Rensselaer Gazette, Volume 3, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 May 1859 — A Sickles Victim. [ARTICLE]

A Sickles Victim.

A Cincinnati paper of the 6th inst. says: “Mr. Alfred Hood, a man of about thirtyfive years of age, who was sent to the Insane Asylum at Lick Run, about, a week since, committed suicide at that institution day before yesterday, by severing his head almost entirely from his body with a razor. Hood, it appears had, some time previous, been too intimate with another man's wife, and became in consequence a prey to remorse, which was greatly increased after the developments in the Key and Sickles case. Hood, who had been rather dissipated before, began to drink to excess, and, in the midst of his ravings thought the husband of the injured woman was pursuing him to take his life. This idea took a firmer and firmer hold on his mind, and his imagination depicted all manner of horrible deaths devised by the man he had wronged. This dread at last became a mania, and the victim was committed to the mad-house, where he raged like a deamon [sic], ever raging incoherently respecting the injured woman and her husband. On the day of his self-destruction, Hood declared the husband was about to drag him to hell, and, falling on his knees, entreated the imaginary avenger to kill him at once, and rid him of further torture. The maniac was willing, he said, to be shot as Key had been, but he prayed not to be burnt in eternal flames. While in this terrible mood, he obtained possession of a razor, and, thinking bis life would be an atonement for his crime, he nearly decapitated himself with a hand made strong by madness and desperation." ———<>———