Stockton Herald, South Durham and Cleveland Advertiser. — 1862-06-27 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

ATROCIOUS MURDER OF A YOUNG LADY.  A revolting murder has been committed at Fordingbridge, a small town in the county of Hants. Mary Ann Sarah Hall, the only daughter of Mr. Hall, a respectable farmer. living at Midghani Farm, left her father's house, on Sunday morning, to proceed across the fields to Fordingbridge church. Nothing more was heard of her until four o'clock in the afternoon, when a man named George Jacob Gilbert, alias Philpott, informed a police constable that as he was creasing a field, called Harding's field, he picked up a parasol, and on proceeding a little further he SAW the body of a woman lying on her back in a gully or ditch that separated Mr Hall's farm from Harding's field. The constable, a surgeon, and several people at once went to the spot, when they discovered the body of Miss Hall, lying against the side of the ditch, quite dead, the hands outstretched and clenehed, the clothes fearfully torn and thickly covered with the mud and slime of the ditch, through which evidently she had been dragged. On her breast was her church service, and in her hand her hymnbook. The body was immediately removed to her father's house, the windows of which were visible from the place where the fearful deed was committed, the man Gilbert assisting at the removal. The police constable soon afterwards apprehended Gilbert, on the charge of having committed the murder. He bears a very bad character, having been transported on one occasion for rape, and committed repeatedly for minor offences. He is now on a ticket of leave, and has resided in Fordingbridge for the last twelve months, working as a labourer. His statement is that he did not go out of his house on Sunday until three o'clock, the time at which he discovered the body ; but a shepherd, named Garland, asserts that he saw him at a quarter past eleven o'clock on the Sunday morning in a field about 600 or 600 yards on the Fordingbridge side of the ditch, where the body lay, wiping his boots and trousers with the grass. His clothes were found to have been recently washed, and his stockinga were found hanging out to dry in the garden of his cottage. It would appear that the murderer met his victim as she was walking to church, at the stile that separates her father's from Harding's field, and there attacked her, evidointly with a view of criminally assaulting her, as there seems to have been no attempt at robbery. Here there are evident traces of a struggle having taken place, and of the mastery being gained by the murderer, who, it would seem, dragged the girl about fifteen yards up the gully or ditch that separates the two fields above mentioned, which is completely covered in by the futze bushes on either side, and where they would be effectually screened from the observation of stray Passers-by. Here it was that the second struggle took place, the girl having been evidently placed against the side of the ditch, with the lower part of her body trailing in the mud, while the brute attempted to carry out his infernal purpose. From this spot, then, he dragged his victim by the legs for the distance of 140 yards through the water, filth, and weeds of the ditch, screened from all human observation by the overhanging bushes, finally putting the now lifeless body in the place and position in which it was found. From the medical evidence at the inquest on Monday, it would appear that the poor young lady was alive when her inhuman murderer immersed her in the poisonous rater of the ditch, for some of it WAS found in her stomach. Her under-clothes were torn to atoms, and the weeds and mud had even penetrated under her stays.