THE RAINHILL AND WINDSOR MURDERS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2355, 12 May 1892, Page 3

THE RAINHILL AND WINDSOR MURDERS.

Melbourne, May 10. The Executive Council yesterday had the case of Williams (Deeming) under consideration, when it was decided not to interfere with the sentence of death which was passed on him. The execution was fixed for 10 o’clock on the morning of Monday, the 23rd instant. In the course of frequent conversations with the gaol chaplain Deeming has for the first time deliberately confessed to the murder of his last wife (Emily Mather). His account, though mixed up with statements that are evidently falsehoods and and pure invention, is in the main a credible story. He says that he made four attempts. The first took place in London, shortly after his marriage. He was awakened nightly by a visitation from his mother’s spirit, commanding him to kill his wife. For some time he resisted these promptings, but the impulse at length became so strong that he crept quietly out of bed and seized a chair with the intention of dashing out his wife’s brains. She woke, however, at the critical moment, and, seeing his intention, jumped to the other side of the bed in time to escape an attack. He managed by some means to explain away his conduct, and they lived happily together until their arrival in Melbourne, Thou, while staying at the Federal Coffee Palace, he was moved once more by the same impulse. It became so strong that he awoke his wife one night and implored her to leave him and go away, else he would murder her. She threw her arms around his neck and told hinvshe would rather die than leave him. The murderous fit on this occasion lasted about half-an-hour. On December 18th he took the house in Andrew Street, Windsor, and stopped there three nights, the 18th, 19fch, and 20th. On the night of the 19 th, yielding to some murderous impulse, ho attempted to cut his wife’s throat, and she was only saved by her awaking suddenly. On the following night he awoke at 2 o’clock in the morning, and found his wife sitting up in his bed peeling an apple with a large claspknife. He wrenched the knife from her and cut her throat. When the murder was done, he was seized with uncontrollable fear of the dead body, and rushed out of the house. Deeming alleges that he paid a man £lO to bury the body, and cannot account for having purchased cement and tools beforehand. A knife answering the description of that said to have been used was found among the murderer’s effects.

Deeming repeats the story of the Rainhill murders as given at the inquest by his first wife’s sister. Miss Rounsfell has visited him privately, and Deeming gave her sketches of tombstones in a South African cemetery, between which he said £II,OOO worth of property was buried. He received the decision of the Executive, fixing his execution for Monday as the best news they could bring him. Later. Deeming is engaged in writing a history of his life. He states that he intends to make a full confession of the Rainhill and Windsor murders. He has assigned all his property to Mr Lyle, his solicitor, for the purpose of paying the expenses attending his defence.

Melbourne, May 3. The trial of “Albert Williams,” otherwise Frederick Bayley Deeming, for the murder of Emily Mather at Windsor, began on Thursday, April 28th, in the Supreme Court before Mr Justice Hodges and-j a jury. There was a great demand for seats, but admittance could only be obtained by ticket, and those who had failed to provide themselves with one of the passes issued by Sheriff Anderson were left lamenting outside. The police had the strictest orders, and the magic words “ press ” and “ barrister ” was no effectual “ open sesame,” as many of those who attempted them discovered. The evidence was in the main the same as at the inquest, and boro out the history of the crime as it is familiar to every reader. The new evidence was that of the doctors who were called by the Crown on the question of the man’s sanity—Dr Shields (the Government medical officer), Dr Dfck (superintendent of Yarra Bond Asylum for many yqais), and Dr J (city health officer), These gentlemen wore cross-examined by Mr Doakju at great length, but the astute political! has had no experience at the bar, and he did harm rather than good by his questioning. The three doctors declared most decisively that they could perceive no trace of insanity in the prisoner, His father and mother and alj his relations might hays been lunatics, that would not their opinion that when they saw the prisoner in the Melbourne Gaol he was not a lunatic. He was able, said Dr Shields, to ! give a close and intelligent attention to | his questioners for two hours at a stretch ami not betray the remotest symptom of v a mental want, Tnmj his mom), gtamkuxl

was low; but he appreciated fully the fact that the general moral standard was higher than his own, and that in following out his own he was offending against the law. And it was true, also, that he attempted in various ways to impress the doctors with a belief in his insanity. He u shammed ” outrageously. For instance, ho told Dr Shields he saw his mother beside him every morning about 2 o’clock. She whispered to him, and he had to “ shout ” back to her. Dr Shields asked the warder in charge : “ Do you hear him shout out in the night 1 ” “ No,” replied the warder. But that night he did shout out.- The matter.-of-fact, common-sense doctor could only regard this as a clear attempt at imposition. Another statement the doctor could not swallow w<is that he always, as regularly as his birthday came round, lost consciousness for the day, or perhaps for a day and a-half. These and many others the doctor believed to be deliberate lies invented to impose upon him. Herewith is summarised from the report in the Argus a description of the proceedings on the final day : The impressive drama which has been enacted for four days past in the Criminal Court was brought last night to the only termination which it was possible for those apprised of the evidence to expect. Late in the evening Frederick Bayley Deeming, alia* Albert Oliver \Villiams, after having the advantage of an eloquent and stirring address on his behalf by his leading counsel (Mr Deakin), and after supplementing this by making from the dock, by his owo mouth, one of tne most extraordinary orations ever heard in a court of justice, was sentenced to death for the murder of his wife at Windsor. Pregnant with interest as the proceedings of the previous day had been, they were far eclipsed by the combined fascination and horror which held the auditors during some of the concluding passages of this remarkable trial. These feelings were first provoked early in the day, when Dr Springthorpe, the first of the medical witnesses for the defence, entered the box, and began to recount the prisoner’s statements to him, made in gaol, concerning his own past and his family history. Much of this was in the fullest sense horrible and revolting. True or false, no names were spared, and so objectionable were certain of the statements that the doctor endeavoured to avoid reading this portion of the autobiography. At first the effort was unsuccessful, and the court was informed of the prisoner’s unsupported assertion of a horrible case of incest in his own family. Subsequently, however, the witness paused again when he came to statements which he described _as « gross ” concerning the Beverly marraige. As they affected living persons he was most reluctant to read them, and Jwas successfully supported by Mr Deakin in this objection. One obvious result attended these revelations, and that was the gradual but complete crumbling away of all lingering doubt as to whether the prisoner denied in any way his identity with Froderick Bayley Deeming. Another branch of this extraordinary autobiographical statement related to the prisoner’s physical condition. The numerous female spectators who occupied seats in court had their ears presumably offended by a repulsive recital of the maladies contracted by the prisoner, and subsequently to further details from the lips of Dr Springthorpe as'to the ferocious sentiments towards a certain class of women professed in consequence by Deeming. But the most painful sensation of horror, and astonishment which had yet been experienced agitated the crowded assemblage in court at the passages which were now to come. Against both wives—the woman buried with her murdered children beneath the floor at Raiuhill. and the unhappy girl battered and gashed to death in the Windsor cottage—the prisoner had advanced charges gross and atrocious. The first wife he had forgiven twice for unfaithfulness —she had foisted upon him two children which wore not his own j the second wife, Emily Mnther, had been the, accomplice of another man in the appalling massacre of his first wife and little ones at Raiuhill, had pressed him into marriage with her, had deceived and finally deserted him in Melbourne. With literally bated breath the auditors listened to deliberate assertions that Emily Mather was now hiding from justice because the Eainhill horror and her own guilty complicity in it had been discovered. The following are some of the more important passages of Dr Springthorpe’s recital of the statements made to him in ' gaol by the prisoner, and upon which he founded his belief that the prisoner was insane or partly so ;—•

The prisoner told me that his father had been cranky, and died in an asylum ; that his mother had been in an asylum before his birth. His brother Sam, ho said was in an asylum, but that only his brother Aibert knew of this. Another brother was asthmatic. He had three sisters, one of whom suffered from a serious family trouble. Plis ago he said was between 30 and 39, his name Frederick Deeming. He remembered nothing of his life before 12 years of age, except'that he was in an asylum. From 12 to 16 ho was always ill and in mischief, and he was called “ Mad Fred” Hp saiq l t e threw a girl into a canal for calling him “ Mad Fred,” but pulled her out again ; then he threw her in again, and left her. He never know what fear was, and on one occasion went into a cave and shot two lions and captured a lion cub, which he took home to Liverpool, From the age of lo years he had been fond of women, whom he liked to ntako happy. He would spend anything for a girl whom he liked, and one occasion he spent £IOO over a girl whom ho never saw again, and did not know. He was never with a girl for a week, but she wanted to many him. On his birthday lie was always unconscious of Ips QWU oxistoupo, Avdiiph he ascribed tq the fact that his mother was Unconscious at the time of his birth and for throe days afterwards. Ho had questioned his parents on this subject, and had told his father_ that he suspected there was something worse. His father’s reply was to knock him on the head. Ho stated that he is y|sit«d by hi f! melh ol ' at 2 o’clock 1 every morning, and that she always tells j him that whenever lie has a lady friend I ho is to kill her, and that ho must also i kill his wife. So ranch did these admonitions disturb him that he has often got up and taken a revolver to shoot his wife while she slept. His wife knew of this because his mother had told her in 1 " MUf

her slsep. His mother continually pestered him in this way, and told him not to tell anyone even his brother. She had always told him that he was born to be hanged, but that if he lived 40 years he would become a good man. He sent his wife to England to get her out of the way, though she didn’t want to go. His wife never saw his mother, but he told her why he was sending her away, and she implored him to rather kill her. He had £II,OOO buried in two boxes in South Africa. He mentioned a character known as old Ben Young, or Old Ben as he calls him, whom he got from Mrs Mather and Miss Mather to carry out repairs to the house, for which Mrs Mathor was agent. He says that his ife came down there, and that he refused to go near her; that Old Ben came down to him at his hotel —the Barnhill Arms—and said, “If you give £SO, your wife says she will go away.” He says that he did give her the £SO and that he never saw her again. He says also that Old Ben told him that she had gone away, and that he (the accused) helped to send the luggage and wrote the pieces of paper with the address. A few days afterwards he was out for a drive with Miss Mather whom he had previously told that he was a married man, and on this occasion she asked him if he. would marry her. He said it was impossible. ShoSrepliod, “ The obstacle is removed.” Then ho seized her by the throat and asked her wbat she meant. She made no answer then, but when they drove back homeward and as they got near home she said, “ Aren’t we going to be friends ? ” He asked her again what she meant. She said, “ Never mind; but tell me.” He then said he would marry her if she promised to tell him. Then she told him and he took an oath not to betray her, and they were married. Then the narrative goes on to the other murder. He says that as they neared Adelaide he noticed his wife disconsolate, and asked what was the matter. She then said that she was not his wife, because she had a husband already living. When they came to Melbourne they were coming out of the Cathedral Hotel and mot Hughie Hughes. Then they had an altercation in the street, and decided to separate. He did not think she was mnrdered, because he saw her again on December 29 on his way to Gippsland. The reason she did not appear now was that the Bainhill murders had been found out, and she feared that she w ould be accused of being the accomplice of Old Ben. I have here a sworn copy of aletter which he wrote to Mrs Mather in reference to that. It reads :

“23/4/92. “Dear Mother, —I don’t know what you will think of the newspaper reports, but you may rest assured that Emily is not dead, but alive and well so far as I know. There has been a wrong identity of the body found. I have no more idea whoso body it is than you have, but it is not Emily’s. But if Emily’s whereabouts is known she will be ari'ested for the Barnhill murders. Of course you know all the particulars, and who was her associate. Emily told you all about it. My advice to you is to make the matter known to the police at once. Emily will keep out of the way. Do so at once, and have the man arrested. lam sorry you did not tell me of Emily’s first .marriage. You knew she could not be my wife, even if I had married her. It is, of course, easy to see your idea for having the marriage so quietly conducted, and not even let your own friends know or when it was to take place. If you decide on telling the police all you know of the affair please wire me as soon as you get this. I have sworn not to betray Emily in any way. I know what her suffering must be now. If the trial goes against me you will surely not let the public think I was guilty. Hoping you will think the matter over, and do whatever you think best—l remain, your son, “ Albert, <• Known hero as Baron Swanston.”

Dr Fishbourne gave evidence as to the prisoner’s state of mind. Mr Deaken addressed the court in a fine oratorical efl’ort, but his speech made no great impression.

Mr Walsh, the Crown Prosecutor, then occupied 40 minutes in again pointing out the strength and completeness of the chain of evidence forged against the prisoner. Hardly had he ceased when the court was startled by the voice of the prisoner. He had risen composedly, and advancing to the front of the dock, demanded, in spite of his counsel’s advice, to say a few words on his own behalf. Although the time chosen was irregular no objection was offered by the Crown, and Deeming began to speak. He was deliberate and clear in speech, and although his voice is naturally harsh and rasping, there was no unpleasant ring in it during an oration which occupied nearly an hour in delivery. Occasionally there t was a break, as when he referred again and again to w orthlesssness of life to him—namely, the consciousness of his own innocence and of the fact that Emily Mather was still living. One heavy hand he rested upon documents placed upon the little ledge in front of him, and with wide open eyes fixed upon the jury-box he alternately expostulated and protested, but always with deliberation, mildness, and a very perfectlyassumed air of undeserved martyrdom. Every head was turned towards the dock as ho commenced speaking, and Deeming found the scrutiny intolerable. “You can hear very well, _ gentlemen, without staring at me,” ho said in a deprecating tone, and for the time, but only for the time, glances were averted. It required no more than tbo first sentences to show what the man was, and to provoke once more speculations as to how he CO uld by any process of reasoning have successfully passed himself off for a man occupying a good station in life. The slight nervousness which almost imperceptibly affected him at the commencement played havoc with his aspirates, and in numberless other ways during his lengthy speech he showed himself to be a man utterly uneducated, yet acute, cool, and watchful to a more than ordinary degree. It was really a sole mb farce that was now being played out before the hushed court,

Tho jarring and generally painful address of tlie prisoner was succeeded at last by the calm tones of the judge. Moving the candlesticks which were placed to light his desk so that lie could command an uninterrupted view of the -jury, His Honour turned in his scat so as to confront them, and commenced with an impressive warning that they should watch themselves agd free their minds

as far as possible from any prejudice which might have existed before the opening of the case. Ho reviewed lucidly the evidence step by step, making clear as it was inevitable he should do, many damning facts against the prisoner, yet stating impartially the alternatives presented to the jury. The address, which seemed short, lasted really for an hour and three quarters, and the retirement of. the jury for an hour and 20 minutes They returned at the end of that time and the semi-disorder into which the court had lapsed in the interval at once gave place to a profound stillness. The prisoner emerged from the cells below the dock with demeanour greatly changed from that which had characterised him during the close of his address. The broken voice and earnest utterance had given place to a sprightly air, and he faced the court with his hands in his pockets, and a decided smile upon his race. Whatever hope he might have had had, if any, was dispelled by a glance at the the jury box, and he forthwith pulled out a document and affected to peruse it intently. Therefore the verdict of guilty which was delivered in a low voice, did not seemingly reach his ears. He glanced up with an affected air of bright interrogation only when the loud challenge to the prisoner was pronounced and then he reported shortly, instead of at length, the disjointed remarks of the afternoon. It was dim candlelight now in the court, and the countenance of neither judge, jury, nor prisoner could be clearly seen, but in the voice of Deeming as it emerged from the gloom of the dock there was no falter or hesitation. His trial, once for all, had been unfair; his innocence must be shortly established; and he would only ask again that his Honor would pass sentence upon him without remark. In this he was not disappointed. Eyeing him steadily, but with a look of withering contempt, Mr Justice Hodge, announced that he had no intention to do more than pass the bare sentence upon him. “ That’s all I want,” interjected the prisoner with singular alacrity. Vanity seemed to rule the man’s nature even at that moment, and he desired merely leave to orate to a jury at length in ungrammatical sentences without being forced to listen in return to scathing utterances from the bench. The sentence was heard by the prisoner with folded hands and the same oddly cheerful expression of face. As the solemn words were finished he ejaculated “ Thank you,” tossed his head slightly, and with a smile that was half sneer left the dock.