Whitstable Times and Herne Bay Herald, 18 June 1870.

SHOCKING EVENT.

On Wednesday last Mr. Cooper Pope, a young man in business with his father as a veterinary surgeon, was brought before W. P. Burra, Esq., on an extraordinary charge of stealing oats from the stable of Mr. J. K. Philpott. Mr. Philpott’s son and a younger lad swore positively that they saw Mr. Pope come out from the stable about eleven o’clock the preceding night, with a bag full of something under his arm. About a gallon and a half of oats was missed from a sack full which had been recently put into a corn bin, and about that quantity of similar oats was found in the prisoner’s stable. Mr. Burra remanded the accused on substantial bail, until the petty sessions. The unfortunate young man seems to have brooded continually over the chance until Friday evening, when he went into the washhouse of his father’s residence, and blew his brains out in a most determined manner, with a gun which he had loaded with shot for the purpose. An inquest was held on the body at the "Engineer Inn," on Saturday evening, before T. T. Delasaux, Esq. The top of the deceased's head was blown clean off. He had addressed a long letter to his wife, in which he took an affectionate leave of her, and of his father and mother and friends; but said he could not live under such a stigma on his character, and he protested most solemnly his entire innocence of the charge imputed to him. The jury returned a verdict to the effect that the deceased committed suicide while suffering under mental derangement. It seems difficult to understand how he could have been guilty of a paltry theft like that imputed to him, as he was in a good business, and there were plenty of oats in his own stable. The melancholy event caused a painful sensation in the town.