MURDER AND SUICIDE

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2551, 12 June 1882, Page 3

MURDER AND SUICIDE

AT OXFORD.

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I FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT. ]

OXFORD, June 12.

This morning, at about 8 15, soon after the gang of platelayers of the Oxford branch had commenced work, and whilst two men, named Packnetz and Horne, were placing a sleeper on the trolly, and another of the gang named John Greenfield, who was standing behind with an adze in his hand, suddenly lifted the adze, and said to John Horne, who was helping ti lotd the trolly, “You b , I will do for you,” and struck him with the adze behind the ear, the blade of the adze running across the neck, and penetrating it to a depth of 2Jin with the corner, and half severing the head from the body. The foreman of the gang, Packnetz, said, “ John, what are you doing man,” whereupon Hornejj rushed upon the ganger, and said, “ You b , I will do for you, too." Packnetz ran away, and the murderer followed him for a considerable distance, when Packnetz suddenly returned upon him, and seized him, and in doing so, received a blow which the murderer aimed at him on the side of the head, but fortunately only with the handle of the adze. Packnetz then seized the adze, and wrenched it from him. The murderer then ran away across the field on the opposite side of the main road, and was afterwards found by Sergeant Scott laid down in a furrow where there was only a small quantity of water. Ho was stretched at full length in the furrow with his face in the water. When turned over ho was found to be quite dead, Mr John Horne has lived a long time in Oxford, and during the greater part of the time has been employed on the railway. He has a wife and a family of seven children Ho has been a steady and careful man, and has acquired some property. Greenfield has not been long in the district, and leaves a wife and four children, the youngest of which is about six weeks old. From the position of the cut it must have been given whilst Horne was stooping at the trolly, with his back towards the murderer, the blow being given over the left shoulder, the whole width of the adze, which is an ordinary carpenter’s one, penetrating the full width, aud almost severed the head from the body. Sergeant Scott was quickly on the spot, and both the bodies wore laid at the Oxford Hotel on beds side by side by half-past ten o’clock. The murder took place near Starvation Hill.