THE PENGE MURDER.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 1052, 10 November 1877, Page 2

THE PENGE MURDER.

A late submarine telegram -report ed that Alice Rhodes, convicted of being concerned in what has been commonly called the Penge murder, had been granted a free pardon, while her companion, Lewis Staunton, had had his sentence of death reduced to one of penal servitude for life. As only very meagre accounts of this extraordinary case have hitherto been published, we give an outline of the facts condensed from the charge of the presiding judge, Sir James Stephen : It appears that the deceased woman, Harriet Staunton, was the wife of Lewis Staunton, one of the prisoners. She was thirtysix years of age, and of weak mind, so much so that her mother (Mrs Butterfield), three years ago, took proceedings in lunacy to have her declared a lunatic but failed, and a year later the deceased was married to Lewis Staunton. She had to the value of £2300, which her husband received. Shortly after the marriage, both the husband and wife forbade Mrs Butterfield their house on the ground of the late proceedings in lunacy. Subsequently Lewis StaUnton formed a criminal intimacy with Alice Rhodes, the sister of Elizabeth Staunton (his brother Patrick Staunton’s wife), and while living with her, sent hie wife, the deceased, to stay with Patrick and Elizabeth Staunton, at Woodlands, a lonely place in Kent, alleging as his reason her intemperate habits. During this time Alice Rhodes passed as bis wife, and the evidence showed that his real wife was most rigidly guarded by his brother and Elizabeth Staunton. In April last the deceased was taken by the four prisoners—the two brothers and two sisters—to lodgings in Penge. She was then ;o weak that she had to be carried, and the landlady was so shocked at her appearance that she remarked she looked more like a corpse than a living woman. Next day a doctor and nurse were sent for, who at once pronounced her dying, and she died the same afternoon. There was no provision of any kind for 1 er, and the nurse had to bring some linen to c over the body, which was in a most filthy c udition. Before even the body was laid out, the husband, Lewis Staunton, had ;iven oi c ers about the funeral, and the undertaker w; s in the house in less than an hour if ter the death. The medical attendant a certificate of death from apoplexy, >ut suHequently withdrew it, and gave nformation to the coroner, who ordered a >ost vurtem examination and an inquest. Meanwl ile the four prisoners had all mne aviy, leaving the body with the edging house landlady, also orders for the uneral i nd money to pay for it. They had Drought nothing but the woman herself, and

they simply left her dead body behind. The ■post mortem examination clearly indicated that death was caused by starvation and neglect, and that the deceased had not been addicted, as alleged by her husband, to drinking. The evidence showed most plainly that the unfortunate woman had been placed under restraint and deliberately starved to death by arrangement among the four prisoners, to get rid of her, in order that Lewis Staunton, having formed an adulterous connection with Alice Rhodes, might live with her undisturbed. The Grand Jury found a true bill against all four prisoners of conspiring together to starve the unhappy woman to death. They were tried accordingly, found “ Guilty,” sentenced to death, and—as telegraphed reprieved almost on the very scaffold.