SHOCKING WIFE MURDER BY A MUSICIAN. TRAGEDY IN VICTORIA.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 371, 25 May 1889, Page 3

SHOCKING WIFE MURDER BY A MUSICIAN.

TRAGEDY IN VICTORIA.

News is to hand by the mail steamer of a sensational wife murder at Melbourne. It appears that Mr Plaisted, a well-known and talented organist, had been for some time suffering from an affection of the brain necessitating his being kept under restraint. On the afternoon in question he was at his residence, Boxhill, where Mrs Plaisted was alone, and there he butchered her, cutting her throat from ear to ear. When the children returning from school reached the house they found it locked. As this was unusual, one of the windows was forced opon, and the body of the unfortunate lady was discovered. The police were communimunicaced with, but they found no trace of Plaisted. At midnight, however, they arrested him, and he confessed his guilt. Plaisted wasn one of the most talented musicians in Victoria, and widely known throughout Australia. The affair has caused a painful sensation. Later particulars state that Mr and Mrs Plaisted dined together, and it must have been immediately after this that the tragedy occurred. Plaisted has been on more than one occasion conlined in a lunatic asylum, and as recently as October -.he was under restraint. On Wednesday a brother of Plaisted's wife died, and it preyed j -on Plaisted's mind and visibly affected him. At the conclusion of the funeral one of the deceased's brothers returned to Plaisted s "house and found it shut up. On forcing an entranco, the tragedy was discovered. The body of the unfortunate lady was lying in the wash-house with the throat cut from ear to ear. Besides two terrible crashes there was, a bruise on the forehead as if made by some blunt instrument. The place was spotted with blood, and the water in the copper was dark with blood. Plaisted was nowhere to be seen, but suspicion at once fixed on him, as his eccentricities were known. The police scoured the country, but it was not until after eleven he was apprehended. He at that time returned to the house, and was found crouching near the scene of the tragedy, covered with blood, his clothes disarranged,- and himself bleeding from cuts on "the wrists and throat. It was plain he was the guilty person and at the same that he was mad. On ' a constable calling out " Plaisted,]' he said ; "No man ; Devil is my name. Mv knife would not cut, so I threw it into the paddock." On being asked where his wife was he answered, "She is now a queen in Heaven." He made no resistance and was taken quietly into custody. Plaisted was brought before the Police Court and remanded formally. He was taken to the Melbourne Gaoland is perfectly insane. He made a stateraeut to the effect that immediately after dinner he hit his wife over the head with a flat-iron, carried heVto the wash-house and thVre cut her throat. He then washed himself in the coppe c r and left the house. Black trackers have c £been searching for the" razor with which 'the deed was committed, but as yet without success.