The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-09-04 00:00:00

THE DIABOLICAL MURDER AT PEOVER

KNUTSFORD, MOND.I.I( EVENING.—Two miserable-look-
ing objects, a man and woman, who are in custody on suspi-
cion, were taken before the bench of magistrates this morn-
ing. The man represented himself to be a file-cutter, and to
have lived in Manchester. He said his name was John
Crossley, and to all appearance is from 25 to 30 years of age.
The woman states herself to be the wife of the other prisoner,
and that her name is Ann Crossley. This was alternately
admitted and denied by the man. He first said when ques-
tioned by the officers, that she was his wife, then that she was
not, next that he picked her up two days ago, and lastly that
they had been cohabiting together for the last two months.
She appears to be about the same age as the man. They were
both, to judge from the state of their clothing, in a state of
utter destitution. It appears that the officers had been for
some days, on the look-out for them. At three o'clock yes-
terday afternoon, they were found by Turton, the officer sta-
tioned at Altrincham. A bundle of rags was all that was
found in their possession. They arrived at Altrincham on the
afternoon of Wednesday. On seeing the officer, the man
said, " I know what you want me for, it is about the Peover
murder." He also, when in the lock-up, uttered some ra-
ther suspicious expressions, and gave but a very poor account
of himself. The principal witness who appeared against them
was Mr. L. Dumbell, the son of a respectable farmer at 01-
lerton, some two or three miles distant from Peover, who
said that after he heard of the murder, at half past 12 o'clock
on Tuesday morning, he went with his brother to fetch some
horses out of a field called "the Bottoms," at the lower part
of the farm, and full a quarter of a mile from the high road,
or any path leading therefrom. He there met the man and
woman. The woman was sobbing. He told the man it was
no road, and asked him where he wanted to go. He replied
to Mobberley. He (Mr. Dumbell) showed him the best way,
and the man then got over a hedge in a contrary direction.
,He and his brother then tried to catch the horses, and left
the man and woman. Presently he heard the woman scream-
ing dreadfully. She was standing by herself. He asked her
where the man► was, she told him he had gone over the hedge.
We asked next, who the man was, and she said he belonged
to. her. He then asked where they had been all night, on
which she said, " Oh, dear me! it is a shocking thing ;" but
he could not get her to tell where they had slept. The man
then came back, and lie asked him why he did not help the
woman over the hedge ; he said, " She was stupid and saucy."
He afterwards said they had slept in Knutsford the previous
night. The prisoners, on being questioned by the magis-
trates, declared that they had slept at a lodging-house, kept
by Thomas Whitter, in the Market Place, Knutsford, on
Monday and Tuesday night. On this Whitter was sent for,
but was found not to be at home ; his wife, however, came
forward. She said she had no recollection of the prisoners
having slept at her husband's house on the nights they named,
but that they had been there once, about a fortnight ago.
The prisoners were remanded until to-morrow morning. It
is but an act of justice to them to state, that nothing more
than a few halfpence in the shape of money was found upon
them.

ATROCIOUS MURDER IN DEMERARA

(From the Guiana Times of July
_21.)

Happily for the safety of human life, and the maintenance
of the reputation of society, the atrocities which it falls to
our lot to narrate, in the following recital, are, in this part of
the globe, of rare and remarkable occurrence.
Penny, or Penelope Rose, the wretched woman who has
been condemned to expiate her deliberate and treacherous
cruelty on a public gibbet, was married to Samson, a fellow-
slave, some time about the memorable era of Missionary
Smith and martial law. They lived, if not happily, at least
peaceably, and had children by their marriage. Five years
ago, Penny, who had never been acceptable to her husband's
family, having a reckless and turbulent character, com-
menced an adulterous intercourse with an apprentice on the
same plantation, Harry Blount, subsequently her partner in
crime, and now the sharer of her misery, with whom, leaving
her husband, she even went to reside. When the passion of
the moment was gratified, she would come to her husband
again, who, a quiet, easy, unsuspecting person, was but too
glad to receive her. It is singular to remark that in figure,
face, and speech, she is one of the coarsest and most repul-
sive women that are to be seen. At last, Blount, becoming
jealous of the possession of Penny by her husband, who, be-
ing a foreman, or under-overseer of the plantation, was, so
far, his superior, threw out hints about putting an end to the
husband's life. These the faithless and traitorous wife was
but too ready to understand and act upon. In fact, not-
withstanding her asseverations to the contrary, the instiga-
tion to what followed seems to have principally come from her
tongue. The labourers on the same plantation say she first
tried poison, preparing a bason of soup for her husband, of
which she forbade her children to partake. This failing, Blount
and she laid a common scheme to murder by violent means.
A Thursday night was fixed on : the Holy Evangelists of
Almighty God were taken, and an oath of resolution and
silence sworn upon them; but the man's courage failed, and
nothing was done. Next day the woman upbraided him for
his absence, telling him, as she had made her husband drunk
for the occasion, that he missed a fair opportunity. The
plot was laid anew, and the solemn oath again taken, and it
was fixed that the murder should happen on the night of
Friday, the 26th of June : the time, premises, and mode,
were minutely marked. For the last time, on that afternoon
was the unfortunate victim seen alive and in health. As
evening came, the domestic meal and familiar conversation
occurred, and the savage murderess, it is said, attuned her
temper, for the moment, to unusual sweetness. Supper
over, she fastened, or pretended to fasten, the doors of the
house, leaving, by concert, the windows ur.bolted, knelt for
prayer, and went to bed, her husband following immediately
and lying down beside her, and their two surviving children
lying on a mattrass on the floor beneath. Towards mid-
night, Blount entered by a window,
.and groped his- way
through the humble hall towards the bed-room. His para-
mour, broad awake and expectant, seized his hand, and,
bidding him move softly, directed him to where rested the
head of her husband, fast asleep it may be, although the evi-
dence is not explicit on this head, under the influence of a drug
mimed with his supper. Thrice Blount raised with his two
hands. a heavy green-heart club, to strike the fatal blow, and
thrice his weapon fell powerless. The mysterious influence of
the woman, however, overcame his fears or his scruples, and
the fourth time he struck, and instantly fled, leaving, in his
terror, the window and the door open. The wife, then,
to complete the tragedy, cut in her husband's neck with
a knife, and, when all was over lay still beside him
until he became cold. We compile our narrative from
the confessions of the prisoners and the depositions of
the witnesses, illustrated, in a few minor particulars, by pri-
vate accounts, well worthy of credit. She then made a noise,
as if of a person in great sickness, and awoke her boy, who
thought the sounds came from his father, and made as if to
awake his mother, upon which she sprang up with well-feigned
astonishment. To protract the period of discovery, she bade
her son call one of his uncles, who lived a considerable way
off. The boy, with remarkable intelligence, said he would
call the uncle who lived close by. When this latter person
came and felt his brother, the callous woman told him he
needed not feel him any more, for he was dead already. She
then made an effort to wash the pillow-case of the bed from
the blood with which it was saturated, before the people in
the yard were alarmed, but in this she was frustrated. The
manager was called up : early in the morning an inquest was
commenced before a Stipendiary Justice, a gentleman who
evinced the most laudable circumspection in nearly all that
he did, and was adjourned to the following day, when first
Penny and then Harry Blount, emitted the voluntary de-
clarations which have led to their conviction.
At the trial, the brother of the deceased, his son, a kept-
mistress of Harry Blount, with the Stipendiary Justice, and
nv
ee d thofe itself, dea
butbody,
corroborativedelivered very
v
explanatory of the confessions. As the little boy was ex-
ealemaevdeicvai
amined, when he said he had had a mother, but Penny was
medical
emn ca en, 1.11: coo examined
al
ums
not his mother any longer, there was hardly one dry eye in
The prisoners' counsel rested the defence on the re-
jectioncourt.
r h law of in nests
points, informal, according to the Eng .
h. qd.
and had, moreover, been taken on Sunday, wine is not a ay in
of the confessions, which,
„he said, were, in many
• norant
with
law. Be dwelt, with judicious brevity, although impres-
sive earnestness, on the possibility of comparatively
persons having been terrified into confessions stretching
beyond the truth. The judges unanimously over-ruled the