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Hawke's Bay Times, Volume XIII, Issue 557, 5 March 1868, Page 2

hukkThi..f, mJiitAiifj AND MURDER IN; SHROPSHIRE. (From the Dally News, 26th December.) V esxekdat, on tbe very day the Alton murderer was adjudged to be hanged, a crime sigularly resembling his in its oha- • raster was brought to light in Shropshire, i The -victim in the present instance is a lit- 1 tie girl named Catherine Lewis, nice years i ani eight mouths old, and the man in custody on the charge of wilful murder is an agricultual laborer, named John Mapp. The scene of the outrage is a field situated between Longden Tillage and Longden i Common, a quiet agricultural district i about seven or eight miles from this town. ( From the particulars already in the posses- < sion of the police, it appears that on Sun- 1 day morning last tho deceased left her] j

? home, which is situated on the common :• for tbs house of a person named Davie?’ f lives in the village, and whose babv 3 s^e occasionaly nursed. She remsinod ’ there till 6 o’clock in the evening, when 1 S !! 8 . B t ar^ec ‘ S° to cliapeh On leaving ana a woman, a mutual acquaintance, who lived at Longden wood Farm. When the! three reached the lane which led to the | farm the woman turned aside and wentl ; onle _» Mapp and the deceased keeping onj * high road which led to Longden Com-I - mom This was a little after 8 o’clock, ana the deceased was never seen alive! igulii. On Monday morning iho prisoner! went to work in the fields as usual, and! r towards noon a ploughboy who was worki mg near him called out that 1m had found! a girl’s hat all covered with blood, at the ’ same time observing that there had been a row somewhere. Mapp told the lad to put the hat in a furrow and cover it up with the plough, but instead of doing so he throw it over the hedge into the high road. A women named Hartshorns, who had been at chapel on the previous evening, and had seen the deceased there, happened to pass along the 'road shortly 1 ) after, and picking up the hat recognised it} as the one then worn by the, deceased andi at once carried it to the father of the child. \ up to this time no anxiety as to the ab-! sence of the deceased had arisen, either! on the part of her parents or the Davieses,! the one concluding that she had stayed | to sleep at the village, and the other be-1 lieving that she had gone homo. But! wnen the hat saturated with blood was! brought to him. Mr Lewis at once star-! ted for the village, and learning that hls : daughter had not been seen since 8 o’clock I, on the previous night, a diligent search! was made in the neighborhood that lay j • between the two houses. Following cer-[. tain traces found in the field where theji hat had. been discovered, Mr Lewis went j to an old hovel which stood in an adjoin* i{ ing field, and on opening the door a shock , ing sight was presented to him. Lying , on her back upon the ground, with some , of the litter lightly covering her, was the ] body ot his child, with her throat cut from ear to ear, and so deeply as almost to j sever the head from the should ers. AI - shawl which she had worn on Sunday waaq tied round her neck, and one end thrust' tightly into hep mouth. There were ( several scratches upon her person, but , though there is no doubt us to the objee! . of the murderer, it is not known, pending the medical inquiry, whether or not he ( effected it. On the disc ;varv of the crime , suspicion was at once directed towards the \ prisoner, who strongly protested his iuno-l( cence, but at the same time made several ( inconsistent and damaging statements, f which will bo duly deposed at the ad f journed examination. On visiting the ■ scefte of the murder yesterday, Superin- { tendent Caertwell made nu important dis- , covery, which throws considerable light on , the affair, and forms a strong link in the| c chain of evidence winch connects the pri-L soner with it. It appears that on S itur ■ day Mapp was engaged in spreading , manure over the stubble field where the ; hat was found, and returned on Mondav j morning to complete the job. Instead, i however, of following on with the m mure e at the place, where ho had left off on t Saturday, he commenced at a place fifty ] yards further on, and here he piled up two i large heaps. On noticing this yesterdav, Superintendent Careswell raked away the manure, and underneath each heap ho found a large pool of blood, and close bv he picked up a veil belonging to deceased. Following up this clue, Carrswell traced the path of the murderer as he bad drag-b ged after him the body of the child along!' the hedgerow skirting the highway" through a gap in the hedge, and across* 1 grass field up to the hovel, a distance of £ about five hundred yards. The trail of - the body, which had become covered with t soil from the ploughed field, was plainly | clecernable on the grass. The ploughed i field is skirted by the highway, aloim t which the prisoner and deceased (who 1 were next door neighbors) would pass on i their way home, after leaving their com- ] panion at the farm, and the precise spot ; where the murder appears to have been i committed is close by agate which leads 1 ! off the road into the field. The inference,!] from from the evidence already obiainedji clearly is that the murderer suddenly as !< sailed the child in the road, and gaggingji her by means of her shawl, carried her into the field, and fearing the consequence of j ( the sure detection which must follow on i her return home, had been led into the t committal of murder. Supposing then prisoner to have been the perpetrator of ! the preliminary outrage, he had a special £ reason for keeping out of the hands of the 1 police, for he had only lately returned i with a ticket-of-leave, alter serving seven s of a term of ten years’ transportation, to f which he had been sentenced for a rape : upon an old woman, committed under i peculiarly atrocious circumstances. Mapp < was brought hero yesterday in custody, < and charged before the county magistrates £ with the wilful murder of Catherine Lewis.il but no evidence was taken beyond suebj* as was necessary for a remand. On the) usual question being put to him the pri |< soner made a statement to the effect that I« the deceased had been murdered, but that! I he was not the man. He was remanded j< for a week. i