MURDER IN ESSEX.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 589, 26 March 1851, Page 3

MURDER IN ESSEX.

[From the Atlas, 19th October.] A most revolting murder has been committed at the village of Donninghurst, in Essex. The facts of the case are these : Thomas Drory, the son of a most respectable yeoroan residing at Great Burstead, was in the occupation of three farms which his father had given up to him. During the last two years of the father’s possession, a man named Thomas Lust acted as bailiff to him, and his wife officiated as housekeeper, and his

daughter-in-law, Jael Denny, lived on the farm. In the course of the summer, Mr. Drory, sen., discovering some improper intimacy between his son and the daughter of the bailiff, gave them notice to quit the property in order to break off the connexion. Lust accordingly left, with his wife and daughter, and took up their abode in some cottages about half a mile from the farm. In the course of a few weeks the farm was left by Mr. Drory to his son’s management, and, notwithstanding his father’s strict injunctions, he resumed the intimacy with the unfortunate girl Denny. About this time it transpired that Drory was paying his addresses to another female, named Dilling, who resides in Brentwood ; and on the parents of Denny remonstrating with him as to the deceit he was practising, he denied paying suit to a second party. Eventually, however, he admitted such to be the case, and as the girl Denny was far advanced in pregnancy by him, she naturally importuned him for money. On Saturday afternoon, about four o’clock, she quitted her parent’s house, and at that time she appeared very ailing. She returned in a short time, and appeared in somewhat better spirits, which the mother ascertained to have resulted from her having met Drory, and his promising to marry her. She said that he had arranged to meet her in half an hour or so, and she thought all would •be happy yet with her. At the time appointed she left, and shortly afterwards was seen in Drory’s company walking over some meadows away from their homes. She was never afterwards seen alive. Her parents waited up the whole night in anxious suspense for her return. At daybreak the father-in-law, Lust, started out in one direction in search, and the mother in another. After wandering about for two or three hours, the father, in passing through a field, known as the Sevenacre Field, belonging to the farm of Mr. George Combrere, a mile distant from the poor man’s cottage, noticed what he thought to be an ox lying on the grass at a secluded part of a meadow which is overshadowed by a thick clump of trees. On approaching it he discovered it to be the body of a female, and -a closer examination proved to him that it was that of his unfortunate step-daughter. She ■lay with her face downwards, and a brief glance sufficed to show that she had been strangled by a rope, which had been twisted several times round her neck. Intelligence ■of the discovery was instantly conveyed to Mr. Coulson, the superintendent of the Essex ■constabulary stationed at Brentwood ; and in consequence of private information which was ■furnished that officer, he proceeded al once to trace out Mr. Thomas Drory. On his way to Doddinghurst he found him at a farmhouse. When the door was opened, Drorv was seated in front of the fire, and be never turned round when he heard Mr. Coulson making inquiries for him until the officer addressed the owner of the farm, and said, ** Why, that is Mr. Drory, is it not ?” Drory then got up, and the officer desired his company to see the girl Denny, who had been found dead in the meadow that morning. Drory went with Mr. Coulson, but on reaching the meadow he hesitated in following him. The officer, however, insisted upon his proceeding, and as they advanced to the body, which was left in the same state as when it was discovered, he became deadly pale and could scarcely walk. On reaching the corpse he turned his head away, and walked aside while Mr. Coulson carefully examined it. Her features were shockingly distorted, with marks of blood about her face and clothes. A pftrsory glance of the rope or thick sash/line, which was securely twisted round the throat, penetrating the flesh of the neck, proved at ■once that she had been strangled, while severe marks on her hands, as if they had been bitten or torn, indicated the desperate struggle she had been engaged in, and the utter impossibility of her having committed the act herself. On the cord being released the neck and throat were discovered to be cut, and the flesh excoriated by the violence with which the rope had been drawn. The impression of the officer and those collected on the spot was that the noose had been slipped over the head and drawn from behind, and that the rope was then twisted three or four times round so tight as to effect strangulation. The coroner’s jury, on Thursday night, after a patient investigation, returned a unanimous verdict of “ Wilful Murder” against Thomas Drory.

The murdered woman is described as being a person of commanding stature and ladylike demeanour. She was five feet nine inches high, and was generally considered the belle of the village. She was in her twenty-first year. Drory had just completed his twentythird year. He is described as being welllooking, about five feet six inches in height. He wore when he was apprehended a fustian jacket, corduroy breeches, and leather gaiters. He does not appear to have been addicted to intemperate habits, nor, until the period of the murder, to have been at all viciously disposed.