The Daily Dispatch: March 24, 1862., [Electronic resource]

---

---

Horrible deed.

--We learn that a most horrible deed was committed on Monday last by a widow lady of Appomattox county, named Mrs. Sinclair, while laboring under a of derangement. Conceiving, as she said, that herself and little boy, aged about five years, would die in a short time from starvation, she carried the boy to an upper room of her house and hung him by the neck from a joist, and then attempted to cut her own throat with a razor. She, however, was prevented by the timely presence of some member of her household from taking her own life, but not until she disclosed it herself was the hanging of her little boy made known, she making the request that some one should go up stairs and see if her boy had not been hanging long enough. Upon going up stairs, it was then found that the little boy had been hanging at least an hour, his feet a short distance from the floor, and that life was entirely extinct. The poor demented mother, it is said appeared delighted when informed of the fate of her child, and only regretted that she had not succeeded in taking her own life, that they might together be now enjoying the joys of heaven, and exempt from the cares and sorrows of this world.--Lynchburg Republican