Mysterious murder.
--On Wednesday night, about 11 o'clock,
officer Carter, of the watch, was summoned to tenement No. 84, Main street, to quell a disturbance existing in one of the rooms in the 2d story of the building, which rooms were hired out as lodging rooms by the lessee of the premises,
Mr. William H. Hayward.
On getting into the premises, the officer found several men in bed and sundry more in room No. 2, two of whom,
John H. Gatewood and
Edwin Hamilton, were bleeding profusely from wounds apparently inflicted by bottles or stone pitchers.
Neither of the parties named belonging to the premises or having paid for lodgings there,
Mr. Hayward requested the officer to removed them.
Gatewood, who presented the most signs of physical exhaustion, after having his wounds dressed, was carried off by his friends;
Hamilton, no one volunteering to take him away, was taken off by
officer Carter, who lodged him in the cage.
On inspecting him yesterday morning, the officer saw that he was very low, and learning that he belonged to Company A, First Maryland regiment, procured a conveyance and ordered him to be conveyed to their hospital, corner of Cary and Twenty-fifth streets. The wounded man had not been conveyed many steps before he breathed his last.
An inquest was held yesterday evening by
Coroner Sanxay, when the following facts were elicited, which however, do not throw any light on the deed.
We may as well remark here, that
Hamilton's skull was found, on examination, to have been fractured by a bottle, which fracture caused his death.
It appears from the evidence that the deceased and
Thomas Shields were "on a considerable of a buss," and drank very freely; went to Metropolitan Hall, and after the performance was over,
Henry N. Gittings invited them to his room — upper-part of No. 84;
Mr. Shields dropped into a chair and went to sleep, while
Hamilton held on to the foot of the bed and appeared to do the same thing.
Soon after, a bottle was thrown which struck
Hamilton on the head and very nearly knocked him out of the window.
A man named Ganney, who was in the bed, then got up, and
Gittings put
Hamilton on it, and ejected
Shields from the room.
Several bottles and other articles were then thrown.
After
Shields was put out,
Gatewood got
Gittings by the beard and threw him over a trunk and held him down, when
Gittings drew a pocket-knife and out
Gatewood on the back of the hand.
Several persons were in the room at the time.
The second bottle that was thrown cut
Gittings on the forehead.
Mr. Hayward deposed, that one of the regulations was that no one could occupy a bed until his name was booked and the bed paid for. Neither requisition had been complied with by
Gatewood or
Hamilton.
He was in another part of the building, and knew nothing of the disturbance until his attention was specially directed to it, when he went out and summoned the watch.
None of the other witnesses served to throw any additional light on the transaction.
No quarrel was testified to on the part of any of the occupants of the room with each other, save the misunderstanding first alluded to.
The jury of inquest returned a verdict that
Edwin Hamilton came to his death from a wound on the right side of his head, inflicted by a bottle thrown by some person unknown to the jury.
The police believe
Gatewood to have been the man who threw the bottle, and accordingly sought for and found him yesterday evening; and he will be arraigned before the
Mayor this morning, to explain his share in the transaction as best he may.
