MURDER AS A SPECULATION.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 137, 10 June 1879, Page 4

MURDER AS A SPECULATION.

On the sth February, Mrs. Alexander, the Connecticut murderese, was found guilty in (he second degree, and sentenced to tbe State prison for life. •The crime which she helped to commit was the ghastly oneof "burking"— killing people to obtain bodies to sell to physicians for dissenting purposes — •nd the details of the affair as brought out on tbe trial, were among the moat horrible and repulsive of aoy we have recently heard. Mrs Alexander, who is 44 years of age, and has bad several .husbands in her day, has lately been living in open shame with ooe Basset, who ia only 26 years old at Bridgeport. Ooe day last summer, " Stuttering Jack" Weiribecker, a drunken,, worthless, sailor, wandered into their house, and the interesting pair chloroformed him. Young Basse tt did ie, .while Mrs Alexander "stood by and witnessed the performance, she asserts under compulsion. Then they tied up the body, crowded it into a barrel, and, putting the horrible freight info a -ttoggofi, drove to New Haven, where

they endeavored to sell the remains (o Dr Sanford, of tbe Medical College. Mrs Alex nder, who had called upon him before this event in order to barffnin for the sale of her own body when dead, conducted the negotiation on the part of the "burkerß." But they failed, as they bad no certificate to show how or where they obtained tbe " subject, ' snd Dr Sanford would have noihiog to do with it. The next step was to conceal tbe evidence of their crime. The murderers drove a circuitous route home, and finding a suitable ravine near the road, buried the barrel where they thought no one would find it. But suspicion was fixed upon them; they were arrested, and Mrs Alexander made a foil confession. Tbe details of the eflair, whicb appear in Mrs Alexander's evidence on tbe trial ore hcrribly realistic. Bosaett, according to his Bccomplicr'fl account* duly chloroformed Weinbecker, tied him up witb her assistance, and then crowded bim into the barrel with as much complacency ! asi a housekeeper would dress a chicken, j After the murderers hod started off in the waggon, Mrs Alexander says Bhe heard a struggling, crying, sound, i seemingly proceeding from the barrel, which greatly frightened her. Was it tbe imagination of a guilly conscience, i o? was there n possibility too horrible : fdr though;. Mrs Alexander makes an interesting figure calliug upon Dr Sanford, aod trying to strike a bargain /or , the sale, not only of her own body, but of those of her husband still living, and of her son-in-law. She evidently intended to go into a thriving business, supplying the New Haven Medical College with subjects. Bassett, no doubt, will be feotenoed io the scaffold, A more conscienceless wretch, apparently never lived. He plainly s^ems -not to have realised, until he was arrested, that he had done anything criminal. It is a noticeable event that fthile the country is startled by lhe jobbery of A. T. Stuart's grave, the trial of a woman should be in progress for a crime of the Bame class, with a tnurder added only to make it possible. Both events make sad chapters in the history of our boasted nineteenth century.