Stockton Herald, South Durham and Cleveland Advertiser. — 1862-10-31 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

CATHERINE WILSON.  Catherine Wilson, alias Constance Taylor, was born about the year 1820. Her parents' name was Crane, and they lived at Surfleet, a little village near Spalding. ller father was a carpenter, and in the latter part of his life was an inmate of one of the Bede-houses of the town. There were two other children, one of whom, an idiot, died two years ego. The parents have been dead about twelve years. The first thing that rendered her notorious was a robbery which she committed when only fourteen years of age, the circumstances being of a very base and heartless character. She had gone to the house of a friend as a child visitor, and whilst there committed a theft. The servant was suspected, taken in charge, and convicted of the offence, the evidence against her being that of the child, who, on being subsequently examined about the robbery, confessed that she had committed it, and fixed the crime upon the servant. After this she left her home and went to live at Spalding, where she led a loose life. She then went to Boston, and there became acquainted with a highly respectable master mariner, trading from that port, and by her plausibility and her apparent respectability she induced him to marry her, and for some time they lived in comfort; but she returning to her old mode of living while her husband was at sea, he abandoned her on his return. After this she went into the service of an eccentric old seafaring gentleman, of the name of Mawer, who died under very suspicious circumstances after a few hours' illness—it was said of cholera— leaving:to the woman a considerable sum of money and other property, worth £5O a year. She then made the acquaintance of the parties named in the cases , recently before the public. In 1856 she lived with a young man named Dixon, who was suddenly taken ill with violent vomiting and purging. His symptoms were exactly the same as those exhibited by Mrs Soames. The woman stated that he died of consumption, but upon the body being opened his lungs were found to be perfectly healthy. About the year 1859 she wes in the habit of visiting a Mrs Jackson, who resided at Boston, and who drew from the bank a sum of £l2O, which Catherine Wilson knew to be in her possession. She was taken ill with the same symptoms and died in four days. After her death the money was nowhere to be found. Upon that occasion she produced al promissory note, apparently signed by two persons residing at Boston, for the amount which was missing, but it was proved that those signatures were forged. In October, 1860, she was connected with a Mrs Atkinson, who resided at Kirkby Lonsdale, but who came to live with Catherine Wilson at her residence at Kennington. Mrs Atkinson was in possession of a considerable sum of money. On the 19th of that month Mrs Atkinson was taken ill with violent retching and purging, and in four days she was dead. In 1861 she was living with a man named Taylor, and he was attacked in the same manner as the others, but remedies were applied and he recovered. In the earlier part of the present year she was tried at the Central Criminal Court for an attempt to murder, by the administration of sulphuric acid, a woman in whose house she was residing, when, notwithstanding a summing up greatly to her disadvantage by Lord Chief Baron Pollock, the jury acquitted her.