Widnes Examiner. — 1882-03-04 (Widnes, Cheshire, England)

SHOCKING TRAGEDY IN CHESHIRE.—A melancholy case been seen playing with the chairs on the Feu, though he of child murder and suicide was investigated on Wednesday i had not been seen to actually put them there. Mr. Hindle, evening by Mr. Henry Churton, coroner for Cheshire, at clerk, ruled that as the boy could not be made to understand Kelsall. Isabella Roberts, of the Royal Oak Inn, Kelsall, the case, it could not then be proceeded with, and the case on Tuesday, cut the throat of her female child, aged four was adjourned to see if any means could be found to corn- months, and then cut her own throat, both dying in a few munieate with the boy and arrange for him to be sent to a moments from the effects of the frightful gashes inflated mute institution, as it was not deemed safe for him to be at with a razor. Sirs. Roberts was a young woman of twentylarge. one, very well educated, and possessed of striking beauty. A very painful sensation was prodaced in Hereford, on She had been married but a little over three years, and the Sunday, during Divine service in the morning by the absence happiest relationship seems to have existed between her and of the Rev. Alfred Robinson (one or the minor canons of her husband. But since the birth of her second child she Hereford Cathedral) from his duties, and a report that a had become very despondent and subject to halucinations. gentlemanly person had been seen drowning in the Wye, She would not szckle the child sbe murdered more than a lust above Hereford. It transpired that a labourer, working month, declaring that if she did so the child would go mad, for a Mr. Meats, heard a cry for help, and on looking to- as she was. She requested her husband to place her in an Wards the river saw a man struggling in the water. He sank iasylum as she was tired of life. On Tuesday her husand rose again, and repeated his cries, and for a second i band, observing that she was depressed, requested her to seemed to be battling with the water, which, being very accompany him to Chester. She declined, and said she high at the time, overcame him, and he disappeared. Sub- would go upstairs. She did so and soon came down with sequently were found on the river side, just above where the her threat cut, exclaiming " Oh, dear !” He assisted her body was seen to rise, a coat, hat, a glove with a ring_ in it, ' upstairs, and laid her on the bed, where she died imand a memorandum of the duties he should have Performed mediatelY. On going into the other room, the bedroom, the that day. Later on the hat and coat were identified by some child was found lying dead on a table, where the mother had of the lay clerks of the cathedral. Mr. Robinson had not ; Placed it apparently for the purpose of cutting its throat. for some days been able to occupy his rooms in the cloisteta Its head was nearly severed from its body. Dr. Morton, who of the cathedral in consequence of a domestic servant hay- was called in, expressed the opinion that Mrs. Roberts was kg scarlet fever, and for the laet teles or three days he bad insane at the time, and the jury returned a verdict of suicide appeared smewhat strange. and murder while in a state of temporary insanity,