On February 15, 1815, a man was walking along Cheapside in Liverpool city centre at around 6pm when Thomas Cosgrove staggered from his home wearing nothing but a nightcap.
He was grasping his throat, which was bleeding heavily, and begged the passing stranger to take him back inside.
Cosgrove told the man that he had just strangled his wife to death and then cut his own throat.
Two other men that were passing helped the stranger take Cosgrove back into the house where they found his wife dead on the bed.
She was covered in her husband's blood.