The Kenilworth Advertiser. — 1879-02-08 (Kenilworth, Warwickshire, England)

AWFUL MURDER AND SUICIDE IN  LONDON.  On Tuesday a man named John Cheale murdered his child, attempted to murder his wife, and then destroyed himself. The murderer and suicide had barely reached man's estate, the wife is in her nineteenth year, and the baby, murdered at its mother's breast, was but six months old. Of any motive for the crime only the barest is assigned—a fear of future want. The house in which the tragedy occurred is 39, White-street, Bethnal-green, a nearly new and welLmade thoroughfare leading out of Bethnal Green-road, and is in the occupation of a railway servant, named Porter. He let out the first floor to John Cheale, also a railway porter, and Cheale lived there with his wife and two children. For three weeks past Choate had been ant of work, having, it is said, lost his situation on the Great Eastern Railway through inattention and bad timekeeping. He had not appeared to work since, and had expressed his opinion that the family would come to want. His wife's mother, however, had taken her daughter and both the children to live with her during the past fortnight, so that Cheale might be able to "look round" again. Cheale, however, on Monday evening went to the mother's bouse at Tottenham, and insisted on the wife walking back home with him, but he promised that she , should return to her mother's before nine o'clock at night. The baby, a girl named Minnie, was taken with them, but the elder child, called George, eighteen months old, was, by the grandmother's ruttiest, left behind with her. Mr. Porter and his wife saw them at home, and no sound of quarrel or disagreement was heard during the night. Soon after eight o'clock on Tuesday morning, however, a scuffling noise in tie bedroom occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Cheale attracted the attention of Mr. and Mrs. Porter, and when it was presently repeated Mrs. Porter heard Mrs. Cheale exclaim, "You've done enough, John." Then Mrs. Porter ran upstairs and asked what was the matter, but received no reply. She went downstairs again and called to her husband, who, with a young man with them, proceeded to the bedroom door and listened. Mrs. Porter called "John, John, what are you doing ? " and threatened, if the door was not opened, to get a policeman to force it. No answer being returned he waited, and then in a minute or two heard a sound " like the splash of a lot of water falling on the ground." This was followed by a fall, and Porter at once dashed in the door with his foot. On the bed, which stood faciug the door, lay Mrs. Cheale, covered in blood, and with a wide gash in her throat. At her feet in a corner on the bed lay the baby, with its throat cut, its head nearly severed from its body; and on the floor, near the window, the body of John Cheale in a mass of blood, which flowed all round him. He was-raised, and was alive, but bleeding from a wound in the throat which nearly severed the windpipe. A table knife, sharppointed and thin in the blade, lay on the bed, and on the floor was a razor, both having evidently been used. Two police-constables—Cavill (574) and Edenborough (339 K)—who had been met near the house by somebody running for assistance, were quickly on the spot, and Dr. Burgess of Bethnalgreen-road, with his assistant, Dr. Noble, were called. Before Dr. Burgess arrived John Cheale had expired, anti the medical gentleman also pronounced the baby to be dead. Mrs. Cheale, however, he thought, might be saved, but he found her suffering from some fifteen or twenty wounds in all parts of her body, the most serious being a wound in the throat extending nearly from ear to ear, but not injuring, it was thought, the windpipe. That wound was sewn up, and the others having been dressed, Mrs. Cheale was left in bed until, late in the afternoon, she was sufficiently recovered to be removed to the London Hospital. Her condition, however, is most precarious, and as yet she has made no statement as to the affair. Whether her husband first attacked her with the knife and wounded her, causing the remark heard by Mrs. Potter, "You've done enough John," and then in the interval murdered the baby, or whether he out the child's throat firPt and subsequently attacked the mother in her sleep cannot be ascertained at present. It would seem more likely that the latter was the case, for Mrs. Cheale having somewhat recovered, managed to ask for her baby, as if she did not know it fate. It was then deemed wisest to keep the fate of the child from her; but later in the afternoon, when the bodies of her huaband and child had been removed in parish shells to the district mortuary, pending the inquest, she was told the fact, but seemed scarcely to comprehend it. An inquest was held on Wednesday, on the body of John Cheale, and his daughter Minnie, aged seven months. A verdict of "Murder and suicide while of unsound mind" was returned. The woman is progressing favourably, but is not out of danger. She states that when she saw her husband with a razor in his hand he said he could not bear to see her want.