SOME RECENT CRIMES AND CRIMINAL TRIALS.

Evening Star, Issue 4063, 4 March 1876, Page 2 (Supplement)

SOME RECENT CRIMES AND CRIMINAL TRIALS.

FROM OREENACRE TO WAIN WRIGHT. (From the Glasgow Herald.)

1837.—1n the spring of this year, quiet, good-living ' people, making up what is known as society, were shocked to hear that human remains had been found scattered along such a public place as the Edgeware road. The remains were identified as far as possible as those of one Hannah Rrown, and guilt was traced to James Greenacre and a woman with whom he cohabited, known througout the trial as Sarah Gale, According to Greenacre’s own account, Hannah Brown was last alive in his company at a place known as Carpenters’ Buildings on Christmas Eve, By kicking the chair on which she was tilting backward and forward he caused her to fall with such violence as to produce instantaneous death. Being much alarmed thereafter, he mutilated the corpse, and carried the head, trunk, sand limbs to where they were afterwards ‘found. The trial took place before Chief Justice Tindal and Justices Coltman, Coleridge, and the Recorder on 10th April, 183£, the special charge against the female prisoner, Sarah Gale, being that she had aided and comforted Greenacre. The jury brought in a verdict of guilty against both parties. Greenacre was executed 2nd May—Tuesday morning. It was said he hesitated at the scaffold, gave the rope round his neck a pull to make it tighter, and within two minutes was dead.

■ 1838.—The mysterious murder of Eliza Grimwood, found in her bedroom, in a small street leading off the Waterloo road. She was wounded in several places, but the immediate cause of death was a wound in the neck, extending nearly from ear to ear, and severing the windpipe. Her left thumb was also cut, as if she had struggled with the murderer. The unfortunate woman lived with a person named Hubbard, a bricklayer, separated from bis wife, and bad been in the habit of taking persons home with her from the theatres. On the Friday night she was said to have met with a person in the Strand, who had the look of a foreigner, and dressed like a gentleman. He was not afterwards seen, and how or when he left the house was never ascertained.

' 1840 May 6. Lord William Russell found murdered in his bed-room, No. 14 Norfolk street, Park lane. “ This morning (said the housemaid) I rose about half-past six, and went down stairs about a quarter before seven o’clock, I went into the back drawing room, and there I saw his Lordship’s writing-desk broken open, and his keys and papers lying on the carpet. I opened the dining-room, and found the drawers open, and the candlesticks and several other pieces of plate lying on the floor. I ran up stairs aiul told my neighbor servant, the cook, with whom I slept, what had happened, I also told the valet, who slept in an adjoining room, and asked him what he had been doing with the silver, for it was lying all about. He said he had been doing nothing with it, but he got up and went down stairs, when he declared the place had been robbed. I then said, ‘ For God’s sake go and see where his Lordship is.’ He went to his Lordship’s room, and I followed him, when, on opening the shutters, we found his Lordship in bed murdered. We then ran iqto the street, and alarmed some of the neighbors.” The valet CourVoiser tried June, 1840, sentenced to death, and executed 6th July. 1841 —April 14; Dennis Doqlan and Patrjck fyjddjng, executed near Bighqpsgate, Glasgow, for the murder of Green, a sub-con-tractor or “ ganger ” on the new railway then being formed between Edinburgh and Glasgow,

1842 April 6.—The police discover in the stable of Garnard Lodge, Roehampton, London, part of the body of a female. The police' were drawn to the place in consequence of a pawnbroker in Wandsworth having charged the coachman Good with stealing a pair of trousers from his shop. Good evinced great concern when the officers entered the stables in search of the missing garment,; and when their attention was directed to the fourth stall, he suddenly rushed out, locked the door upon them, and fled. In that stall, beneath a little hay, they found an object which at first they could not understand, but which turned out to be the trunk of a female with the head and, limbs cut off, the abdomen cut open, and the entrails extracted The whole of the cuts through the flesh had been made with a sharp knife, but the bones were hacked with some blunt instrument. The stable door was at once burst open, the alarm given, and on further search a quantity of burnt bones belonging to the body was discovered in the fireplace of the harness-room. It was impossible to identify the remains, but from inquiries instantly set on foot there was no doubt they were those of a woman brought by Good or his wife to the Lodge the preceding Sunday. At the inquest the jury found the body to be that of Jane Jones, or Good, and that Daniel Good had wilfully murdered her. Good eluded pursuit for nearly a fortnight, but was then discovered working as a bricklayer’s laborer at Tunbridge by a man who had formerly been in the police force at Wandsworth. He was at once taken before the magistrate, While under examination he took a comb from his pocket, and with it turned back the hair from his forehead, as if to hide a bald place —a circumstance which corresponded with a known peculiarity of the murderer Good. He persisted in stating his name was O’Connor, and that he knew nothing about the murder. Tried along with a woman known as Mary or “Mall” Good May 14, and sentenced to be executed. “ Goo’d night,” he said, “ all ladies and gentlemen in the court, I have a great deal more to say, but I am so bad I cannot say it.” Executed May 23. 1845.—The Tawell murder at Sai Hill, near iSlough, Windsor. Sarah Hart was found lying on the floor of her house almost insensible by one of her neighbors, who had

been attracted to the spot by a noise resembling stifled screams. On approaching the house she heard the door shut, and saw a man dressed like a Quaker walk along the path leading to the highway. He appeared to be greatly confused, and trembled very nnich. While he was opening the gate leading into tbe high road she asked him what was the matter ■with her neighbor, but he made no reply, and hurried onwards in the direction of Slough, This was John Tawell, at one time a member of the Society of Friends, but more recently engaged in business in S) dney, to the neighborhood of which he had been transported for forgery on the Uxbridge Bank. His good conduct while in the Colony obtained for.him a ticket of leave after serving seven years the third part of his time—and he set up business as a chemist and druggist, by which he amassed considerable wealth. He now resided at Befkbamstead, where he was held in fair respect, and generally reputed to be a man of property. From the suspicious circumstances attending the death of the woman Sarah Hart, a description of his person^was at once telegraphed from Slough to London. He was watched on his arrival, and apprehended next day by a policeman, who closely followed him to every place he went. Tawell then denied having been to Slough, or know?ing anyone there. On being handed over to the custody of the Berkshire police, he admitted that the murdered woman had been in his service at one time, and that he had lately received letters pressing for money to support her children. Tried 12th March, found guilty, and executed at Aylesbury on the 28th of the same mouth.

1847 — August 18.—Murder of the Duchess de Choiseul Praslin. This lady, the mother of nine children, was the only daughter of Marshal Sebastiani, formerly French Ambassador at the British Court. She left Paris at the beginning of the preceding week to visit her estate at Praslin, and be present at the distribution of the prizes of a school in which two of her children were being educated, and returned to town on Tuesday evening. She intended to pass only one night in her hotel, and was to have left on the 17th with the Duke, her husband, for Dieppe, whither part of their household had preceded them. Fatigued with her journey, the Duchess went to bed at an early hour ; and, as permission had been given to most of the domestics to absent themselves, she remained- in the hotel with her femme de chainbre —who slept in the story above—the family governess, and two male domestics. The Duke and Duchess slept in separate chambers, which, however, communicated by means of a passage and antechamber, Between four and five o’clock, when it wais daylight, the femme-de-chamhre was awakened by the noise of a bell pulled with violence. She rose, dressed, and proceeded to the apartment of her mistress, the' door of which she in vain tried to open. She listened, and thought she heard a feeble groan. She then called the domestics to her help, and, by uniting their efforts, they succeeded in breaking the door open. Then they saw their unfortunate mistress lying on the floor, in the midst of a pool of blood, and apparently quite dead. A wound, in which three fingers could have been put, was seen gaping on the left side of the throat; there were two other severe wounds in the breast, and a fourth had almost separated the little finger from the right hand. There were also lesser wounds oh other parts of her person. The cries of the servants appeared to rouse the Duke de Praslin, who hastened to the spot and threw himself on the bleeding body of his wife. She died two hours afterwards, without having spoken, or apparently recovered the slightest consciousness. The different wounds appeared to have been made with an instrument having a double-edged blade. Everything in the bedroom showed besides that, though surprised in her slumber, the victim had offered a strong resistance to the murder. A little table was overthrown, porcelain and objects of art were spread about, the drapery on the wall bore the traces of a bloody hand, as did also the tope of the bell, the ringing of which had awakened the' femnie-de-chambre ; and, finally, between the clasped fingers of the left hand there was some of the murderer’s hair, whilst a considerable quantity, pulled out in the struggle, was fixed by the coagulating bipod to the floor. The horror which the event excited throughout Europe was still more intensified when it became known, in the course of two or three days, that all the criminating circumstances in the inquiry pointed to the Duke as the murderer of his wife. This, in its turn, was quickly, succeeded by a feeling of indignation when the announcement was made in the Paris papers that the Duke had died on the evening of the 24th from the effects of poison taken after he was apprehended. 1848— November 28.—Dreadful murders at Stanfield Hall, near Norwich, the seat of Mr I, P. Jermy, Recorder of that city. Mr Jermy, his son, and Mrs Jermy, dined together in the afternoon, there being then on the premises a butler, a man servant, and two females. About half-past eight o’clock Mr Jermy left the dining-room and walked through the hall to the front of the building. On returning, as he entered the porch, a man, wrapped in a cloak and wearing a mask, fired a pistol at him, the ball lodging in the upper part of the left breast close to the shoulder. He feff and instantly expired, but owing to what followed was not removed for-an hour. The assassin, after firing, went to the servants entrance to the right, passed through the passage across the building, met the butler, whom he forced by threats to retire into the pantry, and proceeded onwards to the turn of the passage, where there was a dark with a door opening into another passage leading to the back qf the premises. Mr Jermy’s son, alarmed at the report of a pistol, left the diningroom and passed to the door opening into the back passage; here the murdered fired and shot him through the right breast, killing him on the spot. Mrs Jermy hearing anoicewent to the same place, and while she knelt over the lifeless body of her husband, the assassin fired a pistol at her, the shot shivering oueofherarms and wounding her in the breast. Her maid, Eliza Chestney, more courageous than the other servants, went also to the passage to see what was the matter; and while embracing hermistress the murderer discharged another pistol, and seriously wounded her in the thigh. The female servants, now thinking they would all be murdered, hid themselves. The man servant, who was in the stable, hearing the firing, and supposing that the place was attacked by a number of ruffians, swam across the moat which surrounds the house, and set off to Wymondham, where he gave the alarm, and caused a telegraphic message to be sent to the Norwich police station. The murderer, therefore, had no difficulty in making his e cape. Suspicion pointed to a man named Blomheld Rush, a farmer and auctioneer, living in the neighborhood, with whom Mr Jermy had had frequent disputes; and he was immediately arrested. Mrs Jenny and the servant retained sufficient recollection to declare that, though disguised, they were certain he was the assassin. The most important evidence at the inquest and at the examination before the magistrates was that of Emily James, or Sandford, a young woman who lived in Rush’s family, first as governess, latterly as his house-keeper or mistress; she described herself as a widow, but afterwards admitted that she was unmarried, and far advanced in pregnancy. Rush was tried at Norwichbefore Baron Rolfe, sentenced to death, and executed on 21st April, ' •

1849—October 25.—Commenced at the Old .Baxley, the trial of the Mannings for the Bermondsey murder. It continued over two days, during which evidence of the most precise kind was produced connecting both prisoners with the crime. Sergeant Wilkins addressed the Court for the male prisoner, and Mr Ballantine for Mrs Manning. After an absence of fiften minutes, the jury returned a verdict of guilty against both. Mrs Manning, who spoke in excellent English, but with a slight French accent, declared that she had not been justly treated, and that, there was no law in this country to execute her. If her counsel had called witnesses, she could have proved thatsheboughttheshares found in her possession with her own money, and that they never belonged to O’Connor. “She had not,” she said, “been treated like a Christian, but like a wild beast of the forest. Mr Justice Cresswell sentenced both prisoners to be executed. The Mannings were accordingly executed on the 13th November. The husband made a confession of a kind, imputing the guilt chiefly to his wife, while she, on the other hand, repeatedly declared that he knew she was innocent, and begged him therefore to save e ‘.. one statements he said, My wife asked O’Connor to go down stairs, and in about a minute afterwards I heard the report of a pistol. She then came up to me and said, “ Thank God, I have made him all right at last; it will never be found out; as we are on such extraordinary good terms, no one will have the least suspicion of my murdering him.” To which X replied, ‘I am quite certain you will be hanged for tins act ; and she said, ‘lt won’t be you that it is to suffer; it will be me.’ After shooting him she said, ‘ I think no more of what, I have done than if I shot the cat on the wall Upon her coming to me upstairs she insisted on my going down immediately; and upon my reaching the kitchen I found himlyuig there. He moaned; I never liked him well, and I battered his head with a ri | P , X i lg -f hlseL ” 0n bein S led on to the scaffold it was noticed that Mrs Manning was attired in the black satin dress which she wore at the trial, and a long lace veil thrown over her face to conceal her features. When the wretched creatures were placed beneath the drop they shook hands together with as much apparent cordiality as the pinions round their arms permitted 1853—August 3.—Hans Smith Macfarlane and Helen Blackwood, executed at Glasgow for their share in the murder of a person whom they threw out of the window of a brothel when in a state of helpless intoxication.

. 1856.—May 14.—Commenced at the Genii1 ’ I ™. Crmmal Court—before Lord Chief Justice Campbell, Baron Aidersou, and Mr Justice Creswell —the trial of William r aimer, for the Rugeley poisonings. The Attorney-General (now Chief Justice Cockburn) appeared for the Crown, and Mr Serjeant Shee for the prisoner. The trial excited the most intense interest throughout tbe kingdom, and during the twelve days over which it extended the Old Bailey was crowded by an assembly such as rarely gathers within its walls. The- first case prowas the poisoning of Cook. Ihe Crown alleged murder by strychnine, but admitted that none was found in the body. The proof was therefore of an entirely circumstantial character, illustrating minutely the pecuniary transactmns of the prisoner, the probable w kich might actuate him to comnut the crime, the opportunities he had for administering the poison, and the evidence of medical men and professional chemists as to the nature and action of that Sentence of death was passed the execution taking place at Stafford on the 16th June, The criminal slept his last sleep quietly, and in the morning, when the chaplain entered his cell, declared himself to be comfortable and quite prepared. When asked by the High Sheriff whether he was prepared to acknowledge the justice of his sentence, he replied with energy, “No, sir, I do not; I go to the scaffold a murdered man.” He moved forward to the drop with a light step, and nothing but the pallor of his face showed any undercurrent of feeling. He died, to all appearances, instantaneously. 1857—June 30.—Commenced before the High Court of Justiciary, Edinburgh, the trial of Madelaine H. Smith for poisoning Pierre Emile L’Angelier, The Lord-Advocate (Moncreiff) conducted the case for the Crown, and the Dean of Faculty (Inglis) defended the panel. Evidence was led at great length to show the ‘relation in which the accused stood to the deceased—a relation illustrated by the production of above 100 letters, prints,* portraits, and books, showing that a guilty intercourse had been carried on for months between them, in the prospect of an early marriage. It was also shown that the deceased died from the effects of arsenic ; that the. prisoner was known to have purchased and kept poison of that kind in her possession ; that though there was no witness, of any interview, he was seen proceeding in the direction of prisoner’s house 'on the night when poison was last administered; that she had opportunities for administering it; and that she had a motive for his removal in the fact that she was at the time of his decease about to, contract marriage with a person of higher social standing. The evidence for the prosecution was continued over five days and a portion of the sixth ; exculpatory evidence completed the sixth day. The seventh was taken up by the speech of the Lord-Advo-cate, marked throughout by a rare spirit of moderation and feeling. On the ninth day the Dean of Faculty addressed the Court for the prisoner in a speech of great power. “ The charge against the prisoner,” he began, “is murder, and the punishment of murder is death; and that, simple statement is sufficient to suggest to us the awful solemnity of the occasion which brings you and; me face to face. But, gentlemen, there are peculiarities in the present case of I so singular a kind—there isijsuch an air of romance and mystery investing it from beginning to end—there is something so touching and exciting in the age, and the sex, and the social position of the accused ay, and I must add, the public attention is so directed to the trial, that they watch our proceedings, and hang on our very accents, with such an anxiety and eagerness of expectation, that I feel almost bowed down and overwhelmed by the magnitude of. the task that is imposed on me. You are invited and encouraged by the prosecutor to snap the thread of that young life, and to consign to an ignominious death on the scaffold one who? within a few short months, was known only as a gentle, confiding, and affectionate girl, the ornament and pride of her happy home. Gentlemen, the tone in which my learned friend the Lord-Advocate addressed you yesterday could not fail to strike you as most remarkable. It was characterised by great moderation—by such moderation as I think must have convinced you that he could hardly expect a verdict at your hands; and in the course of that address, for which I give him the highest credit, he could not resist the expression of his own deep feeling of commiseration for the position in which the prisoner is placed—an involuntary homage paid by the official prosecutor to thakind and generous nature of the man. But, gentlemen, I am going to ask you for something very different from commiseration ; 1 am going to ask you for that which I will not condescend to beg, but which I will' loudly and importunately demand—that to which every person is*en-

titled, whether she be the lowest of hsr sex or the maiden whose purity is as the unsunnecl snow. I ask you for justice ; and if you will kindly lend me your attention for the requisite period, and if Heaven grant me patience and strength for the task, I shall tear to tatters that web of sophistry in which the prosecutor has striven to involve this, poor girl and her sad stiange story.” After a most careful examination of the evidence, and the degree in which it bore on the prisoner, the Dean concluded his speech of four hours’ duration by an expression of unwillingness to part with the .jury : “ Never did I feel as if I had said so little as *1 feel now after this long address. I cannot explain it myself except by a strong and overwhelming conviction of what your verdict ought to be. lam deeply conscious of a personal interest in your verdict, for if there should be any failure of justice, I could attribute it to no other cause than my own inability to conduct the defence; and I am persuaded that, if it were so, the recollection of this day, and this prisoner, would haunt me as a dismal and blighting spectre to the end of life. May the Spirit of . all Truth guide you to an honest, a just, and a true verdict! But no verdict wul be either honest, or just, or true, unless it at once satisfy the reasonable scruples of the severest judgment, and yet leave undisturbed, and unvexed, the tenders 5t conscience among you.” The jury found the panel not guilty of the. first charge in the indictment by a majority; of the second and third charges not proven by a majority.

1862—September 16.—Commenced at the Glasgow Circuit Court, before* Loyd Dease, the trial of Jessie M'lutosh (or M‘Lachlan), for the murder of Jessie M'Pherson, in the dwelling-house, Sandyford-place, on the night of the 4th July preceding. The prisoner pleaded not guilty, and without prejudice to that plea, specially pleaded that the murder alleged in the indictment was committed by James Fleming. The murder was discovered on the afternoo » of the 7th July, the examining surgeon testifying that the woman hM been murdered with extreme ferocity'; that her death had taken place within three days ; that a severe struggle had ensued before death; that such an instrument as a cieaverfor cutting meat—or a similar weapon—was that most likely to have caused the fatal injuries; that all the wounds on. the neck and head, with the exception of those on the forehead, had been inflicted by a person standing over the deceased as she lay on her face on the ground; and that the body had been drawn by the head, with the face downward, along the lobbyfrom thekitchen to the front room. It was now set forth in evidence that the prisoner was on terms of intimacy with the deceased, and often visited at the house in Sandyford-place ; that on the 4th of July she was very much in want of money, being then behind with her rent, and with many articles in f pawn; that on the above evening she dressed herself in a particular manner described by one of the witnesses—part of it being a brown merino gown, bonnet, and boots, none of which were now forthcoming ; and she went out saying.she was going to see Jessie M‘Phersqn, and was seen about halfway to Fleming’s house; that she did not return till next morning between eight and nine o’clock ; that within a few hours she pawned various articles'of silver plate stolen from the house in Sandyford place; that she was seen wearing certain articles of clothing known to have belonged to the deceased ; and that to the prisoner was traced the despatch of a box to Hamilton, found to contain most of the clothing stolen from the house. At the close of, the fourth day of trial, the jury returned a verdict of guilty on the double charge of murder and theft. Sentenced to death, afterwards commuted to penal servitude for life.

__ .1865—July 3. — Commenced before the High Court of Justiciary, Edinburgh, the trial of Dr. 'E. W. Pritchard, charged with poisoning his wife and mother-in-law in the course of the mouths of February and March preceding. The leading facts brought out m evidence by the Crown were that Mrs Pritchard was seized with illness; the symptoms being constantly recurring sickness and vomiting. In November she went 1 to Edinburgh oh a visit to her parents, and while there recovered tolerable health. On returning to her husband’s house, a few days before Christmas, she had a relapse of the old . complaint, which continued at intervals with ■ greater or less severity down to the day of her death. On the 10th of. November Mrs Taylor came from Edinburgh to nurse her daughter. Two days afterwards that lady had an attack of sickness on eating some tapioca which had been prepared for her daughter, and on the evening of the 25th was suddenly seized with an illness which terminated her life within four or five hours. In the case of Mrs Taylor it was proved that she had been dosed with antimony, but the symptoms manifested just before her death were shown to be the effects of aconite, a poison which the prisoner had in his possession, and which was discovered by Dr Penny to have been introduced into a bottle of Battley’s mixture used by the old lady. Pritchard was sentenced to death, and, after various confessions, was executed 28th July, 1865.

1869. The nearest parallel to the Wainwnght case came on for investigation in the early part of 1869, when William Seword delivered himself up at the Lambeth Police Court as the person who had murdered hie wife at Norwich and dismembered her in June, 1851. He said he could keep the secret no longer, and had for several days left home with the intention of destroying himself. “I went,” he said,’ “last night (New Year’s Day) to a house in Richmond street, Walworth, where I first saw my first wife, and that so brought it to my mind that I was obliged to come and give myself up, ” In reply to a question; as to the condition in which the remains were found, some of them boiled, he said, “Oh, don’t say anymore; it is too horrible to talk about. - Sentenced to death on his own confession, *and executed at Norwich, 20th April, 1860. 1870—May 23.—Murder of the Marshall family—seven in number—at Denham, Uxbridge. A tramp named Jones was afteis wards tried, convicted, and executed for this frightful crime.

18/2—January 12.-rThe Rev. John Selby Watson, found guilty at the Central Criminal Court of the murder of his wife, and sentenced to death by Mr Justice Byles. Regarding the plea of insanity urged on his behalf, the prisoner, before sentence was passed, said “ I only wish to say that the defence which has been maintained in my favor is a just and honest one.” The Crown aftex wards gave effect to the, jury’s recommendation to mercy, and commuted the extreme penalty to confinement for life.