The Daily Cincinnati Republican, And Commercial Register

"Murder most foul, as in the best it is,
But this most foul, strange and unnatural."

It was our province on Saturday last, to witness
one of the most horrible and revolting scenes, that
human atrocity ever devised. A woman and two
children, lying upon the floor of a single room, all
murdered by one hand---and that the hand of the
Husband and Father. The horrid deed was perpetrated
by a monster in human shape, by the name of
John McCowen, a Cabinet-Maker, who lived on
Walnut, near Columbia street. There are various
reports and opinions, with regard to the circumstances
attending this unprecedented and unnatural
murder. But there is but one opinion as to the
foulness and atrocity of the deed. The annals of
crime do not contain a more cold-blooded and
like hearted murder. The woman, when we first
saw her, was writhing in the last agonies of death,
the blood gushing from the throat and mouth, at
every heave of the chest. Her head and face were
most shockingly mutilated; one side of the head
is completely crushed in. From the number of
wounds upon her, it would seem that she had made
resistance. The inanimate corpses of the children,
one about 4, and the other 2 years; as they lay
stretched out upon the cold floor, steeped in their
own innocent blood; formed one of the most
heart-sickening spectacles we ever
witnessed. For the honor of human nature, may
we never look upon the like again, or have to record
another deed of the kind.
She was the daughter of a respectable merchant
in Pittsburgh, and is said by those who knew
her, to have been affectionate to her husband, and
correct in her deportment. She had, it seems, just
returned from market, with another woman, who occupied
an upper room in the same house. The latter,
we learn, states that shortly after she had gone
up stairs, she heard the back door below fastened.
She then heard an altercation-then some shrieks
-then blows. When all was silence--it was the
silence of death. The voice of maternal affection
-the joyous prattle of innocent and beautiful childhood
was hushed-forever hushed. The murderer
had made desolate, by one fell swoop, his own fireside.
- The following particulars of the temporary
escape, and subsequent detection of the wretched
man, are from last Saturday's Evening Post.
"The murderer instantly fled, and had proceeded
over Mill creek bridge. about three and a half miles
from the scene of his crime, when he was overtaken
by the officers and conducted to the jail, followed
by an immense crowd, who were so exasperated that
they would no doubt have Lynched him, had he not
been hurried off on horseback to the prison. On
his arrest, he stated that he had murdered his wife,
and he knew he should be hung for it, and he killed
his children,because he was determined to leave no
offspring to be disgraced by his crime. We have
never seen our community in a state of greater excitement,
than that occasioned by the horrors we
have described. The murderer is a man about 28
years of age, medium height, dark hair, and eyes,
high cheek bones, aquiline nose, narrow chin, a red
scar on his left, cheek, and a countenance, on the
whole, unmarked by any expression of evil, but on
the contrary of rather an amiable appearance.
P. S. McCowan was first overhauled by Mr. S.
Lippincott, and drew a knife from his pocket, but
immediately gave it up and surrendered himself, on
being threatened with a blow from a. stick, by Mr.
L.--the officers, Messrs Madison and Brooks, accompanied
by another person, arrived at the instant,
and he was secured.