The Sun. — 1861-12-23 (London, England)

THE BILSTON MURDER.  ;CONFESSION OF ONE OF THE CULPRITS.  g On Saturday morning the culprit Maddox made 01 pa confession to the principal turnkey in the Stafford 'County Gaol, in which he is confined with the other 'two condemned men (Jones and Brandrick), each one, however, in a separate cell. Maddox 's is a " familiar face" in the cells of the gaol, and the turnkey visited him with the regular warder to evidence 1" the interest which he took in him on that account. Maddox availed himself of the opportunity to say that the right men had been convicted, inasmuch O,,as only he himself and Jones and Brandrick were iconcerned, coneerned, either in the burglary or in the murder. I•6He said that it was Brandrick who cut away a por, tion of the cellar door, by which the bolt was drawn 'back and access obtained to the interior of the house. • Brandrick, he said, then rushed across the passage, and into the room where the deceased was sitting, 'and clutching him by the throat as he sat in his ',•chair forced him to the ground. Jones then assisted by picking up the fire shovel and, he thought, pres, sing the bottom edge of the pan beneath their vietim s chin. Of the use which Jones made of the ;shovel he was not, however, ho said, quite clear, as he did not enter the room where the murder was perpetrated, and saw what he described only through the partly open door. While Brandrick and Jones were thus engaged on the ground floor ho (Maddox) went upstairs with a view to get the money ; but he could not succeed, and came down again and said so. Brandrick then went up armed with the small hatchet obtained from the cellar, where it had been used to break the coal. With this implement he succeeded in forcing the locks of the chest of drawers hand of the cashbox, which was kept in that piece of furniture, end thus obtained possession of, he (Madte, %dox) thought, about £lOO. But he (Maddox) and Jones did not get their share of that money, for 'Brandrick had said he lost it in " running" the policeman ; but he (Maddox) thought that he left it in his father's house when he went in there on the morning of the murder. Maddox added that they went into the house twice, and said that generally ' 1;; the evidence given against them was correct, and ,lespecially that of the woman who saw him leaning gon a wail near Brandrick's father's house, waiting 'for his (Brandrick's) coming out—all after they had ' run" the policeman, Harrison, who intercepted them as they were leaving the house of the murdered man and nearing that of Brandrick, carrying (with them a portion of their booty. This statement entirely exonerates the other four !prisoners, all of whom were acquitted on Friday evelling, Baron Martin ruling that there was no evidence against them. The statement was made known to Baron Martin, when his lordship again took his seat on the bench in the Stafford Assize Court on Saturday morning. Immediately afterwards Jukes, Lilley, Bills, and Webb, the other four men referred to, were arraigned on the charge of . the burglary, for which the grand jury found a true bill against them ; but the prosecution tendered no evidence, and the jury returning a verdict of not guilty they were all liberated from confinement. It will be remembered that it. was Maddox who made a volumlnuas statement to the magistrates at Bilston, which proved him to be an accessory to the burglary, but in which he denied that he entered ' the house with Jones and Brandrick, although he ran away with them after they left the house. Al-though this second statement makes him a particeps : criminis in the murder, yet its comparatively lenient tone towards himself may leave it to be fairly inferred that it will not be before Jones and Brandrick have unburdened their bosoms that all the 'truth will he known.