It’s 1899 and a Virginia man beats and kills his partner after he finds her nursing their baby while she was intoxicated. He is sent to the local jail and waits until the smallpox quarantine is lifted to be sent to the penitentiary.
A Brutal Killing
June 6, 1899. NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — Billy Boyle, after living with a woman for nearly two years, kicked and beat her Friday so that she died Sunday.
The woman had been drinking, and was nursing her baby when Boyle came upon the scene Friday, snatched the infant from her arms, slapped her down, and kicked her about the face and abdomen until she was nearly dead. She managed to drag herself to her room, where she died Sunday morning, after two days of agony.
Boyle, in the meantime, was in the city jail. He will be brought to trial as soon as possible.
The coroner’s inquest this morning placed the blame for the woman’s death upon the man.
The authorities here are wondering when the penitentiary quarantine against this jail is to be raised. There are now confined here five prisoners, over whose heads hang sentences to the penitentiary, and they have been waiting to be shipped to that institution for a long time.
There hasn’t been a case of smallpox in the city jail for two months. The new jail will be occupied Wednesday.
Source: The times. (Richmond, Va.), 06 June 1899.
