The Sun. — 1861-10-11 (London, England)

MURDER OF A BOY IN NOTTINGJIAM FOREST.  MANSFIELD, THURSDAY. Four years ago a bey named John Wesley Atkinson, 8 years of age, was found murdered in a field near Nottingham Forest, a mile and a-half from Nottingham. Previous to the murder the lad had on a pair of new boots, but when the body was found these had been taken off the boy's feet, and the stealing of the boots appeared at the time to be the only motive for the murder, which had been caused by strangulation. A gipsy was apprehended at the time, but the companion of the murdered boy, who was present when Atkinson went away with a strange man, could not identify the gipsy as the person, but stated that he last saw his companion with a man with red hair and whiskers. This man decoyed the boy under pretence of giving him half-a-sovereign to show him the way to New Basford, near Nottingham, and he was not seen alive afterwards.  A few days ago the wife of a man named Henry Wilson, living at Mansfield had quarrelled with her husband, and it came to the knowledge of the police that she had reminded her husband that he was the murderer of the boy in Nottingham Forest. The man then lived at Bulwell, two miles and a-half from the scene of the murder. From other suspicious circumstances he was apprehended and placed in Mansfield lock-up. This morning the prisoner was brought before Sir Edward Walker and the Mansfield Bench of magistrates, when his wife Mary Wilson, stated she was in Pleasley-lanc, near Mansfield, with her husband, a few days ago, when he got over a gate and told her to come and sit by his side. She told him she wanted to go to Mansfield, but the prisoner said she would never go to Mansfield any more. He then grasped her throat and tried to strangle her. Witness resisted, and the prisoner then pulled a knife out of his pocket, with which he tried to cut her throat. She afterwards extricated herself and ran to Mansfield. In consequence of the assault witness became very ill, and her neighbours told her she would die, when she said that if she did it would not be the first murder her husband had committed.  She alluded to the murder of the boy in Nottingham Forest. At the time of the murder she rea the Hue and Cry, and the description of the murderer corresponded with the person of her husband, and when she told him so he showed great anger and left her, and soon afterwards shaved off his whiskers and burnt his coat.  The prisoner denied having a knife, but his wife positively swore that he had.  The Bench said that the wife of the prisoner had made a most serious charge against her husband respecting the murder, and cautioned her ; but the witness positively affirmed that her statement with with regard to the murder of the boy was true. Superintendent Palethorpe brought two youths from Nottingham, who were with the boy shortly before he was murdered, and who saw the man who decoyed away the boy, but, for some reason which did not transpire court, these boys were not confronted with the prisonerito identify him. The bench, thinking that the woman had charged her husband with the murder in consequence of the assault he had committed upon her, said they should send him to prison for six months in default of finding sureties. Upon hearing this the prisoner's wife said that she dared not be at large if the prisoner was, as he had declared he would murder her and her children, and she had no doubt he would fulfil his threat. The prisoner was then conveyed to gaol, and the utmost exertions are being made by the police to procure further evidence.