Tragedy of Rejected Love: After a quarrel with his sweetheart. Horace Pinsent, an engineer’s apprentice. of Leicester, fired a revolver at the girl Ada Smith, shot a cyclist named Herbert Hytch who came to the rescue, and then shot himself dead. Pinsent had been “keeping company” with the girl for about six months, and on the night of the tragedy they were out together for a walk. About ten o’clock they were returning home along London-road, when—so the girl told the police–she remarked to Pinsent that she thought it would be better if they parted. The young man became very excited on hearing this and drew the revolver from his pocket and fired at the girl from a distance of a yard or two. Fortunately, the bullet only grazed her cheek. Her screams and report of the weapon attracted the attention of Mr. Herbert Hytch, who was cycling along the road, jumped off his machine and ran towards Pinsent, who promptly fired at him also. The bullet inflicted a serious wound in the neck. Pinsent fired two more shots, but without hitting anyone and then ran away, followed by several people from neighbouring houses, but before they could reach him, he turned the weapon on himself and blew his brains out. Hytch was taken to the infirmary in a critical condition. [Photograph of Horace Pinsent]
Transcribed in whole or part from scanned originals: Presented with or without modified text and punctuation. For absolute accuracy refer to the original newspapers. Source: The British Newspaper Archive
Referenced
GRO0431 Tiverton: Horace Pinsent: 1893 – 1913