The Sun.
London, England, 1866-12-21 00:00:00

ASSIZE INTELLIGENCE.

HOME CIRC UIT—MAIDSTONE, Dec. 20.
(Before Mr. Baron Channell.)
THE TUNBRIDGE WELLS MURDER.

Ann Lawrence, aged 29, described as a married
woman, was indicted for the wilful murder of Jere-
miah Lawrence, at Tunbridge, on the 14th of April
last. The prisoner was also charged with feloniously
wounding Walter llighams, with intent to murder
Ern.

Sergeant Parry was specially retained to prose-
cute, by the directions of the Tunbridge magis-
trates, with Mr. Willoughby. Mr. Ribton and Mr.
Ormerod appeared for the defence.
After the prisoner had pleaded not guilty a great
many challenges were made by her counsel to the
jury, for the purpose, as it was said, of obtaining a
Maidstone jury, an impression being very prevalent
that inhabitants of Maidstone were generally averse
to the infliction of the punishment of death. Whe-
ther there are any. real grounds for this impression
it would of course be impossible to say, but the re-
sult of the line adopted by the prisoner's counsel was
that 10 of the jury were inhabitants of the town.
Sergeant Parry, in his opening address, observed
the case was one of a very painful and atrocious
character, and one which at the same time involved
some very extraordinary circumstances. It appeared
that the prisoner was a married woman, and that she
formerly lived with her husband at Tunbridge Wells,
and that a man named Walter Highams, who was
a market gardener and fruiterer, living at Town
Mailing, used to visit them, and became on intimate
terms with the prisoner. Highams was himself a
married man, but it appeared that about two years
before the month of April last he deserted his wife,
and the prisoner left her husband, taking with her
her child Jeremiah, the subject of the present charge.
The prisoner and Highams cohabited together at
several places, and at length took up their abode at
No. 2, Ebury-cottages, Tunbridge Wells, where
they remained until the 14th of April last. At this
time a child had been born of which Highams was
the father, and this child was about two months
old. There seemed no doubt that the prisoner was

jealous of her paramour, and that she suspected he
was connected with another woman at Town Mai-
ling, and this frequently led to quarrels between
them, and the prisoner frequently made use of
threats of violence towards Highams ; and the sug-
gestion on the part of the prosecution was, that the
dreadful crime was committed during a paroxysm
of anger from jealousy. A day or two before the
murder was committed the prisoner was sent to Lon-
don by Highams to purchase some carrots, and dur-
ing her absence he seemed to have gone to Town
Mailing and remained there all night, and when
the prisoner returned she reproached him with hav-
ing stayed away all night with another woman, and
they had repeated quarels between this time and the
following Saturday, when the murder was alleged
to have been committed. The prisoner and
Highams: went to bed at their usual time on the
Saturday evening, the deceased child, who was four
years old, sleeping at the foot of the bed, and the
baby being in bed with the prisoner and Ilighams,
and nothing particular seemed to have occcured until
between 4 and 5 o'clock on the following morning,
when Highams was awoke by finding the prisoner
in the act of chopping at his head with a most for-
midable instrument called a billhook. He held up
his hands to endeavour to protect himself, but the
prisoner continued chopping at him until she ap-
peared to be exhausted, and then went downstairs.
Ilighams went down soon afterwards, and the pri-
soner then renewed her attack upon him, but some
persons came to his assistance, and the prisoner,
who had thrown the billhook among some hop-
poles, was taken into custody. At this time it was
not known that anything had been done to the child,
but upon the police going upstairs to the bedroom
they discovered the poor little boy Jeremiah with his
head nearly severed from his boly by a razor, which
was left in the wound. The prisoner, on being
charged with the murder, denied that it was she
who had committed it, and she asserted that it was
her paramour (Highams) who had killed the child,
and she said that it was on account of his having
done so that she had made the attack upon him
with the billhook, and she persisted in this state-
ment when she was taken before the magistrate, and
this was the defence that was set up for her on the
present occasion. The learned sergeant, in the
course of his address, said there :was not the
slightest doubt that a most foul and horrible mur-
der had been committed, and that the only ques-
tion for the jury would be, whether the prisoner or
the man Highams was the guilty party.
After some formal evidence had been given, Wal-
ter Highams, the person referred to, was examined.
lie is an ordinary labouring-looking man about 45
years of age. He detailed the intimate connexion
that existed between him and the prisoner, and said
that they lived pretty comfortably togther down to
the month of April ; but a day or two before the
14th of that month the prisoner was very angry with
him for having stopped all night at Town Mailing,
and she threatened that she would do him some vio-
lence, and they had a quarrel on 13th April. The
deceased child, the baby, and witness and prisoner
went to bed on Saturday night the 14th, and about
5 o'clock on the following morning he found the
prisoner hadgot np and dressing herself. He asked
her why she had got up so early, and she replied
that she was so troubled in her mind that she could
not sleep, and said she would get np and make her-
self a cup of tea. She left the room and he went to
sleep, and he was awoke by receiving some violent
blows on the head, and on looking up he saw the
prisoner holding a bill-hook with both hands and
chopping at his head with the instrument. He put
up his hands to save his head, and the prisoner con-
tinued striking at him, and wounded him on bith
hands, and she chopped off two of the fingers from
his.right hand. While she was doing this she ex-
claimed, " I've killed one, and I'll finish killing you,
and I will kill all three." While the prisoner was
striking him he let the baby fall into the bed, and
after a short time she went down stairs, taking th 3
bill-hook with her. Witness was very faint and
weak from loss of blood, and after prisoner had gone
he got out of bed and slid down the staircase, to the
lower room and found the prisoner there, and she
seized him by the hair and knocked his head against
the wall, and again said she would kill him, and
that she intended to kill all the three. Prisoner at
this time struck him on the shoulders with the bill-
hook, and then went out of doors and threw it away,
and some persons who had heard the alarm and
cries of murder came to his assistance, and he was
taken to the infirmaryat Tunbridge Wells, where he
remained 14 weeks. At the time he left the bed
room he was not aware that any injury had been
inflicted upon the child Jeremiah. A razor was
shown to him with which the child's throat had been
cut, but he was not able to say whether it was his
razor or not. He had a razor which was in a
case iu a closet down stairs, but he had not used it
for some time, and he was unable to say whether
this was the same or not.

In cross-examination this witness said he was a
married man, and the prisoner had lived with him and
his wife for some time before she was married, but he
lost sight of her for several years after she was mar-
ried, and when they next became acquainted it was
agreed between them that she should leave her hus-
band and be his wife, and that they should live
together. At first the prisoner took a lodging for
herself and the child Jeremiah at Greenwich, and he
supported her, and used to go and see her once a

fortnight. The prisoner's husband was aware she
was living with him, but he did not know whether his
own wife knew that the prisoner was living with
him. He did not know what had become of his own
wife, but he had heard that she was living at Maid-

stone. He had searched for her, but had not been
able to find her. The witness was then pressed as
to whether he had not, when he was examined before

the magistrate, omitted to say anything about the
prisoner having-said that she was in so much trouble

during the night that she could not sleep, and he said
he was so " nigh killed" at the time that he hardly

knew what he said. He also said he was not sure

that be told the magistrate anything about the pri-

soner saying that she had killed one and that she
would kill all the three, but he declared that in point
of fact she did make use of this expression. Witness
likewise said that when he was originally examined
he said that the razor was his, and he accounted for

having any doubt upon that point now by saying that
the prisoner bought the razor, and he had only used
it twice, because it did not cut ; and although he be-

lieved that the razor with which the child's throat had

been cut was the same, he could not swear positively
to it. He then said he knew a woman named Eagle-
ton, and he believed she had had a child by him, or
it might be two. (A laugh.)
Re-examined—The prisoner was aware of his
connexion with this woman, and was very angry
with him about it. She came to their house upon

one occasion, and the prisoner and she quarrelled

and fought.

Evidence was then adduced to show that at the
time the prisoner was taken into custody she made

the following extraordinary statement :
" That devil has killed my child, and I will have
my revenge on him too. God is above the devil, and
I have conquered the devil. He intended to kill me
—he had the chopper upstairs, and intended to kill

me, only I found it, and I got the master of the

devil. I thought there was something up. I went to
London yesterday, and he wanted me to stop all

night ; and I thought then) was something up and

came back the same night, and when I came back I
found him with another woman, and I will have my
revenge upon the devil for it."

Evidence was then. adduced to show that at the
time the discovery was made the front of the clothes
of the prisoner was completely saturated with blood,
while with regard to the man Ilighams there did not
appear to be a larger quantity of blood upon his
shirt, for he had nothing but that garment on at the
time, than would be reasonably accounted for as

having flowed from the wounds he had received upon
his head.
When the prisoner was committed by the magis-
trate all she said was, " t own to all except killing
the child. I cannot own to that, because I did not do
it."

Mr. C. Daley, the house-surgeon at the infirmary
at Tunbridge Wells, who had in his evidence in
chief expressed a strong opinion that the marks of
blood apparent upon the front of the dress .of the
prisoner were caused in the way suggested by the
prosecution, by the blood spurting from the arteries
in the neck of the deceased child at the time the fatal
injury was received, was cross-examined at consi-
derable length by Mr. Ribton upon the point. The
effect of this did not appear, however, materially to
shake the evidence given by this gentleman in chief,
hut he contradicted the witness Highams in some
particulars, and expressed a strong opinion that
some of the wounds received by the latter were not
inflicted while he was lying in bed as he had repre-
sented, and that one of them at all events had in all
probability been inflicted while he and the prisoner
were struggling in the middle of the room.
Sergeant Parry made a temperate but forcible
address to the jury in summing up the case for the
prosecution, and after observing tk:,+: the case was
altogether one of the most extraordiiary that had
been brought before the consideration of a court of
justice, he said that two things appeared to him to be
perfectly clear, one of which was that a murder had
been committed, and that the person who committed
that murder must be either the prisoner or the man
Highams. Against the prisoner, as it also appeared
to him, there was an overwhelming mass of evi-
dence, and as against Highams there was nothing at
all but the bare and utterly unsupported statement
of the prisoner. In a case like the present it was
of course impossible not to feel great sympathy
for a woman in the position of the prisoner;
but he and they and all concerned in the inquiry
had a duty to perform which they were bound
to carry out, and he felt therefore bound to remind
them that the effect that would result from their
acquitting the prisoner must necessarily be a belief
that the crime was committed by the witness Hig-
hams. He argued that there was not a single cir-
cumstance in the case that would justify them in
coming to this conclusion, and that there was an
entire absence of anything like a motive on his part
for the commission of such a dreadful crime. With
regard to the prisoner, however, he was afraid that
the evidence left no doubt that she was maddened
by jealousy at .what she conceived to be the differ-
rence of her paramour towards her, and that under
the influence of this feeling she destroyed the life of
the child, intending at the same time, very pro-
bably, to have taken his life also if she had been
able to do so.
At this stage of the case the trial was adjourned.