The Birkenhead News and Wirral General Advertiser. — 1883-10-20 (Birkenhead, Merseyside, England)

LIVERPOOL MURDERS.  Liverpool seems to be peculiarly the home of murder at present. It was only last week that a man was commit- , ted for trial for murdering a poor old woman in Athol-street. On Wednesday the police received particulars of ' another alleged murder, and arrested a person on suspicion. Then on Saturday night a foul and frightful crime was committed on the banks of the Leeds and Liverpool canal, where a girl was battered about until she became unrecognisable and then thrown into the water, dead. This tragedy derives an element of unusual interest from the fact that it was enacted in the presence of a witiiess, w:.o was, however, unable tore flder assistance or to identify the murderer. Edward Martin, the witness in question, is a pointsman in the employment of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company, and has made the following statement :—" At about 10.35 on Saturday night, while sitting in his cabin, he heard a quarrel going on at the side of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. He at , once came outside, and saw a man beating a woman, who was lying on the ground groaning, as though in great agony. For upwards of ten minutes he watched the man striking and mauling the woman about, and, believing that all was clear, he then dragged her along the ground by the shoulders, and dropped her into the canal. Martin then Amite I to the man, and asked him what he had done, whereupon the accused hurried off by the side of the canal until he reached a part where it had run dry, when he walked across the mud to the other side —a distance of a few yards—and thus escaped by Jackson's coalyard wall. All this time Martin, who was unable to leave his cabin, shouted out as loud as ho could for assistance, and Inspector Sutton, on the railway, shortly afterwards cam o up, but the murderer had then to all appearance, made good his escape." Nor has he since been captured, though the police profess to be on his track. Then Mrs. Flannagan has been arrested, and the papers have day by day contained long accounts of her movements and particulars of the horrible poisonings of which she is alleged to have been guilty. She appears to be, after all, a commonplace kind of person. In trying to escape she displayed no ingenuity. Indeed she walked right into the lion's mouth, and acted as if she courted detection. For a while she lodged with a woman named Booth, whom she asked to read the newspaper to her as she could not read herself. She then questioned Mrs. Booth about what she thought of Mrs. Flannagan, the suspented poisoner, and asked if she thought she would be caug it. On Saturday Mrs. Booth read to her the weekly paper containing the report of the iuqu-st, ande.on Sunday night they talked about Marwood's successor, and she showed the morbid tendency of her mind by wondering who would be the first parson he would hang. She ate s:arcelv anything while she was at Mrs. Booth's. When shepaid her bill Mrs. Both noticed that she had a pui se full of gold. She had no box or lagosge with her, and said that she had left her basket and umbrella in the train. Thus Liverpool seems to be I, in a fair way of making its sombre reputation still darker.