper bore the address, "36, Eton-street, Askewroad, Gateshead-on-Tyne." . . . .  Mr Elliott, chief c-onstable of Gateshead, received a telegram from the chief constable of Hull desiring him to break the news to Mrs Medd, tbe daughter ef the man, whoresides at the address given on the envelope. The painful task was performed as gently as porible by Mr Elliott, and, as might be expected, tbe intelligence was received with pro found grief. The murdered woman is the step-mother of Mrs Medd.