The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1873-12-20 00:00:00

SENTENCED TO DEATH.

At Durham Milers, Charles Dawson was pieced • the bar
cheesed with the wilful me der of Martha Jane AMllson at
Darlington on the 13th of September last :

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The prisoner woe an ironworker at the Darlington
Iron Forge, and had *cob .bited with the deceived
woman for two yeara. Thi y lived b gether in a houee
in Cleveland street, and with them, but in the ro,im
above, lodged three men named Mullen, Dempsey,
and Harper. The woman made gingeribeer and gold
It to the men at the iron works, and warn said to make
• oonsiderable weekly sum in thia way. On the night
in question, Saturday, the 13th of September, these bee
people RR the house at ab iut six o'clock to go into
the town of Darlington together, the woman biting
the (Nor and keeping the key. Alter going to van
shops together they separated, the prisoner and the de-
ceased going to the bowie of one Rachel Newt in, an
aunt of the deem ed, at about hall-poet eigtt, an the
other men going to a pubiichouee. flare the priaoner
seemed to be annoyed because his collar was tight,
mai be strokok the woman a alight blow on the

side of the head. They left the home togeWer
between nine and ten, and shortly after the lodger
Mullen fell in with the prisoner alone In the
sheets. lie was then comics from the direction
of his own house, and told Mullen that it was DO
nee going to the house, us the d.eeased was not in, and
he hat loot her on the road. The two men returned
to the soot's house, but, not finding her there, they
returned again in the direction of the prisoner's house.
At the aunt's the prisoner said, " Wel she's given me
the slip. It's not the firet time, but I'll make her so
that she'll never do It again." The two men met the
woman in tini rtreet about CIO yards from their own
hoi.re. The prieoner ritnoly said " Militia!" and ice
mediately knocked herdown. She began to cry silently,
and the prisoner told her to get up, and helped her on
to her feet. They went on to the house, and the woman
tried to open the door, but was not quick enough to
please the prisoner, and he took the key from her and
opened the door. Ac they entered the house be said to
h..r, "I'll give yon a few minutes to pray for yourself,
I for I will take your life." Mullen stated what then oc-
curred as follows :—" When they had all three got into
th room, which was the lower one and the prieoner's,
the prisoner locked the door and put the key in hie
pocket, lit a candle, took tif his coat and waistcoat and
hung them up, and taking a loaded revolver placed it
in Mullen's face, and said. 'lf you move a step or give
an alarm outside, I will give you the contents of Ws.'
He then took a champagne bottle which the woman
coed for her ginger beer from the table, and struck the
deceased with it on the forehead, knocking her down on
her hack, lie then threw it at her, but missed her,
and the bottle was broken into a great number of pieces.
They were produced in court, and some of them showed
traces of blood. Ile then kicked the woman on the
body ' • dozen times at teat,' and stamped with both
feet on her throat until she gave a kind of screech.'
He pressed the 'shank of the boot' of one foot upon
her *groat, and kicked her with the other foot,
and then danced with both feet upon the lower part
of her body without coming to the ground.' A knock
wee heard at the door, and Dempsey's voice heard out-
aide. Toe prisoner got off the body of the woman and
went towards the door, putting out the candle ar he
went; but, before opening the door, he returned and
again jau3ped with both feet on the woman's throat.
The phonier then let Dempsey in, locked the door
again, and sat down on the aide of the bed. In • f?w
moments he jumped up again, seined a coal rake, and
struck the woman with it, kicked her again, and then,
sayieg ' finish the old cow,' he seized a large and
bevy brown earthenware basin, and, pouring some
dirty water out of it ever her face, dashed the basin
iteelf with el his force down on to her face, knocking
out one toe th and driving another, the marks of
which were visible on the pieces of the bark pro-
du :ad, completely into her jaw. The woman
was then dead, and after a time the prisoner
cent Mullen for some clean water, which he brought,
and Mullen then went and brough, • police-conatable.
When he returned, the body was washed and stretched
out in the middle of the room, with a pillow placed
under the head. The injuries found by the medical
man upon his examination of the body were of a most
extensive kind, but the actual cause of death appeared
to be an elf union of serum into the brain am the reault
of it blow from the bottle combined with a wound
upon the back of the head catperl by a backward fall.
ltesidee this, there was an effaeion of bloody serum
int the cavities of the chest, and there was a high state
of congestion of the windpipe, lungs, pleura, and
kidneys, the liver was ruptured, and the intestines
were bruised and congested.

The learned counsel for the defence commented in
his speech on the conduct of the principal witness,
Mullen, and contended that he was not to be implicitly
believed, and that the death of the deceased might
have been brought about with less ferocity than that
described, and under circumstances jwitilying a ver-
dict from the jury of guilty of manslaughter only.
His Lordship, in his charge to the jury, entirely dis-
credited these suggestions, for whieh, he said, there
was not the slightest foundation to be found in the
rase, lad at the end of the charge, the jury, after a
few minutest' deliberation only, returned a vardlvt of
Polity of murder. The prisoner was thereupon
I.euteueftl to itestb, his Lordship commenting on the
savage brutality of his crime in the strongest possible
terms of abhorrence.

Also, at the Durham anis William Thompson waa placed
at the bar charged frith the silent murder of Jane Thompson,
at Anttield plain, on the 4t4 of Oc oboe I.st

The prisoner is a pitmen about twenty-six years old,
wit t, with tied -ceased woman, his wife, lived with her !
father, a men name i Edward Johann, at a plea, called
Annfield- plain. Ihe deceased woman wee only twenty !
years of age, but she had b ten married to another man
mallet Atkieeou before. She married the premier some
this moths before her death. On Satur3ay, the
4.-h of October, the prisoner and deceased left
J thruson'ir house to go into Newcastle, eleven milee
distant, at seven o'clock in the morning, and they
returned soon after seven o'clock at night. A
woman who sat between them in the brake or open
omnibus which convey them hack to their hems related
what centred between them there, and she was cor-
roborated by another passenger in the brace. The
prisoner accused the deceased c-f speaking to a men in
Newcastle, and asked who he was. She did not answer
him at first, and upon his repeating the question merely
told him to "get out." He struck her on the side of
the face, and she struck back, and he then called her an
opprobrious name. She then began to cry, and said,
"You are always like that of • night when my fathsr
goes out." He said, "Wait until I get you home, and
then I'll give 'it to you, It will be you or I for it this
night." Her father proved that they arrived home
quite sober and apparently friendly at a quarter-pea
seven. The prisoner took off his jecket and waist-
coat, put on another waistcoat, and the three hail
crupper tose ther ateight o'cl ek. The prisoner MIS wear-
fig light trouser., and woen he weasel: sequently appre-
hended he was still wearing light con t trousers with a
dark stripe down the aide, and he had on the Paine
trouser, at the trial. After supp T Edward Johnson
left the house, and went to a publichouse 200 yards off
for a pot of beer, leaving the prieoner and his wife
al me together, and in less than a quarter tif an hour
he received intelligence which brought him back to his
own house. There were several people in the house,
but neither his daughter nor the prisoner was there, and
he then went into the next hon's but one to bis
own occupied by one Mary Ann Parker, and he there
f Rind his thinghter with her throat out and dead in the
middle of Pal kens room. Mary Auto Parker proved
that she was in her own room, the door bring open, at
reboot half-past eight, when she heard • shriek, and im.
medietely after the deceased woman came running into
the room with her throat cut, and dropped on the
middle of the floor. Other women rushed in and tried
to stanch the blood which was pouring forth, but were
quite unable to do so, and the woman died in their
midst in less than a quintet of an hour, " without%
motion of her body," and merely a convulsive quiver-
ing of the mouth. A police-constable was almost im-
mediately on the spot, and he found a series of large
spots of blood commencing at • point two yards in front
of Johnson'. door, and continuing to the spot where
the deceased dropped upen the floor of Parker's room.
The constable searched Edward Johnson's room, and
found a razor case, but empty, and without any rite tit,
in an open box on the window seat, andithe I szor itself
ham never since been found. Johnson proved that the
razor case was his property, and was always kept in
the box in which it was found, but also that up to the
previous evening it hal contained his own ray in and
that he had then seen the prisoner ehavieg himself with
it. The prisoner had at this time disappeared from
Annfi-Id-plain, but • man, without a coat and wearing
light trousers with a dark stripe on the side, was met
by two women on the road leading from Annfiebl- plain
to • plain called Dipton at a pint about threaquar•
ters of e mile from Aunfield-plain and coming from
that direction, at a few minutes past nine, walking
very fast. After the man passed them he began to
run en in the direction of Dipton, and some time after
nine the primmer came into his brother's holm, at Dip-
ton and aired fir his brother. His brother's wife only
wan in, aud she stated that she told him her husband
was out, and that she was PO frightened at his sudden
appearance in her house and his "will look," that she
" shouted to him togs out of her house," and " thought
he was a lunatic," and then fainted. Two other women
came into the house while the prisoner was proceeding
to take oil his upper shirt, which was light coloured,
! pull off and throw on to a chair a woollen one whi th
he wore under ceath, and put on the upper shirt again;
' and the. two wolmen priced that after doing thin he
I `
. said " You —, I took the razor and cut her throat."
The woollen shirt which the prisoner then threw away
! was given by his sister in low to the police three
- days later, and nem-diced in court. It did not bear
any mark. of blood when so pr duced. The police.
constable tel owed the prisoner from Annfield plain to
his brother's house at Dtpton wititout delay, and toned
! him still there. He charged him, and the prisoner simply
! said, "Very well. My wife behaved badly to ma'
: Prom the medical evidence it appeared that the wcuud
in the woman's throat was five inches in length, and
in a direction from left to right, extending from the
angle of the left jaw to an inch behind the right ear,
and, besides severing all the arteries and veesehi of the
throat, severed aloe two nerves which pass down the
neck between the arteries and the veins, and communi-
cate with the nervou, action of the heart. The medical
man was of opinion that this wound could nit have
bet n eelt-ii-flicted, and particularly based his opinion
upon tie- fact of tee seyerence of theme nerves. The
prisoner made the following statement before the
magistrates :—" I have somethinz to say. A fortnight
to morrow we went into R cherdsou's publlchouse in
Nowt:sale. She went out with a man and left rue
sitting for halt-a-hour, ant then I went to see if she
was coming. I saw her, but there was no man with
her. We came home, and the old man went up for a
quart of ale, at night, and I told her aft,r her father
went out about being with tide man. She told me I
had nothing to do with who she went with. I then
laid my head upon my arms on the table, aunt when I
lifted up my head she had the razor in her hand. I
made a rtin after her. Ou her going to the door I
struck her on the head with my neaf. She ran about
two yards, and I then SAW blood streaming down, but I
never saw the razor except when I lifted my head eff
the table, and that was the only time I saw it. I then
ran off to my brother's."
The defence of the lanned counsel was that it was
not irresistiby proved that the prisoner had done this
deed, or that it was not an sot of self-destruction on
the part of the woman herself, and he mainly based
Ude contention on the total absence of all appearance.
of blood upon the prisoner's clothes.

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His Lordship, in charging the jury, and submitting
to them the consideration of the question whether the
salad been committed by the man or by the deceased
woman's own hand, said they must consider in con.
flexion with it the general evidence in the case; such
so, for instance, the evidence I antecedent threats, the
fact that the razor itself with which the wound had
been inflicted hod never teen found, and the escape of
the prisoner to Dipton and his statement to the women
in the house there. He then very carefully went through
the whole of the evidence in the case, and directed
the jury upon the distinction between murder and
manslaughter, and the amount of provocation which
iesufficient to remove the crime frim one category to
the other, this being a point also taken for the defence.
At the conclusion of the charge the jury retired for
three-quarters of an hour, and then returned into court
w-th a verdiA of Goalie of murder. The priiiimer,
when called upon to say 'whether he had anything to
urge why sentence should not be pasted upon Ina 3,
said, 'lf I was to die at this present moment, I mg
not guilty, Sir :"

His Lordstdp said tha jar, bad sow to *bah ooa•
elusion otter the usdat careful hewing, and pawed
sentence of death upon the prisoner.
Edward Gough reside° pinned at thither charged with the
wilful murder of .1 Partridge, at danuraide, on the 7th
otJuly last.
It appeared that the prisoner came Into a public.
house on the night in queetson wlitre the deceased
man was, and ordered a small bottle of porter.
the deceased exclaiined, 'What is the use of
ordering a email bottle of porter, won't you order
sornethin we can all share ? " Whereupon the prieoner
drank his o,n p rter and went out. He shortly
returned with a companion and challenged thedeceas-d
man to fignt, and after some quarrelling the two men
went outside and were followed by ahem The
ceased man was pulling off his coat outside, preparing
to fight, when the prisoner rumhed at him. condos from
between two men who wore trying to prevent the
fight, and struA him, and it was immediately found
that he was stabbed in the groin. He ran some little
distance, with the prisoner after him, and then fell
down, and died in a quarter of an hour.
Tr, di fence was that the crime di I not atriunt to
no re than manslaughter, owing to the prisoner having
is.ted under passion and provocation; but
The jury returned a verdict of Guirty of murder,
with, however, a recommendation to mercy on account ,
of the exchement under which the prisoner wan labour.
lug at the time.
He was sentenced to death.