The Express. — 1866-12-27 (London, England)

DOUBLE MURDER AND SUICIDE.  Yesterday morning a shocking occurrence took place at Lowe • Edmonton. For some years past a coachsmith, named William Gudgeon, and his wife, Anne, a very quiet, hard-working woman, have occupied a sixroomed house opposite the Great Eastern Railway station at Lower Edmonton. They had five children, the eldest of them being a girl of 14 years of age. On Cl, the mother of the children complained to her husband of being unwell, and she went to bed at seven o'clock in the. evening. At 11 o'clock at night she got up and went downstairs and joined her husband and children. They remained together for an hour, and then the whole family retired to rest. The husband state that he and his wife slept in a bed in the front top room of the house, and that in • corner of the same room a bed was made up for three of the children. When the woman was going to bed she looked very " wild," and said to her husband, " The light of the candle stares in my eyes, put it out." Ho did so, and he then fell asleep. At that tune the youngest child, a baby aged six months, was lying asleep in the father's bed. At two o'clock in the morning, Selina, a little girl aged ten years, was awakened by a quantity of blood beiag " spurted " over her face. She states that when she opened her eyes she saw her mother kneeling upon the dead body of her little brother, Timothy, who had been lying asleep alongside her sister, Sarah Anne. The little boy' a throat was cut in a fearful wanner, and blood was gushing from the wound. The mother looked much excited, and she held an open razor covered with blood in her right hand. When she saw that she woke the girl Selina she leant over towards her, and caught hold of her. The girl screamed, and a fearful struggle then ensued. Selina, for the of tecting her throat, caught bold of the a clothes, and held them over it. She cried out, and then wriggled out of the bed and rushed down the stain, followed by Ler mother, who continued to hold the open rarer in her band. When the girl reached the bottom of the stairs she ran into the lower front room. Her mother rushed past her and ran to the fire-place. The girl felt in the dark and found a match-box lying on the table. She struck a light, and then saw her mother by the light of the match cutting her own throat. The light then went out, and she heard her mother fall upon the floor. The girl then ran upstairs, and went into her father's room, and with great difficulty succeeded in awakening him. By his side was lying the dead body of the baby, aged six months, his throat being also cut. The wretched woman was found lying near the fire-place in the parlour befor,inentioned, her head resting on the fender, and there was an open black-handled razor lying on her breast. There was a severe gash across her throat, and an iron pail partly filled with blood lay near her heaa. Dr. O'Brien, who was called in, said that the wound WAS self-inflicted, and that it must have caused almost instantaneous death ; and this app also to be the case with the two deceased chirdrea7dn. There seems to be every probability that if the girl Selina had not fortunately aweker ed when she did, she and the rest of the family would have been sacrificed. The deceased woman had been latterly very ill and under the care of a doctor. Some short time ago her brother-in-law died and left a widow and five children, and the fact that they were badly off and that the deceased could not do as much as she desired for them, it is said, preyed very much -'on her mind.  DEATH 04 THE Noire