WIFE MURDER IN MELBOURNE.

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1342, 16 November 1872, Page 2

WIFE MURDER IN MELBOURNE.

A charge of murder was preferred at the City Court against Richard Cooper, a sugar-sorter employed at the Melbourne and Hobson's Bay Railway sheds, and living in a lane at the back of a chemist's , shop in Lonsdale street, near Swanston street. The version given by a girl of 16,; ■ Mary O'Shanassy, a daughter of the deceased, and stepdaughter of the prisoner, is that the pair had been drinking during the afternoon, and that in the evening the prisoner asked the deceased for some money with which to bny beer. She . / gave him half-a-crown, and he went out. ': At about a quarter-past midnight he returned, sober. The deceased, who was lying- on a couch in the front room, asked him for some of the change out of the half-crown, but he only used bad language to her. She went up stairs ; Iflf followed her, and gave her a kick in thT stomach with his bootedioot. The woman was about seven months gone in preg- .'" nancy, and she was seen to be bleeding immediately after. she was kicked. She said, "It is nothing," and went outside and lay on the ground in a very exhausted state, till some neighbors came with a cab and removed her to the hospital, the prisoner accompanying them. The cab " was covered with blood. The girl said that the woman gave Cooper no provocation, aud that he was sober. They . had not quarrelled in any particular manner before that, though he had on one or two occasions "given her a couple of black eyes." ' The deceased was about 32 ; ; years of age. At the hospital the prisoner remarked to the constable that he did it, and would probably swing for it. There were large blood stains on the floor of : ! the house, near the door at the foot of the stairs, noticeable on Monday. Th§* jury found the prisoner guilty pf m.an» slaughter, and he was committed for trial. :.-'■ : :' " '- V