Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

It's Mystery Blood time! From the "Ste. Genevieve Fair Play," November 16, 1876:

The village of Victory is situated not far from Rochester, New York. A very mysterious event lately happened there. It was a bloody business which seems to have been without a motive so far as facts have developed. A Mr. F.S. Esmond and his wife boarded at the Covil House, and Mr. Esmond, having business at Seneca Falls, went, one day, to attend to it, leaving his wife in her rooms in the hotel. That night Mrs. Esmond alarmed the house with cries of "murder." The other boarders hurried to her room and found her shrieking and covered with blood. The bed, furniture, her clothing and nearly everything in the room was smeared and bespattered with blood. After a thorough examination it was found that Mrs. Esmond was entirely unhurt. She was not even scratched. The blood was, therefore, not hers. Whose blood it was, and how it came there are questions which at present defy solution. Mrs. Esmond's account of her awakening leaves the whole affair in mystery. She states that she felt something cold on her hand, which awakened her. She found that her hands and clothing were covered with something wet and cold. She struck a light and found it was blood. Then she screamed. Her door was locked. There were blood marks on her door outside, and the bloody print of a man's hand was on the wall near. As soon as the gory exterior of Mrs. Esmond was discovered several doctors and the coroner were summoned, but there was no work for any of them, as the woman was well and whole. Mr. Esmond on returning, thought it was a conspiracy to frighten his wife away from him, and she did immediately leave the hotel and go to her uncle's.

Unfortunately, this is all I've found about the mystery, so I can't say if it was ever resolved. I would also like to know why Mr. Esmond so readily assumed there was a "conspiracy" to separate him from his wife.