Insane father shot his daughter and then shot himself

Marital break-up is a traumatic time for everyone closely involved, but in Victorian times it was a great deal more rare and more likely to lead to lives being ruined. In the case of William Sutton, though, the explosive cocktail of his past experiences of war and as a prison officer led him to a murderous act few of us could comprehend. JAN BONDESON outlines the horrendous circumstances in his latest tale of Victorian murder in South London.

William Sutton was a sergeant-major in the 89th Foot, who had served in India for many years.

After retiring from the military, he became a prison warder, first at Millbank and then at Wormwood Scrubs.

He married, but his wife, who suffered from chronic mental depression, left him in 1887 after more than 20 years of marriage, due to his cruelty and fondness for drink.

They had a son named William Albert and a daughter named Mary Anne; she had married platelayer John Donoghue, who lodged at No 8 Colestown Street, Battersea.

After she had left her husband, Mrs Sutton faced hard times since her husband was unwilling to pay her any maintenance.

In the end, she moved in with the Donoghues at Colestown Street.

William Sutton was an angry, morose man, who very much resented his wife for leaving him.

He used to make all sorts of allegations about her habits of life, but never tried to seek her out at No 8 Colestown Street.

He lodged at No 13 Walmer Road, Notting Hill, where he could lead a comfortable and idle life on his not ungenerous pensions from the army and the police.

But on June 1, 1896, an unknown man came calling at No. 8, asking for Mrs Sutton.

The landlady Mrs Cosby said that she did not live on the premises any more, since she was in St John’s Hill Infirmary for her melancholia.

She asked him if he was Mr Sutton, something he denied. He said that he had been sent with an important message for either Mrs Sutton or her daughter.

The landlady then called out to Mary Ann Donoghue saying there was a visitor for her.

She came downstairs with her hat and cloak on since she was about to go out.

Facing the caller, she exclaimed ‘Hello, father, how are you?’ William Sutton’s response was to pull a large army revolver and shoot her three times in the belly. He then shot himself in the chest and dropped dead, on the spot.

Poor Mary Ann Donoghue, who was very severely wounded, groaned aloud with pain.

When she saw her husband, she exclaimed ‘Oh, John, I am dying!’, and she did expire at St Thomas’ Hospital soon after.

At the coroner’s inquest, William Albert Sutton identified the body of his 60-year-old father.

He testified that the former sergeant- major had become odd in the head after suffering from sunstroke in India, and that he was in the habit of drinking much more than was good for him.

The motive for this angry, long-minded man to come calling at No. 8 Colestown Road was obvious: that his wife had taken out a summons against him to get her hands on part of his pension.

This did not explain, however, why he had shot his own daughter dead when it turned out that his wife was in the asylum.

She was still in St John’s Hill Infirmary at the time of the inquest, and the doctors were said to be pondering how to break the dreadful news of her husband shooting her daughter dead and then committing suicide, without doing further damage to her already fragile mental health.

The inquest returned the verdict that Mary Ann Donoghue was wilfully murdered by her father William Sutton, who then committed suicide while temporarily insane.

The murder house at No. 8 Colestown Street still stands.

This is an edited extract from Jan Bondeson’s Murder Houses of South London (Troubador Publishing, Leicester 2015).