Denton and Haughton Examiner, etc. — 1890-02-22 (Denton, Greater Manchester, England)

STORIES.  Detectives Wilciey and Langrish have been hard at work all day, and there is reason to believe that circumsteacee have come to the knowledge of the police which will be calculated to render the search for the murderer by no means an unhopeful one. The story which was brought the other night to the , police to the effect that a stone sawyer had seen a man in the dusk of an evening about a fortnight ago dragging a child towards the houses turns out to be unreliable. The man who gave the information to the police said that he had received it from a friend. Thin friend was interviewed, and it turned out that he had been told it by another man. The third man had got the story from a boy, and finally the boy had heard it told in a coffee shop. Further than that the story could not be traced, and the identity of the stone sawyer is still shrouded in mystery. It is more than likely that evidence of an important character will be adduced at the inquest, but in the meantime it may be stated that further discoveries made by the police have completely destroyed some of the most plausible theories which had been constructed. TE1.1.-TALB 1•017:171tINTS. • • • • •  ..... Speculation/I%sec beenindulged in as to whether the girl had been drugged by means of • chloroformed handkerchief, and conveyed to the house in an insensible condition, or whether the murder and outrage , had not been committed outride the house, the body being afterwards hidden where it was found. A later discovery, however, establishes beyond doubt that the girl, if she did not enter the house of her own free will, was, at any rate, in a sensible state after her arrival there. In the thick duet on the floor of the room in which the ghastly discovery was made there were found distinct impressions of the girl's boots, the heels being close together. 'rhe footprints are of such a character as to show that she stood firmly on her feet without assistance, no other marks being observable in the immediate vicinity. It at once suggests itself that if the footprints of the girl tell a tale, those of her brutal ravisher and murderer should not: be silent. The police decline to say, however, whether or not they have obtained anything in the nature of • clue in this direction. There are other marks, they admit,which are evidently footprints but they are not sufficiently well-defined to beef much assistance. The girl seems to have stood in a corner of the room where the dust was thickest. TUE IX/LICH TllllOl2l-.  The police have a view of their own about the case, but whether it is purely the result of theoriaing, or whether it is based upon facts which have come to their knowledge, it is impossible to say. They are undoubtedly of opinion that the girl entered the house of her own free will, but, while holding this ' opinion, they are at the same time convinced that She must have been induced to enter it by some in. gemoualy constructed story. The girl's whole life and character combat, in the strongest way, the supposition that she could have been prevailed upon to enter the house for any other than an innocent purpose. These circumstances have led the police to believe that no stranger could have succeeded so well in gaining the child's confidence as to lure her into the house. The police, not unnaturally, are reticent on the subject, but there is strong reason to believe that they incline to the belief that the miscreant was an acquaintance of the girl and of her parents of some years standing. The father and mother will not say whether they have any acquaintance to whom suspicion could reasonably attach; but the father, in an interview with a Press representative, emphatically states that hi. daughter was the most unlikely person in the world to enter into any conversation whatever with a stranger. "In fact," he said, I believe she would have run array if anybody spoke to her in the street" Thus much established it seems no more than reasonable to suppose that the person who induced Amelia Jeffs to enter the house was no stranger to her. now