MURDER OF A FAMILY.

Patea Mail, Volume IX, Issue 1093, 1 October 1883, Page 2

MURDER OF A FAMILY.

A shocking murder took place at Walthamstow last month. A man named Gouldstone, a blacksmith by trade, drowned three of his children, and so wounded the other two (twins, seven days old) that one died and the other cannot lire. His wife having been confined of twins, had a woman in the house to nurse her. On the evening of the murder Gouldstone returned home rather earlier than usual, and he seemed in a very bad mood, and told the nurse to go out of the boose while he had a chat with his wife concerning the money that was to be paid to the doctor. The woman went out of the. house, but was surprised a short time afterwards at seeing the cistern running over. On going to it she was horrified to discover the dead bodies of J the three children in it. At the same moment she heard a screaming in the room where Mrs Gouldstone was in bed. She knocked at the door, but being unable to gain an entrance, she got assistance, and the door was burst open. Then it was found that the enraged father, after drowning his three eldest children, had struck the twin babes at their mother’s breast with a hammer. The police were at once sent for, and the man was taken into custody. When the nurse asked the prisoner what he was doing he said, “ Never mind. lam happy now, and she is a single woman.”