SINGULAR CONFESSION OF MURDER.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2242, 20 November 1886, Page 3

SINGULAR CONFESSION OF MURDER.

An old woman named Susannah Tickle, of no settled address or occupation, was charged at Manchester on October flth, on her own confession, with the wilful murder of her son, aged four years, in 18(54. A week ago the prisoner went into the police station, and said she wished to give herself up on a chaigo of killing her son. Sho told the inspector that in 18(54 she was living in a disreputable house in the neighbourhood of Stretford-road, and she took the child and threw it into the river Irwell. ne.ir Pomona Gardens. She added that her conscience had troubled her ever since, and she wished to have the matter settled. Sergeaut Wild said he had made inquiries, and discovered that the prisoner did live in >uch a house 22 years ago. He had found a woman who knew the prisoner at that time, and knew that she had a child. This woman missed the little boy in 18G4, and when she questioned the prisoner about it the prisoner said her uncle had got the child and was bringing it up for her The child was born on March 24, ISfiO, and was registered in April of the salt c year as James Maguire, son of Susan Maguire, a single woman. He had been unable to find any record of a child having been found drowned in the Irwell about that time, nor could he find any record of its burial. The child certainly disappeared about the middle of 18(54, and the piisoner's bi other said he asked the prisoner what had become of the child, and she told him she had put him in a " home," but refused to tell where. Since the orisoner had been remanded she h%d been examined by the gaol surgeon, who certified that she was of unsound mind, and the magistrate now committed her to the Manchester workhouse as a lunatic.