The Daily Dispatch: March 26, 1861., [Electronic resource]

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Shocking wife murder in Sr. Louis.

--Ann Welsh, wife of Patrick Welsh, died at the hospital at St. Louis on the 18th inst., from the effects of a most inhuman assault made upon her by her husband three or four days previous. It appears that the unfortunate woman, who was with child, was one day sitting on a sofa, her head reclining on her mother's bed, when her husband, who had just awakened from one of his drunken slumbers, stepped into the room, and without any provocation knocked his wife to the floor and kicked her terribly on the sides, and jumping over her, struck her several times on the abdomen with his knees. He then seized a poker and struck her unmercifully over the upper and lower extremities, leaving many marks and bruises. His rage not yet satisfied, he ran the poker down her throat ! The mother of the unfortunate wife, a weak and decrepit old woman, tried to interfere and protect her daughter, but received a severe beating from the fiendish brute, and had to run away from the house. On her return she found her daughter prostrated by her injuries. The poor woman was taken to the hospital, where she became delirious, and was unable to swallow anything except some liquid, on account of the injuries to her throat. She died of inflammation of the abdomen, which a post mortem examination showed to have been intense. Welsh fled from the city on learning that his wife's life was in danger. The two had been married less than a year.