Dispatch, March 1, 1889

Untitled

Moral -- Murder

ONANCOCK, VA., via TASLEY, VA., February 28 -- Intelligence has reached here of a shooting tragedy that occurred last night in the Back Neck neighborhood, about twelves miles north of this place, where Cornelius Annis, a well-known young man, was shot and seriously wounded by some unknown person. Annis was at the home of Mrs. Elizabeth Taylor, who has recently separated from her husband, and was in the act of leaving the house when he was shot. It was about 9 o'clock, and Annis and Mrs. Taylor were the only persons in the house at the time. They had been sitting before the fire talking, and when Annis rose to leave some one on the outside shot him through the window, striking him in the left arm and side, inflicting frightful wounds, from which the doctors say he cannot recover. Twenty-three large buckshot struck him, tearing his arm to pieces and lacerating his side fearfully. Two of the shot penetrated the inner lining of his stomach. His watch was shattered to pieces. Annis was standing between two windows when he was shot and the glass of both windows was broken. Mrs. Taylor gave the alarm to her neighbors. Dr. Fletcher Drummond, of the neighboring village of Leemont, being summoned, amputated Annis's arm and dressed his wounds. No one has yet been arrested, but suspicion points to Mrs. Taylor's husband, John William Taylor, as the perpetrator of the deed. It is known that Taylor and his wife had lived disagreeably for some time past, and it is alleged that the trouble between them was due to the fact that Cornelius Annis was unduly intimate with Mrs. Taylor. Last December Taylor and his wife signed a deed of separation, by which they agreed to live apart from each other. Taylor gave his wife $200 in money and some personal property, in consideration of which she agreed to relinquish all claims on his estate. Taylor consented in this deed to allow his wife to live where she pleased and to conduct any business she might like. He also agreed never to molest, visit, or speak to her, or enter any house where she might be. Taylor subsequently consulted a lawyer at Accomack Courthouse in regard to getting a divorce from his wife on the ground of her criminal intimacy with Annis.

No noise was heard around the house at the time of the shooting and no footprints were found to give a clue to the perpetrator of the deed.

Mrs. Taylor is more than forty years old, while Annis is about twenty-five, and unmarried. Mrs. Taylor says that her husband has been recently making overtures to her with a view to a reconciliation, but that she has always repulsed him.

The affair has created much excitement and comment in the neighborhood, and steps will doubtless be taken to discover the man who did the shooting.