A frightful case of murder and suicide of the utmost character occurred at Bitton on Thursday morning last and which it is at present impossible to account for on any other grounds but those of insanity.
It appears that there were two single persons of the name Cook, brother and sister Samuel and Edith, living near the old school room at Bitton and in rather a mean hut, which had been their residence for years. Samuel Cook, the murderer, who was about 40 years of age, had originally been a working collier but having, by penurious habits and hard industry, became possessed of some money. He invested it in houses, on a portion of the rent of which he maintained him self in every miserable way, his sister Edith, whose age was about 37, living with him and supporting herself on the profits of some potato ground, the produce of which she was in the habit of selling.
Cook bore a very good character as an honest and peaceable man and he and his sister lived together for the most part on good terms, though they had once or twice been known to have had a trifling difference as to the proportion of domestic expense to he born by each.
On Thursday morning, however, the Milkman, who was in the habit of serving them, called, which was a little later than usual. Passing by the garden he saw Edith Cook lying in one of the farrows with her throat dreadfully cut and he immediately called out a person named Peacock who keeps a Beer House close by who joined him and both having perceived that the woman was quite dead, proceeded to the house when a still more horrifying spectacle met their view.
The man Cook with his throat already cut had a bloody razor in his hand and was in the act of inflicting a second wound on himself. He presented a most hideous spectacle, the blood flowing from the gash all over his clothes and hands. On seeing the men he said, “I have killed her”, meaning his sister, “and now I kill myself.”. The blood flowing down his throat seemed to smother further attempts of articulation and the wretched man soon afterwards expired.
The woman, it is supposed, ran out of the house for assistance but fell to the ground from loss of blood. There she was found dead. Nothing whatever was disturbed in the house, and money which was received on the previous evening for rent by the murderer was untouched. The persons who discovered them and who are men of good character were severely examined but nothing of the least suspicious nature was elicited by the investigation.
For two or three days previous to this tragic occurrence a certain degree of strangeness was noticed in Cook’s manner by some of his neighbours but nothing to warrant any apprehension.
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