The Sun.
London, England, 1868-03-13 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONCON, FRIDAY VENING, MARCH 13, 1868.

A WOMAN SENTENCED TO DEATH,

A married woman named Frances Kidder, aged 25, has
been convicted of wilful murder at Maidstone, and sen-
tenced to death by Mr. Justice Byles, before whom she
was tried. The act for which she will suffer is charac-
terised by such calculated malice and utter heartlessness
that it Ivill be remarkable in the annals of similar horrible
crime. She is the wife of a greengrocer, or hawker of vege-
tables, and resided at Hythe. Before she was married to
Kidder she had an illegitimate child by him, and he had also
another illegitimate child, a girl, by another woman.
This daughter of his was named Louisa Kidder
Staples. It was she whom her stepmother murdered.
The child was ll years old ; the prisoner hated her,
often expressed her hatred openly, constantly ill-used
her, and frequently threatened her. Sometimes neigh-
bours remarked that the child's pinafore was stained with
blood that flowed from her face when the stepmother
had been beating her. The woman was known to have a
violent temper, and she proved to be unscrupulous in her
cruelty. On the 17th August last there was a fair
at New Romney, where her father and mother lived.
She went to stop with her parents, and took with her the
child Louisa, as well as her own child. She prolonged
her visit till the 25th August. On that day, which
was Sunday, her father and mother went out for a walk,
leaving her at home with a brother and a sister of hers
and her husband's little girl. She sent her brother and
sister out for a walk with her own child, and so was
alone with Louisa. She directly took the child's Sunday
clothes off, and clad her in a poor ragged dress ; then
changed her own apparel for commoner garments, and
quitted the house, taking the step-child with her. When
the others came back, finding that she was absent
as the night came on, they became alarmed, and her
father, with others, went out to search, but did not
discover her. At about ten o'clock her mother
heard Frances Kidder knock at the back door, and
let her in. She said directly, " Oh, mother, lam so wet
—I am wet through," and her clothes were wet. Her
mother inquired where Louisa was. The woman at first
made no answer;; then she turned her head, and, pointing
out of the door, said, " There." She afterwards said that
she and the child were coming across some fields, when
they were frightened by two horses, and the child fell
into a ditch from which she could not extricate her. Her
mother and her husband, Kidder, suspected foul play; the
latter sent for a policeman and gave her in charge. At
the police-station she described the ditch in which the
child lay. There it was found dead by drowning in water
fourteen inches deep. There were evidences of st.uggling
on the bank. Testimony was adduced that the accused
had spoken of her desire and intention to get rid of the
child, and that she had said she should never go back to
Hythe with her. Other incriminatory evidence was given,
and the case was left to the jury. After a retirement of
ten minutes, the foreman brought a verdict of guilty into
court, and the judge thereupon passed sentence of death.
The prisoner heard her doom pronounced without any
exhibition of emotion, and apparently was callous to the
horrors of the position in which she stood. One painful
feature in the case was, that the principal witnesses on
whose action and testimony she was convicted were her
own father, mother, husband, and sister.