On Sunday 30th October, fifty seven year old Charles O'Donnell, a labourer and former asylum inmate, visited some friends alone, and during dinner he made certain statements that made them suspicious as to why his wife Elizabeth hadn't accompanied him to their house.
They knew that the couple, who had been married for two years, had been separated since he was released from the asylum and had only recently got back together and moved into a room in Chelsea. Next morning they notified the police who called at the room and found Mrs O'Donnell dead in bed. She had been battered to death with a pair of tongs that lay bloodstained on the floor. A neighbour in the flats told police that earlier in the week Mrs O'Donnell had given her some money to keep safe as her husband wanted to take it off' her. He was hanged by William Marwood on the 11th December 1876 at Newgate.