From the Richmond Dispatch, 8/8/1864, p.1, c. 6 and 7

Fatal suicide. – On Saturday morning last Mrs. Mary Alfred, wife of Mr. Frank Alfred, living on Marshall, between Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth streets, committed suicide by hanging herself from the intermediate platform of the stairs leading from the first to the second story, with a cord which she had been in the habit of wearing, with tassels attached, around her waist. Before life was extinct she was discovered by a negro woman living with the family, who immediately cut her down and then hastened for Dr. Knox, who lived in the neighborhood; but that gentleman, as soon as he saw her, pronounced her case a hopeless one, and administered his remedies with little hopes of success. She lingered, in an apparently comatose state, taking no notice of anybody or anything till four o’clock yesterday afternoon, when she breathed her last. Mrs. Alford has for some years past manifested symptoms of insanity and been a great source of uneasiness to her friends. She was the daughter of Mr. William S. Forrest, formerly of Norfolk, Virginia and resided with her father at the time of her death.

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