The Potteries Examiner : — 1876-06-03 (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England)

MURDER.  At the Town Hall, ficeste—r,—On Wednesday, before Mr. William Barfoot (mayor) and other magistrates, Cornelius Asher, aged seventy-six, described as a herbalist, was charged on remand with having caused the death of Ann Use, on the 2nd of May, and was further remanded for eight days.—ln the course of the afternoon the adjourned invest on the body of the nufortus nate woman Ann Gee was reopened before the borough coroner (Mr. George F. Harrison), at which the prisoner was also present in custody. The main facts of the , case, as revealed at the present and previous enquiry, were simple these : The deceased, who was twenty-six years of age, was a married woman, but her husband had been absent in America for a little over twelve months. For some weeks prior to the 21th of April she complained to some companions with whom she worked at a factory of being unwell, adding that she bud put herself under treatment by a medical herbalist, and on the evening of Monday, the 24th of April, she induced a young woman, named Elizabeth Richards to accompany her to the house of the prisoner, who kept a stnalt herbalist's shop. After a conversation with the deceased, the prisoner ordered the witness outside, sayMg that she might wait in the street for her, as he did not allow anyone to stay in his place. The witness stayed in the street for from an hour and a half to two hours, when she was rejoined by the deceased, who complained of being ill, and could scarcely walk home. On arriving at her sister's, a short distance away, she took to her bed, but paid a second visit to the &fendant on the following Wednesday, after which she became much worse, and was subsequently attended by Dr. Bryan, who was kept in ignorance by her relatives as to the real and serious nature of her illness, and she lingered in great pain until Thursday, the 2-nd of May, when she died. After her burial, rumours in the neighbourhood led to the coroner issuing an order for the , exhumation of the body, and a post moriene examination was made, which revealed the fact there were several internal punctures, caused by the use of sharp instramints, similar to some which were found in the prisoner's hones on his apprehension by Inspector Heckenbottora on the following Saturday. It also appeared that on Saturday, the tub of May, the young woman Richards went to the prisoner's house, and told him of Gee's death—that it was he who had killed her, and that he ought to refund sonic money oat of the 275. 61. which had been paid him by the deceased, in order to help to bury her, as her friends hail no money when he said be had done her no harm, but after some .eon cessation gave the witness 10s., saying that was all he had from the deceased. Since the opening of .he inquest and the incarceration of the prisoner, the coroner's sificer had succeeded in discovering the re. mains if a prematurely born female child Man advanced state of decomposition, buried in the garden at the back of the house where the deceased lodged with her sister—The jury returned a verdict of " Wilful mu, der' against the prisoner, who was committed on the corm r's warrant to take his trial at Vie erisuingassizes on the charge.—The prisoner was tried for a similar offence to that with which he is charged at the Leicester Assizes in March, 1855, when he was convict, d of manslaughter, awl sentenced by the late Baron Alder. sou to fourteen years' penal servitude, but was released on a ticket-of-leave after having served seven years of his time.