The Sun. — 1861-05-17 (London, England)

THE DOUBLE MURDER AND SUICIDE NEAR NEWCASTLE.  The coroner's inquest on this painful affair has been held at Eighton Banks. The evidence adduced did little more than confirm the account already given of the murder and suicide. Thomas Stoker, the husband of the murderess, said he was a pitman, and the two murdered children, his daughters, were aged respectively three years and six months. He went to Newcastle on Saturday afternoon, leaving his wife and four children at home. On his return home he found that two of them, Ann and Jane, were locked out of the house by her mother, who had locked herself in with the two children, Mary and Margaret, alluded to above. He obtained an entrance to the house, and, he continued, "I saw all three lying alongside each other in bed with their throats cut. I did not stay, but immediately asked the neighbours to go in, but they were afraid to do so, as I said they were all dead. I then went back and took a calmer view, and then went for the doctor. When I went in a second time one of the neighbours came in. Mr Davis's assistant (Mr. Turbock) came back with me when I went for the doctor, and Mr. Davis came soon afterwards. They sewed my wife's throat up, and I saw a little motion in the fingers of the right hand. After a time she recovered sufficiently to be able to speak. I asked her what she had done such an act as this for ? She said it was done and could not be undone; I must make the best of it. There were neighbours in the house, and she could then speak distinctly. This was after the doctor left. At first when I spoke to her, I said, " Mary," and she looked me in the face and then raised her left hand over her head, and on putting my hand down in the direction she pointed, I found the razor. It was on the pillow, but under the sheet: It was all bloody. (Produced). I asked her towards morning what she did it for, and she said she was out of her head. She spoke quite sensibly_ We did not wish to torture her; but on questioning her further, she said she did not wish to leave her children behind her. She also said the children did not make any work. She asked me where I had the elder children. She had always behaved remarkably well to her children, and never did anything to cause me to suspect that she would do this.  -Mr:-Robert Davis, the surgeon who wrs vaned in, said, Mary Stoker, the mother, was lying in the same bed along with the dead children, with her throat cut. She was sensible, and only remarked that it was a bad job. I examined the wounds of the children. Mary had a deep cut across the front of the throat, about three inches in length, and extending through the windpipe. There have been two cuts upon the neck to complete the incision. The wound is jagged, and there is a mark of a previous cut upon the windpipe. The first attempt had not been successful. She had died from loss of blood in consequence of those cuts. She had a slight cut by the side of the nail of the fore finger on the left hand. There are no other marks upon it. The little one, Margaret, had two separate wounds upon the throat—one about an inch in length, and superficial, which had not done any great damage, having merely cut through the skin on the lower part of the neck ; the other was higher up, and was much deeper, and extended through the windpipe. Loss of blond in consequence of the two wounds was the cause of her death.  Thomas Stoker, the husband, was recalled, and said that since his wife had her last child she had been depressed in spirits, and this depression had increased during the time that he had been out of work. She had never been in a low way before the last baby was born. For the last six or eight weeks she imagined that she had no milk, but the child still sucked the breast. She had never threatened the children, but at low times she had sometimes said she did not care if she was dead.  The jury returned a verdict of wilful murder against Mary Stokes, and that she " died from the effects of a cut on the throat by her own hand when in a state of melancholia." ,