CHILD-MURDER BY A LADY, AND SUICIDE OF THE ACCUSED.

Thames Guardian and Mining Record, Volume I, Issue 7, 14 October 1871, Page 3

CHILD-MURDER BY A LADY, AND SUICIDE OF THE ACCUSED.

The most profound sensation has been produced throughout the county of Hereford by a report that Miss Fanny Goss, the sister of the rector of Kingsland, in that county, had murdered a child to which she had given birth, and on being accused of the offence had committed suicide in her own bedroom. These facts arc unfortunately too true. It appears that on the 11th August, James Merrick, the garduer at the rectory, discovered the dead body of a full-grown infant child in a drain connected with a water-closet which he bad a few days before been requested by Miss Goss to “lime,” but which he had declined to do, as the closet drain debouched into the river, and the lime would kill the fish. Merrick communicated the fact of finding the body to the rector, the Rev. W. Goss, and also to the police, and on the following day an inquest was held upon the body by Mr. 11. Moore,the coroner for that part of the county of Hereford. The evidence went to show that the child had been murdered, a string being tied tightly round its throat. The inquest was then adjourned to the 28th instant, to give the police time to make inquiries with the view of fixing the maternity of the child, and the consequence was that a strict watch was kept on the inmates of the house, and the coroner, from what h?d come to his knowledge, thought proper to direct that the females connected with the establishment should all uddergo a medical examination to satisfy the demand of justice that not one of them had. recently given birth to a child. The medical gentlemen who received the coroner’s precept to perform the duty were Mr Barnett, of Leominster, and Mr Chattaway, of Kingsland, and on Saturday last these gentlemen visited the rectory just in time to prevent Miss Goss taking her leave for Barrow-in-Furness, whither she was going for the benefit of change of air. Miss Goss was apprised by. the police, as she was going to the railway - station with her brother, that she must return, and submit herself to the examination of Drs. Barnett and Chattaway. She returned to the rectory (her brother proceeding on by rail to Hereford, to see the.bishop of the diocese), but she declined to allow herself to be communicated with until her brother’s return from Hereford in the evening, and she therefore locked herself up in her bedroom. Messrs. Barnett and Chattaway first communicated with Miss Goss through the medium of Maiy Price, the maid, but Miss Goss refused to sec them. After waiting for a time Mr. Chattaway proceeded to Miss Goss’s bedroom door, and begged her to lose no time in removing this foul blot from her name, but she still declined to see them until the return of her brother, which she said would be by the three o’clock train. They therefore proceeded to the garden, about whieh they walked for some time, awaiting the return of the rector. While doing so they heard Miss Goss crying in her bedroom, Oh, dear, what shall I do?” They became alarmed, and returned to the house, and the reply they got was that Miss Goss was in hysterics. They then tried to get a ladder to obtain admission through Miss Goss’s bedroom window, but while they were doing so Mr. Chattaway discovered a way through the rector’s bedroom, which enabled him to go into the room occupied by Miss Goss. He had no sooner done so than he cried out to Mr. Barnett, “ For God’s sake come up, suicide has been committed !” They entered the room, and found Miss Goss lying across the bed with her left arm awfully severed in four places, and a basin containing the enormous quantity of ninety ounces of blood besides what saturated the bed. She had inflicted the wounds with one of her brother’s razors, and the determined nature of the act may be inferred from the fact that, in one instance, not only the llesh and blood-vessels, but the muscles above the elbow of the left arm were completely severed, and death must have followed in the course of seven or eight minutes. An examination of the body left no doubt whatever that Miss Goss had given birth to the child found on the lltli in the drain, and that she had delivered herself without any assistance whatever.

The inquest on the body commenced at ten o’clock on August 22, and did not terminate before seven o’clock in the same evening. The evidence was voluminous, and that of the girl Price and a widow named Bray, who attended Miss Goss while she was ill in bed after her confinement, was of such a character that a person of ordinary information must have suspected that something wrong had been done. Still they both protested that they had no suspicion whatever that Miss Goss had giverr birth to a-child. In reply to Mr Gwillim, of Hereford, who watched the inquiry on the part of the relatives of the deceased, Messrs Barnett and Chattaway said that from the dreadful state of distress in which she appeared while they were waiting in the garden for the return of the rector, they were of opinion that her reason had become so upset that she was scarcly answerable for her own actions. They did not think that any woman in a sound state of mind could have done as deceased had. In the first instance the jury, after some considerable deliberation, returned a verdict of concealment of birth ; and in the second, that Miss Goss committed suicide while laboring under temporary insanity. They also added that they absolved the rector from any knowledge that his sister had given birth to the child, anti desired to sympathise with him in liis deep distress of mind. —Home News.