Swansea and Glamorgan Herald, and South Wales Free Press. — 1862-10-01 (Swansea, West Glamorgan, Wales)

THE MURDERER CATHERINE WILSON.  At the Central Criminal Court, on Saturday, Catherine Wilson was timid guilty of the murder Of Maria Soames. Mr. Justice Bytes, in summing up the ease, referred to the various points upon which the prosecution was founded, and concluded by expressiiir a hope that the jury would be guided to aright conclusion.  A verdict of Guilty was returned. Mr. Justice+ Bytes, in passing sentence, said that he did not think the jury could come to any other conclusion than the one which they had declared. He had never heard a case where it was so clearly proved that a murder had been committed, and where the agony of the victim was watched with so much deliberation by the murderer. In the course of his address to the prisoner, the learned judge said : I find that about the year 1853 and 1854 you were employed in the capacity of a servant or housekeeper to a person named Nlawen, who lived at Boston, in Lincolnshire, and that this person was in the habit of taking colchicum. He made his will in the month of April,aud by that will he left to you the whole of the little property he possessed. He died in the month of October following. I will say no more about this case eeipept that it quite dear that at this time you were perfectly well acquainted with the nature and effects of colchicum. In the year 1856 I find that you were living with a young man named Dixon, and that you came to London and went to lodge with him at the house of the deceased. he surgeou was not allowed upon the present trial to state any of the circumstances connected with tho illness of this person, but I may now state that it appears by the despositions that Dixon was suddenly taken ill with violent vomiting and purging ; that his symptoms were exactly the same as those exhibited by the unfortunate woman Mrs. Some; ; and that he died very speedily afterwards, you yourself representing that he had died of galloping consumplien, but on his body being opened his lung, were found perfectly healthy. About the year 1859 1 find that you were in the habit of visiting a Mrs. Jackson, who +deo resided at Boston, and that you were aware thst she drew from a bank in that town the sum 4E120, and that this sum was in her pomession. BM was taken ill with the same symptoms, lin.' +lied in four days, and after her death the motley was nowheie to be ound. In the month of October, 1860, I find that you were connected with a Mrs. Atkinson. who Came to live with you at your residence at Kenniogton, and it at pears that you were aware that she was in p,ssession of a considerable sem of money. On the 19th of that month Mrs• Atkinson was taken ill ; again the same symptoms, retching, violent purging, vomiting, and great agony, and in four days she was dead. I have read the depositions in the ease meat carefully and anxiously, and the result upon my mind is that I have no more doubt that you committed that trime than if I had seen it ceintuitted with thy own eyes. li. 1861 1 find you were living with a man named Taylor, and that he was attacked in the same milliner as tue ethos to whom I have alluded; but that, fortunately for him, remedies were immediately resorted to and he recovered. Again, I find that uuly in the present year you were tried in this court for an attempt to murder, by the administration of sulphuric acid to a woman in whose home you were residing. You were acquitt+ d upon that charge, but although this was the case, there is too much reason to believe that you were guilty of this crime also. These facts, I regret to say, render it extremely probable that the startling statement made by Dr. Taylor, in the comae of his evidence, is correct, and that in the midst of apparent prosperity and obedience to the law a dreadful crime and vice is rife in this metropolis—the dcatiuction of life by secret poisoning. I cannot hold out to you the slightest hope of any commutation of your sentence.  Thu learned judge then pad.ed the awful sentence of death in the usual form.  During the whole of the trial the prisoner exhibited the greatest coolness and self-possession, and she was not in the slightest degree affected at any portion of the learned judge's address to her, and when he had concluded she walked firmly away from the bar.