The Daily Spy

Another Murder.
Marshall Fagg, of Boylston, was brought before Wm. N. Green, Esq., yesterday, charged with the murder of his brother, William Fagg, about 1 o'clock the day before.

The facts in the case are substantially as follows: The prisoner is a married man, 46 years old, with seven children. William, his brother, was a bachelor 44 years old, and resided in his family. The prisoner has fallen into intemperate habits, and, whenever he can obtain liquor gets intoxicated and is cross to his family. A short time since he procured a barrel of cider, and after he had drank a part of it the effect was so bad, that his wife emptied the remainder upon the ground and split up the barrel. Afterwards, when getting over one of his sprees, he asked his daughter to make him a dish of tea, and promised her, if she would, that he never would drink any more liquor. Last Thursday evening, he brought home a gallon of rum, which he procured of Joel Kelly of Northborough, and commenced drinking. On Saturday, his daughter had some conversation with him, in which she pleasantly reminded him of his promise to her, and indicated an intention of turning his rum out, if she could get hold of it. To this he replied, that, if any one touched his rum or cider again, he would kill them. On Sunday he was at the barn, badly intoxicated, when his brother took his bible and went out for the purpose of watching him, in order, if possible, to prevent his drinking and to get him sober again. After he had been there a while, the prisoner got out his jug of rum, and, at the same time drew his jack knife, holding it in his right hand, and the jug in his left. At this moment William sent a boy who was with him to call some of the neighbors. His wife, hearing the alarm, came, just as William had knocked the jug from prisoner's hand with a pole, and caught it, and run out of the barn, and emptied it upon the ground.

The prisoner then went at his brother, and inflicted the wound from which he died. It was a single blow with the knife, entering the thigh on the inside, passing almost three inches deep and severing the femoral artery from which he bled to death. When the neighbors arrived, deceased was lying upon the grass by the road side; some four rods from the barn, the prisoner's wife holding up his head and bathing it with water, and the prisoner standing in the barn door looking on. Soon after, two of them went to the barn, where he was found upon the scaffold lying upon some hay with his face downward as if asleep or badly intoxicated. The deceased breathed but two or three times after the neighbors came. The knife has not been found.

In the course of the evening the prisoner said he did not intend to kill his brother, but only to hurt him, and defend his jug.

At the close of the examination, the magistrate ordered the prisoner to be committed to jail to await the investigation by the grand jury of the complaint made against him of murder, on the fourth Tuesday of September next, and the witnesses were recognized for their appearance on that day.