ATTEMPTED MURDER AND SUICIDE AT FITZROY.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2350, 14 October 1881, Page 3

ATTEMPTED MURDER AND SUICIDE AT FITZROY.

Some of the residents of Eitzroy in the vicinity of Napier street and Victoria parade were greatly horrified between half-past nine and ten o’clock yesterday morning at seeing a woman running in the streets with her head covered with blood. On inquiry being made it was elicited that a terrible tragedy bad been enacted in a house situate in Oadzow terrace, Napier street, and that the would-be murderer, after his victim had escaped from him, bad deliberately out his throat with a razor. The parties concerned in this dreadful affair are man and wife, named Market and Laieta Olotta. They are Spaniards by birth, and have only been in this colony since 1878, having been brought out by Mrs Clotta’s brothers, the Messrs Parer Bros., the wellknown restaurant keepers of Bourke street east. The man was employed as cook at the restaurant, and his employers state that he was a sober, steady, hard working man, whilst his wife was also an industrious, steady woman, and did all the washing for the restaurant. About four or five days ago it was noticed that Clotta did not appear in bis usual health, and thinking he required rest and a change, the Messrs Parer Bros, arranged for him and his wife to go to their farm at Box hill for a week or two. From the particulars that can be gathered of this unfortunate affair, it seems that no quarrel of any kind had taken place between Mr and Mrs Clotta, and that after breakfast yesterday morning they were in the dining room getting their things ready for the journey, when it is surmised that in a moment of temporary insanity Olotta struck his wife down by hitting her on the head with a tomahawk. The servant, a girl named Emily Hickey—who has been in their employ over two years—was in the kitchen, when, hearing her mistress scream, she rushed into the dining room, and her mistress called out, "Emily, save me.” At that time Olotta had his wife in a corner, and was beating her about the bead with a tomahawk. The girl very courageously caught hold of her master’s arm and pulled him away, when he turned upon her and dealt her a violent blow in the back with the butt end of the tomahawk. A lad about sixteen years of age, a nephew of Olotta, who was in the house, attempted to interfere, when a blow was aimed at him, which he elnded, and, getting out of the house, ran down to the Messrs Parer Brothers and informed them of what was going on. Mrs Olotta and the servant also ran out of the house and took refuge in a neighbor’s. Mr Thomas Serial], surgeon, of Napier street, was sent for, and he at once advised Mrs Olotta’s removal to the Melbourne Hospital, but she refused to go, and some time elapsed, during which she lost a quantity of blood, before she was conveyed to that institution. The news of the attempted murder spread very rapidly, and Constable Phelan was quickly on the spot. On going into the bouee to look after Olotta he was discovered in one of the upstairs rooms with bis throat cut. A cab was procured, and the wounded man was taken to the Melbourne Hospital. Both the sufferers wore attended to by Dr. Backhouse, and we learn that the man’s throat, although cut almost from ear to oar, is not necessarily a fatal wound, and that the windpipe was not injured. The woman has in all eight different cuts on her head,, three of them being rather serious scalp wounds, one being an inch and a half in length along the side of the head and another a long lacerated wound on the back of the head, from which a small piece of bone was removed. Neither of the parties are in any immediate danger, and it is thought they will, with care, eventually recover. They have been married about fourteen years, and have one son, now twelve years of age, and it is stated that they have lived happily together. No cause whatever can bo assigned for Clotta committing such a rash aot, except the supposition that he was suddenly seized with a fit of temporary insanity.—" Argus,” August 20th.