The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1871-05-13 00:00:00

THE ELTHAM MURDER.

On Saturday, at the Greenwich Police-court, Edmund
Walter Pook, aged 20, w. charged on remand with the
Wilful murder of Jane Male Clousen.
-

Mr. Poland, on the part of the Solicitor to the Tem'.
Fury, attended to pronecute. Mr. Wilds (instructed
by Mr. J. L. Pulling) attended for the relatives of the
deceased girl ; and Mr. Moore watched the cane di the
part of the Annociate Institute for the Protection of
Women and Children.

'itTe prisoner, on being placed in the dock, did not
exhibit any depression of spirits, and appeared to listen
atteLtively.
Mr. Poland, addressing the magistrate, said it was
only on the previous day that the Solicitor to the
Treasury had been instructed in the case, which had
been very properly conducted up t that time by Mr.
Pulling; but the case was deemed to Ile of so much
public importance that it was felt the expense of a
prosecution should not fall upon private individuals.
and, therefore, a prosecution at the public expense had
been deterwined upon. He had, without offering any
further evidence that day, to ask that the prisoner
might be again remanded for a week, as at the present
time the clothes worn by the prisoner on the Light of
the murder were in the bands of Professor Letheby for
an analysis of stains own them, which would have to
be very carefully made, in addition to which there were
inquiries into other matters of grest importance going
on, which the police by that time would be prepared to
offer in evidence.

Mr. Pooh said that on the part of the accused ho
must most strenuously oppose the application made ti
remand the prisoner, and he was astounded that such
an application should have been made by the learned
counsel, knowing well that for days past a foul stigma
hail rested on the head of the young man in the dock,
but whose character he was then prepared with evidence
to clear. At the last examination the Court had
observed that at that time there was no evidence
against the prisoner, but on hearing from the police
that evidence would be produced, it had, in its dis-
cretion, ordered the prisoner's remand, it being under-
stood from the police that by that day they would be
prepared with such evidence. They were not now
ready, but he had witneaswe in attendance who would
fully and precisely account for every minute of the
time when the fearful murder was committed as to
where the prisoner was, and believing it was the duty
of the Crown to protect as much the prisoner as the
public, he had to ask that these witnesses might be
called with a view to bail being taken.. It was also
necessary before any wljournment that the polices ulcers
should again be called into the witness-box in order that
he should put some questions to them. Ile had to aek that
the prisoner might be admitted to bail, the only
evidence in the case yet taken befog hearsay, the idle
tittle-tattle of one woman to another. He believed
that in the end the prisoner's innocence would be
proved, that he would be received with acclamations
by his friends, and that the public would be satisfied
that justice had been done in the case. It would be
' proved where the prisoner was for days and days, and
that he knew nothing of the deceased ; and if the
police bad acted upon information which there had
been an anxiety to give them, he believed they might
now have been on the track of a man who might be
supposed to be the real murderer, lie a'so complained
that at the last examination the police had suppressed
one remarkable fact, that the prisoner had been placed
among other persons for the purpose of identification
without any result.
, Mr. Poland said the question before the Court was
as to granting a remand, and that any attack on the
conduct of the police could be made at another time.
The police had not yet had sufficient time to conclude
the Inquiries they were now making, and it was a
question whether, in the interests of Pottier, the pri-
soner should be remanded or no.. He was glad to
hear that there were witnesees to be called to pro% e
the prisoner's innocence, but he had to ask that the
pr secution should first preduce the evidence it had to
offer before evidence for the defence was taken.
, Mr. Pock said that there had been a formal under-
taking on the part of the police at the last examination
that they would be prepared with evidence by that
day. The prisoner had been apprehended on the sus-
picion of a detective officer, and not upon a warrant
granted after prima facie evidence had been given and
considered by the experienced mind of a magistrate.
The Magistrate here that after what he had
heard
from Mr. Pols, hat there were important
' inquiries still being , he Lhould order a further
remand of the prisoner until Saturday next.
Mr. Pooh said he hoped his Worship would instruct
the police to make inquiries fully into the information
which they had received respecting the purchassr of
toe hammer produced as the instrument with which
the murder was committed.

Mr. Poland said that a report of all the information
given to the police in the matter would be made to the
Solicitor of the Treasury and every possible inquiry
would be made respecting it.
The prisoner was then removed, and later in the day
he was re-conveyed to Maidstone Gaol.
After the examination of the accused at the police.
court a young man, named Henry Humphreys, a com-
positor, living at a, Edmund-street, Camberwell, was
introduced to Mr. Superintendent Griffin as being able
to give some information ab rut the locket which the
deceased was found wearing, and which he stated he
had himself given to the deceased sometime since when
employed at the printing-office of the father of the
accused, but from whose service he was discharged.
Being closely questioned, he gave the name of the
tradesman at win to shop be bought the locket --Mr.
Raridell. jeweller, of London-street, Greenwich—and
on Mr. Superintendent Griffin and Humphreys going
there the latter was at once recognized by a woman in
the shop as the purchaser of the locket in question,
which, it will be remembered, was said by one of the
witnesses examined at the inquest the deceased had
stated had been given to her by her young master,
the accused. During Friday night a handker-
chief was picked up in the lace a short distance
from the scene of the murder, but this does not appear
to give any further clue to the affair. Oa the part of
the accused it is stated that evidence will be forth-
coming showing that at 23 minutes after seven in the
evening of the murder be was at the library of the
Greenwich Literary Institution, Royal-hill, a very
eihort distance from his father's house, and that after-
wai-ds he was at Lcwishani, as stated, and returning
home before nine for the night. Ole evidence of the
witness Lazell, who spoke to seeing the accused in
company with a woman in Kidurookedane about seven
o'clock on the evening in question, is at variance with
1 that of the landlady of the house in which the deceased
hail been staying. The latter says the deceased left her
at the end of a street in Deptford at 20 minutes before
seven, and to have reached the spot where Lazell Etat, d
I he MR, the accused and a woman the must have gone a
distance of more than three miles.