A Monkey Suicide and Monkey murderer at Goldsboro in 1880. Occurred one of the most novel suicides of the century, the victim being a monkey owned by Mr. Rockwell Syrock. The animal was quite a favourite with all the children for miles around and knew most of them. Monkey killer. For several years, Jocko’s owner had been in the habit of visiting all the hangings in this portion of the state, taking the mischievous animal with him. The monkey always seemed to take an especial interest in such horrible proceedings.

Monkey Murder and Suicide, shaving himself

On the 25th June, Alexander Howard was to have been executed for the murder of an old man, but the Governor respited him. The gibbet made for carrying out the sentence had been erected before the executive interposed his power and postponed it. Syrock visited the gaol with the monkey and examined these preparations.

The animal seemed to be unusually curious and watched the scaffold and trap with earnest eyes. Since that time he has been playing hanging in his master’s barn. One morning he was found dead, suspended by a clothes line to one of the rafters of the building.

An extraordinary occurrence is reported as having happened at Jump, near Barnsley, in 1890 year, and on inquiry the following facts were well authenticated: A miner named John Hines possessed three monkeys, an old one and two young ones, and like the generality of the tribe, the elder one was fond of imitating what was going on in the household.

On Saturday afternoon whilst shaving himself, Hines was called out into the back yard to see after some pigs that had broken out of the sty, and half-shaved as he was he rushed out, leaving the razor on the table, and his pets, apparently oblivious of his movements.
No sooner, however, was his back turned than the father of the two young monkeys seized the razor and commenced to try his ’prentice hand on his offspring. He evidently miscalculated the keenness of the edge, for in the twinkling of an eye he had severed the heads of the little things almost completely from their bodies.

Even here his experiment did not stop, for he next turned the blade against himself with an almost similar result, for he inflicted a deep gash in the throat.

On Hines’ return in a few minutes he found his two young pets quite dead, and the father gasping for breath on the ground, bleeding profusely. The author of the mischief lingered until Sunday, and then he too succumbed to his self-inflicted injuries. The affair has excited considerable interest. It is the intention of the owner to have the dead monkeys stuffed.