The Sun.
London, England, 1864-01-11 00:00:00

EXECUTION OF LUKE CHARLES,

The ex-policeman, Luke Charles, who was sentenced to
death at the recent Liverpool assizes for the murder of his
wife, suffered the extreme penalty of the law at Kirkdale
Gaol ore Saturday morning.
The circumstances attending the murder are most curious
and interesting. The prisoner, previous to 18.51, was a mem-
ber of the Irish police, and stationed at Heath, near Emo,
in county Wicklow. In the Christmas of that year he mar-
ried the unfortunate deceased, but they did not live toge-
ther. In Ireland the police are amenable to military and
very rigid discipline, and as they live in barracks they are
not allowed to marry without leave, and it unfortunately
happened that Charles did not obtain permission to marry
when he made the deceased his wife. He lived in barracks,
she remaining with her friends, After the prisoner had been
married two or three years he formed the acquaintance, at
Emo, of a girl, named Ellen Ford, to whom he proposed
marriage ; and Ford, thinking him a single man, accepted
him: The prisoner did not fix a time for marrying Ford, tell-
ing her he would do so as soon as he could procure a situa-
tion in some police forcein England. The prisoner ultimately
did leave Ireland in 1861, and on the 2d April in that year
ho called at the house of a sister of his wife's, named Julia
Dunn, who lived at Pendleton. He remained for some time
at Pendleton, and after reporting himself to the police autho-
rities at Preston, he was sent to Bury, where his wife joined
him iu lodgings at the house of Mrs. Porrith, a widow. Mrs.
Porrith had a daughter, Amelia Farrar, and on the evening
of Feb. 13, last year, both these persons saw the deceased
and the prisoner going (though not together) in the direc-
tion of the Bury station, whence trains left for Manchester.
Mrs. Charles met Mrs. Porrith near the house, and giving
her the key, said she was going to her sister's at Pendleton,
and that she would return about nine o'clock the same
evening. The train left at 5.43 p.m„ and at Clifton four
persons got out, two of them women, who waited for a train
from Manchester and went in it in a northerly direction ;
while the other two, a man and a woman, took a direction
which would lead them to the towing path of the Manches-
ter, Bolton, and Bury Canal, These latter persons were
the prisoner and his wife, and they proceeded along the
canal bank for some distance in the direction of Pendleton.
Before reaching Pendleton the murder of Mrs. Charles was
committed, but the details of the deed are not known. Most
probably Charles stunned his victim by repeated blows on
the head, and threw her into the canal. During the early
part of the morning of the 14th of February, about seven
o'clock, a person named John Green, a workman at Messrs.
Knowles's colliery, was going along this canal side, when
he observed a person on the towing path, carrying a clothes-
prop. On coming closer up he found this man extracting
from the canal a quantity of female apparel—a night-dress,
crinoline, and other things. His suspicions were excited, and
grapnels having been obtained, the body of a woman was
dragged up a few yards from the place where the clothes
were found. The body was taken to the Pendleton Work-
house, where an inquest was held ; but, as no per son could
identify the body, it was buried on the 18th at the Pendleton
Cemetery. The usual " routes" or descriptions of the
body were published and sent to the various police-stations,
including the station at Bury where the prisoner was, and
were hung up for a considerable time. After the murder
the deceased woman's sister and many other friends asked
Charles where his wife had gone, and how she was, and he
answered them in this manner :—" Mary is not at home.
She is in county Wicklow." " She is in Dublin in St. Mary-
street, with a Miss Evans, and if she is not there I do not
know where she is." " I know well enough where she is,
but I will not satisfy you." "My wife is in Ireland with
her mother. I transmit her money by Post-office order."
In August the prisoner went over to Ireland and brought
the girl Ellen Ford to England with him, previously trying
without success, to induce a Roman Catholic priest to marry
them. The culprit's transactions with Ellen Ford are best
described in her own words :—" I have known the prisoner
five or six years. He was a police-officer stationed at The
Heath,' Maryborough, when I first knew him, and I was
living at Ewe with my mother. When I had known him
about two years he proposed to marry me. I accepted
him. Ho asked rue to go with him to the priest to