“He Deserved it”: Myrtle Devlin’s 8-Hour Sadistic Attack – 1953

“He deserved it”: an entire philosophy summarized in three simple words.

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FULL TEXT: New York – An unremorseful wife was held by police yesterday for methodically stabbing and beating her husband with a hammer over an eight hour period following an argument.

“He deserved it,” said Mrs. Myrtle Devlin, 36, a Negress, when arraigned on a felonious assault charge before Magistrate Amedo Lauritano. The attack occurred Saturday.

Mrs. Devlin weighs about 100 pounds, her 35-year-old husband, James, about 180.

Police said the woman told them she stabbed him first  in the chest and body when he accused her of infidelity after 15 years of marriage. He crawled into another room where she followed and struck him repeatedly over the head with a hammer.

Afterwards she fell asleep, according to the police resort. When she awakened she found the bleeding man had crawled into bed, so she got a larger kitchen knife and cut his throat.

The husband’s condition was reported serious by hospital officials, who said almost his entire blood supply had to be replaced.

[“Say Wife Beat Husband For 8 Hours,” syndicated (AP), Newsday (Long Island, N.Y.), Jul. 13, 1953, p. 5]

[Correction: original text reads: “He crawled in another room …”]

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For more cases see: Domestic Violence: Non-Lethal Female on Male

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[737-12/29/22]

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