The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1869-04-24 00:00:00

HIS CONFESSION.

The following confession was made by Sheward,
which sets at rest the doubts previously entertained by
a few as to the certainty of his guilt :

" City Gaol, Norwich, April 13, 1869, 245 p.m.
'THE VOLUNTARY CONFESSION OF WILLIAM SHEWARD,
UNDER SENTENCE OF DEATH IN THE ABOVE PRISON.

"In the year 1849, November, I placed a box of money,
having £9OO in it, in Mr. Chriatie'a possassion, for him to

" In the year 1850 and to June, 1051, I drew from that box
£l5O, during which time my wife wanted me to bring the
box home. Mr. Christie asked me if he might make use of
the money. My wife seemed determined to fetch the box
herself. 1 knew he could not give it to me. _

"On the 14th of June, 1801, Mr. Christie asked me to
go to Yarmouth to pay £l,OOO to a captain of a vessel laden
with salt, to enable him to unload on the Monday morning.
On Sunday morning, the 15th, I was going to Yarmouth on
the above errand. She (my wife) said ' You shall not go. I
will go to Mr. Christie and get the box of money myself and
bring it home.'
'With that a slight altercation occurred. Then I ran the
razor into her throat. She never spoke after. I then covered
an apron over her head and went to Yarmouth. I came
home at night, and slept on the sofa down stairs.
• • • •

" On the Monday I went to work; I left off at four o'clock
and went home. The house began to smell very faint, with
that I made a tire in the bedroom and commenced to muti-
late the body. Kept on until half past nine pm. I then
took some portions of the body and threw it away, arriving
home at half-past ten. That night slept on the sofa again
Went to work again the next day, went home in the after-
noon about four o'clock, and did the same. The same night,
again.
"Oil Wednesday went to work as usual ; left off early, and
went home. Carried some more portions in a pail basket to
another part of the city.
' - • •

" Thursday.—Work same, and returned early. The head
had been previously put in a saucepan and put on the fire, to
keep the stench away. I then broke it up and distributed it
about Thorpe ; came home and emptied the pail in the
cockey 'in Itishopgate-street, with the entrails, &c. I then
put the hands and feet into the mine saucepan, in hopes
they might boll to pieces.
• • ••

"On Friday I went to work, and went home early and die-
paced of all the remains of the body, hands and feet Included,
that night, because I knew I should not be able to be home
on Saturday until late.

On Sunday morning I burnt all the sheets, nightgown,
pillow eises, and bedtick, and all that had any blood about
them. The blankets, where there were any Mood, I cut
n small pieces and distributed them about the city, and
made off with anything that had any appearance of blood
about them.

"The long hair, on my return from Thorpe, I cut with a
pair of scissors into small pieces, and they blew away as I
walked along.
" I also state I never saw or knew my present wife until
June 21, 1852, twelve months after the occut rence.
" I hereby give authority to plAce the above facts to the
Home Secretary and Baron Pigott; but I request that this
may not he published at present.
"Taken in the presence of the undersigned, this 131 h day
of April, 1869. "WILLIAM SHEWARD."

J GODWIN JOHNSON, Viaiting Magistrate.
ROBERT WADE, Chaplain of the N,rwieh City Gaol.
JOHN IIoWARTH, Governor of the said Gaol.
The above confession was made quite spontaneously
on the part of the convict, who displayed a singular
calmness while it was being taken dawn. It was after-
wards carried by Mr. Johnson, visiting justice, to
London, and submitted to the Home Secretary, in ac-
cordance with Sheward's request.

The Times has a leader upon the above confession, in
which the following remarks occur :
All doubts respecting the justice of his sentence must now
be dismissed. Ilia circumstantial confession agrees com-
pletely with all his former statements, and is consistent
even to minute particulars with the ascertained facts, lie
once asked a metropolitan constable, for example, whether
In his first confession he charged himself with " wilful "
murder. The meaning of the inquiry is now apparent, since
he states that the murder wag committed in the heat of an
altercation. It is worth notice, again, as a point in confirma-
tion, that the surg,iii who examined the remains in
1851 was of opinion that the hands and feet had been
Immersed hi sonic non-corrosive fluid—probably hot water.
Sheward now confesses that he boiled them, in the hope of
reducing them to fragments. He states that he never knew
his present wife until twelve months after the murder, and
that the sudden rassion in which his crime was committed
arose from a standing quarrel about money There was. in-
deed, some evidence at the trial to show that he knew his
second wife at the time of the murder, or, at least, within
two or three months after it; but mistakes of a few months
! may easily be made at a distance of eighteen years in matters
which at the time called for no particular notice. If the
motive now assigned by the convict seem a slight occasion
for so heinous a crime, that is nothing more than a common
characteristic of the most brutal murders.

A more chocking and tilagustlng narrative has never, per-
haps, been laid before the public eye ; but there was sufficient
mystery about the case to render it worth while for the whole
story to be explained. Now that we have all the facts before
us, it will still remain, as we have said, an extraordinary
chapter lathe annals of crime, and that in more respects
than one. In the first place, this is clearly a murder which
would never have been discovered except for the prisoner's
own confession. Nearly eighteen years had elapsed since it
was committed, and it had passed out of recollection. No
one was on the watch to observe traces of the murderer,
for, in point of fact, it was not known, and barely
Surmised, that the victim had been murdered. It
was notorious, indeed, that a murder had been committed
at Norwich In June, 1951 ; but it had never been so much as
suggested that Mrs. Slieward was the person murdered. It
is true it came out at the trial that some of the wife's rela-
tives were not satisfied vdth the account rtheward gave other
disappearance. One of them was said to have asked him
point blank, "What have you done with ray sister?" and,
on his explanation that "she went away and left him
penniless." to have replied, "You are a false man;
my mister never went away and left you." But, what-