As you will have noticed in previous articles, murder wasn’t an uncommon occurrence in Whitechapel, and accounts of some pretty terrible atrocities abound in the pages of the 19th century newspapers.

Some of the most disturbing homicides were those that involved a parent killing a child.

The Windsor and Eton Express, in its edition of Saturday the 19th of May, 1827, carried the following report on an inquest on the victim of one such murder that is particularly harrowing:-

MURDER AT WHITECHAPEL

On Saturday afternoon, an inquest was held at Whitechapel Workhouse, before Mr. Unwin, the Coroner, on the body of the infant, William Henry Sheen, who was murdered by his father.

The body was placed in a shell. The head was completely severed, and the marks of the murderer’s fingers were on the face, where he had held it whilst he cut off the head.

SARAH POMEROY’S EVIDENCE

The first witness was Sarah Pomeroy, of No. 2, Caroline-court, Lambeth Street.

She said that she kept the house where the unfortunate affair happened.

On Thursday evening, about half past seven o’clock, she was sitting in her own apartment, when the mother of the murdered infant came to her and said, “Mrs. Pomeroy, come and see what my Bill has done; come up stairs, for he has cut the child’s head off, and its lying on the table!”

I went up stairs immediately, and the mother followed me, and when I entered the room, I saw the head of the child lying on a table, with the face towards the door. I was so alarmed that I hurried out of the room as speedily as possible, and procured the assistance of Dalton, an officer.

I went up stairs, with the officer – the mother followed, and drew the attention of the persons in the room to the marks on the side of the child’s head, where the father had struck it with his knuckles, on Sunday morning.

Before I came down, the body of the child lying on the bed, with a blue bed gown up, murder.

I did not hear Sheen come down stairs after the murder.

EBENEZER DALTON’S TESTIMONY

Ebenezer Dalton, the officer, said, that in consequence of the alarm raised by the last witness, he went up into the room where the murder had been committed, and found the head on the table, and the body on the bed, covered over with a counterpane.

He made a search then and since, but found no instrument with which the act had been perpetrated. Witness, however, is satisfied it was done with a razor.

The mother of the child said, that Bill, meaning her husband, had cut the child’s bead off.

Coroner:- “Have you any reason to believe that she was accessary to the murder?”

Dalton:- “I think not.”

The facts were communicated to the magistrate, and Davis, an officer, was sent after Sheen with instructions to pursue him into Wales, where, it is supposed, he is gone.

QUESTIONS FROM THE JURY

In answer to some questions put by the jury, Dalton said, that he thought the child was placed on the table, and then murdered.

There was a considerable quantity of blood on the table, and also on the floor.

THE MOTHER’S EVIDENCE

Letitia Sheen, the mother of the child, was next examined.

She is a young woman, about 26 years of age, and seemed greatly afflicted.

She said, that on Thursday last, in the early part of the day, her husband and herself were very comfortable together, and had no words; about two o’clock in the afternoon she went out to visit her mother, and took the child with her, and returned about five.

She then went to a public house, where her husband was playing at skittles with some other men.

He left his companions, and came home with her; the child was with her; he sat with her in the apartment till about eight o’clock, and then he said he wished to have some tea.

A HORRIBLE DISCOVERY

She went out to procure some, and left him and the child on the bed; she was out about a quarter of an hour, and, on her return, saw the child’s head lying on the table.

Her husband was not in the room.

She was greatly alarmed, hastened down stairs, and informed the people in the house, and the officers, of the circumstance.

She told the officer to go to her husband’s mother, in White’s Yard, Rosemary Lane, as he might be there.

She has not seen her husband from the time she left him in the room.

Coroner:- “Have you any doubt that he committed the murder?”

Witness:- “I have no doubt that he committed the murder; he had always been kind to the child.

Coroner:- “You had no concern in the murder, or even consented to it?”

Witness:- “Never.”

THE FATHER OF THE KILLER

William Sheen, the father of the murderer, was then called. He was in tears the whole time he was under examination.

He said, that on Thursday evening, about eight o’clock, his son came to his house, in White’s Yard, Rosemary Lane; his coat and hat were off. I asked him if he had been fighting. He said that he had, with two or three Irishmen, in a skittle ground, and had struck one of them in the shoulder with his knife.

I walked down with him to St. Katherine’s, and I said I would endeavour to settle the affair.

He made no confession to me of having murdered the child.

We went together to the residence of a Mr. Pugh, a cow keeper, in Carnaby Market, to whom he told the same story of having fought with the Irishman.

I left him in Oxford Street, and he said he was going to Barnet, and should remain there until I could settle with the Irishman, and he directed me to give him a pound if that would satisfy him.

My son had no coat or hat on when he came to me, but he borrowed one of Mr. Pugh.

THE BEADLE’S EVIDENCE

John Partridge, one of the parish beadles, said, that the coat was found in the apartment where the murder was committed, and which was supposed to belong to Sheen. It was stained with blood on the left sleeve and front.

When the murderer went away, he had on a brown coat, corded trowsers, a red plush waistcoat, and silk hat.

Dalton said that he had often seen Sheen in the coat in question.

MR. PUGH’S RECOLLECTION

Mr. Pugh, the person alluded to, and his wife, said, that, on Thursday evening, when Sheen and his son came to their house to borrow some money, the son said, he had stabbed an Irishman; and, throwing down a knife, said, he had done it with that, and begged them, for God’s sake, to burn it.

The knife was here produced. It was a clasp knife, rather blunt, but pointed, and apparently of sufficient strength to sever the head from the body.

The witnesses said that there was no blood on it. Sheen threw it down; they lent him 10s.

Letitia Sheen said, she had seen the knife in question in her possession.

THE VERDICT

This being the whole of the evidence, the Coroner briefly summed up, and the jury instantly returned a verdict of Wilful Murder against William Sheen, the father of the child.

A REWARD OFFERRED

A large reward is offered for the apprehension of Sheen, and officers have been dispatched in all directions after him but their efforts have been hitherto ineffectual.