A Jealous Husband's Crime

The newspaper story I choose to report on comes from Los Angeles’ The Herald, on a Saturday morning, July 20th, 1895. This is apparently a front page story with the title exclaiming “A Jealous Husband’s Crime”. The article oddly enough has six subheadings.

A JEALOUS HUSBAND’S CRIME

Tried to Murder His Alleged Faithless Wife

THEN TO KILL HIMSELF

John G. Luck Does Deadly Work With a Razor

HE THEN JUMPS FROM A WINDOW

His Wife's Room and the Hall Resembled a Slaughter Pen

The Fearful and Revolting Details of a Horrible Butchery

His Bloody Act Said to Have Been Provoked by Learning That the Woman Was Untrue to Her Marriage Vows

The story goes as such: a man, John G. Luck is devastated by the apparent infidelity of his wife and attempts murder and suicide. There’s a lot that goes on in this story. It’s about five columns in small print on a very large front page of a paper, interspersed with large drawings of the two “victims” and two locations involved. They call this event an “attempted tragedy” though it seems tragic enough.

The husband and wife, as it says, “now lie at death’s door with their throats cut from ear to ear, and with gasps of breath are making a fight for their lives”. What the writer calls “the same old story” is categorized by John wielding an “ordinary razor” after first beating his wife with a water pitcher. As the many titles suggest, John attempts to cut his wife’s throat. While she struggles, and upon being interrupted by a concerned neighbor, John then attempts to cut his own throat. The details provided in this article are extremely gruesome and very detailed, something I highly doubt you could get away with publishing in today’s age. John then attempts to open his wound further with his hands and proceeds to jump out a window, 30 feet up. He survives this fall, a bit stunned and is secured and taken to a hospital, as is his wife. Authorities suggest that both have a chance to recover, though the outlook is more positive for Lily, the wife.

The audience is seemingly any curious newspaper reader in Southern California. This is a big story but not for the faint of heart.

I would tag this article with such words as “murder”, “attempted murder”, “suicide”, “California”, “The Herald”, and “tragedy”.

And here's a link because it really is a fascinating article.