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

CHILD,NUI?DER NRAR ABER YSTII7.I7H

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 sitting magistrates, Messrs.
John C. Hughes and Thomas Jones, on suspicion of
having wilfully murdered her infant child. It ap-
peared that on the previous Tuesday, a lad named
David Woolcoek, 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 had 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 under water. 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 Aberyst wit h,
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,
will 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 th 3 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 particular
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 prisoner 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 iu the neighbourhood.

THE BRUTAL MURDER NEAR

CARLISLE.

CARLISLE, DEC. 28.

Wm. Charlton, engine driver on the Newcastle
and Carlisle Railway, was to-day 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 if 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 indent, d
on the door by a kick. There was one impression
in the garden, near where the hedge•slasher was
found, and another in the pool of blood which had
fl ,wed from the old woman. Some of the other
footsteps were bloody. Mr. Pickering, sculptor, was
sent to take casts in plaster-ot 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-
calar 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
- -ate fastening was a peculiar one, and could
garden p„,.. -iaened by a stranger. There were
not have been • _,,i of the deceased, some of
eight wounds on the hem— hv the slasher,tiatne
which might have been causen .
others by an iron bar used for fastening ,g a
which was found on the line marked with u,Pod•
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. lam 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 tracing
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 be 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.