The Sun.
London, England, 1861-12-30 00:00:00

THE CONVICTED MURDERERS.

The unhappy boy Richard Reeve. who was con-
victed of the murder of his sister in Drury-couvt, at
the November session of the Central Criminal
Court, and who was left for execution, but who has
since received a respite during her Majesty's plea-
sure, still remains in Newgate, and the Govern-
ment have not as yet given any intimation of their
intention with regard to what is to be done with
him, and there is no foundation for the statement
that has been made public, that the capital sentence
has been communted to one of penal servitude for
life. He was evidently a good de relieved when
the first notification was made to him that his life
would be spared, but since then he has exhibited
the same indifference of demeanour that charac-
terised him all through the proceedings, and now
that he knows that there is no chance of his life
being sacrificed, he evidently cares very little what
may be done with him. He is employed like the
other convicted prisoners in the occupation of oakum
picking, and it appears that he has never upon any
occasion made allusion to the crime of which he was
convicted, or to the circumstances which induced
him to commit it.

Another prisoner, named William Maloney, who
was convicted of the murder of his wife in West-
minster, and who was also respited during her
Majesty's pleasure, likewise still remains in New-
gate, pending inquiries, which it is understood are
still being made in reference to his case. It will be
remembered that this prisoner was convicted under
very peculiar circumstances, the principal evidence
against him being that given by a man named Saun-
ders, who represented that he happened to go into
the court where the prisoner and his wife lived, to
look for lodgings at the time the murder was com-
mitted, and that he actually saw the prisoner plunge
a knife into his wife's throat. It appeared that he
did not mention what he had seen until the follow-
ing day, and although the jury convicted the pri-
soner, the Home Secretary felt it his duty to recom-
mend that the capital sentence should notbe carried
out. The prisoner, it will be recollected, declared
when he was taken into custody, that his wife com-
mitted the act herself, and that he was entirely in-
nocent of the crime of which he was accused, and
he still adheres to that statement, and under the
peculiar circumstances of the case, it appears that
the authorities at the Home Office have great diffi-
culty in deciding what course shall be taken with
regard to the prisoner.

CHILD AIURDER NEAR ABER Y 6TWI 1H

On Saturday, a young woman, named Eliza
Davies, but who was more generally known in the
neighbourhood by the nickname of Crug-y-Wheel,
was charged before the bitting magistrates, Messrs.
John C. Hughes and Thomas Jones, on suspicion of
having wilfully murdered her infant child. It ap-
pearedthat on the previous Tuesday, a lad named
David Woolcock, while on his way to school at
Llanbadarn, was met by a woman, who told him
that there was something in the water. Just before
he hid got to that point he met the prisoner on
the bridge, at about 100 yards distance. On his
looking into the pool he saw something wrapped up
in a bundle, and half underwater. The witness gave
nitice of what he saw, and soon afterwards a gar-
dener, named David Davis, and a man named John
Davis, brought the bundle on shore, and found that
it was tightly wrapped up. The bundle was wrap-
ped in an old shawl, and there was a large stone in
the bundle, which had evidently been introduced
for the purpose of sinking it. The police, on being
informed of the discovery, took possession of the
body, and caused it to be submitted to the examina-
tion of Mr. John Rowland, surgeon, of Aberystwith,
who found that it was a full-grown male child. It
was evident that it had breathed, and that it had
been placed in the bundle without receiving the at-
tentions shown to infants whose births are properly
attended to.

The police having made inquiries respecting the
occurrence, their suspicions fell on the prisoner,
who is the mother of four other illegitimate children,
and who had been observed by the neighbours to be
in the family way. Upon her being arrested she
solemnly denied that she had been pregnant or had
given birth to any child ; but upon her being sub-
jected to a medical examination by Mr. Rowlands
and Mr. Jacob Roberts, surgeons, it became evident
to both gentlemen that she had been confined within
a comparatively short period. Evidence was ad-
duced of the prisoner having been seen wearing a
black shawl without any fringe or border, and pre-
cisely answering the description of that found on
the dead body of the child. A woman named Mary
Williams, the wife of Jenkin Williams, who occu
pies a cottage adjoining that in which the prisoner
resides, was amongst the witnesses who spoke to
the fact of the prisoner having been enciente, and
she also stated that she had seen the prisoner with
a handkerchief which she believed to be that found
in the bundle, although there was no pal titular
mark on it by which she could swear to it positively.
The magistrates having consulted, said they con
sidered that a case had been made out calling on
them to send the prisonPr before a jury; and the pri-
soner, who declined to say anything in her defence,
was fully committed to take her trial for wilful
murder at the next assize for the county.
The matter, as may be supposed, has given rise to
a great deal of excitement in the neighbourhood.

THE BRUTAL MURDER NEAR

CARLISLE.

CARLISLE, DEC. 28.

Wm. Charlton, engine driver on the Newcastle
and Carlisle Railway, was today brought before
the county magistrates at the court in this city,
charged with the wilful murder of Jane Emmerson
on the 21st November last, and the subsequent
robbery of her house. The old woman kept the
gates at the Durran Hill level crossing on the line,
and was at the time living alone in a cottage hard
by. On the night in question she was murdered,
being apparently felled with an iron bar, and mur-
dered with a hedge slashing knife, and her house
was afterwards broken into and robbed.

The prisoner was apprehended on Sunday, the
22d, and formally remanded until to-day. He is of
slim build, and was very respectably attired.
Inspector Taylor, of the county police, the first
witness examined, stated that on the morning after
the murder he observed several footsteps near the
old woman's cottage. There were two behind the
post of one of the crossing gates, as it a man had
been concealing himself there, and then he traced
the footsteps along the line and across to the old
woman's house, and back again in the same direc-
tion. Those returning were as if the man had been
running, the reach from one step to another being
longer. There was a mark of the same foot indented
on the door by a kick. There was one impression
in the garden, near where the hed;e•slasher was
found, and another in the pool of blood which had
flowed from the old woman. Some of the other
footsteps were bloody. Mr. Pickering, sculptor, was
sent to take casts in plaster-of-Paris of tne foot-
prints. [Witness now produced the casts and the
indented door.] He continued—l have since mea-
sured the shoes with the casts I have produced, and
also compared them, and they correspond. The heel
of one of the boots corresponds very distinctly with
the heel of one of the casts. There are three parti-
cular nails in the heel of one of the shoes which are
also upon the impression. I have carefully compared
the cast with the heel, and it is the same size of
caulker, and shows those three nails very distinctly.
Besides the nails round the shoe, there are nails in
a semicircle round the broad part of the foot, and
across the toe there are three tiers of nails—that is,
two rows round the shoe, three rows at the toe, and
two semicircles in the tread of the foot. There are
marks on the tread of the foot where nails have been
but are now out. There are 13 on one side and 14
on the other. I have counted the marks on the
casts, and they are the same. The nails have not
been burned out. There is nothing to account for
them being out. Witness also stated that he had
examined the house of the deceased. The door had
been burst open and was marked with a pick-axe,
which he found under the bed, the shaft covered
with fresh blood. The drawers had also been
broken open with the same implement and rifled.
He found a hedge-slasher outside the window in the
garden. The window had been broken with it, but
the frame- work was of iron. It was coverd with
blood and glass, and had on it one grey hair. The
garden gate fastening was a peculiar one, and could
not have been opened by a stranger. There were
eight wounds on the head of the deceased, some of
which might have been caused by the slasher, and
others by an iron bar used for fastening the gates,
which was found on the line marked with blood.
Witness:described the apprehension of the prisoner,
who, before he was taken into custody, in describ-
ing his whereabouts, said that on the morning after
the murder, after going to his work, he had re
turned home for a knife he had forgotten.
Joseph Pickering, who took the casts of the foot-
prints, said—The casts produced are those I made,
and I am prepared to state that they are exact im-
pressions of the footprints. I made 13 altogether,
but they were not all perfect. I am in the habit of
taking casts from models, and I am able to state,
when I compare a model and a cast, whether the one
corresponds with the other or not. I made a treeing
from the casts upon tracing paper. I compared one
of the shoes with the casts. (The tracing was pro-
duced showing the nails dotted black.) I have com-
pared the left shoe with one of the tracings, and I
consider it to he the same shoe as the tracing repre-
sents. I examined the shoe this morning with the
casts, not very minutely, but as far as I observed
they corresponded. The nails in one of the shoe
heels corresponded with the casts I have taken.,

From the examination, so far as it has gone, it is my
opinion that these are the shoes which made the
impressions from which I took these casts. I saw a
footmark upon file panel of the door, and in my
opinion that also corresponds.
Medical evidence h:+ving been given,

John Irving Mitchell, fireman for the prisoner,
was examined. He said -tat they were going from
Carlisle with a mineral tra:ti about 4 o'clock on the
morning after the murder. As they were passing
the place where the murder had been committed,
the prisoner drew his attention to a field of cabbage
on the opposite side of the line, although it was so
dark he could not see them. lie had also told him
to throw fuel on the fire. A few days after he
complained that the nails had come out of his boot,
that he had burned them. On the morning after
the murder the prisoner stated he had seen the old
woman in the porch as he paseed.
The evidence was concluded at this stage today,
and the prisoner was further remanded.