The Weekly Gazette for Middlesbrough, Stockton, Hartlepool and Cleveland District. — 1880-11-06 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

THE ALLEGED CHILD MURDER  AT STOCKTON.  ACQUITTAL OF WRIGHT.  At Durham Autumn Assizes on Fridayweek Elizabeth Wright, 24, spinster, was indicted for the wilful murder of Elizabeth Marley, aged seven weeks, at Stockton, on August 17th. Mr Skidmore and Mr Edge prosecuted; Mr Steavenson defended the prisoner.—The learned counsel said that on the night in question the prisoner was seen by the side of the River Tees with a child in her arms by a man named Drayton, whose suspicions were aroused by her manner, and seeing her a second time he noticed that she was very wet, and that a child in her arms, which on the first occasion was living, was dead, and also wet. On being asked for an explanation, the woman said that two men had thrown her down and attempted to take liberties with her, and had thrown her into the water. Before the magistrates she gave a different story, to the effect that she had tried to drown herself. In the face of two statements so oontradictory, he should ask the jury to believe that the prisorer4ther threw the child into the river, aqdthen )umped in herself, or that they both went in together. It was possible that thamight be the alternative proposition of mallaughter in this case. Perhaps the woman was drunk, walking along the river side, and if, in consequence, she fell into the river, and the baby was drowned, that would be culpable negligence which might amount to manslaughter. —A labourer named Marlpy was examined, and said that previous to August 16th the prisoner had lived with him for some time, but they had some words, and she was determined to leave him, and went away with the child of her own accord. —John Drayton, boatman, Thornaby-road, spoke to having had his attention drawn to the prisoner, who was carrying a child, and had no bonnet on, and on seeing her half an hour afterwards she related how she had been assaulted by two men, who had attempted to drown her. She looked distressed, and was crying. Be observed no signs of a straggle.—Constable Coates deposed that the prisoner told him that she had a long struggle to get out of the river after being thrown in by two men, but she managed to save herself by catching hold of a stone with her right band, and pulling herself out.—Polioe Superintendent Bell said the prisoner told him that she kept hold of the child whilst in the river, and on getting out of the water she found it was dead. She would swear to the two men, whom she described—Police Inspector Parkinson corroborated, and stated that before the Coroner the prisoner alleged that the child was dead before she left Sarah Nicholson's house in Black Bull-yard. She had laid down in the afternoon, and on awaking found it was dead, when, in great grief, she attempted to drown herself and child, but she could not drown, and scrambled out.—Sarah Nicholson said the prisoner and her child called at her house on August 17th, but did not sleep there, as alleged, and when she left at 4-30 in the afternoon the child was alive.— Evidence was adduced to show that the prisoner and deceased were seen together several times not long before the occurrence. —Dr. R. W. FOBB stated that the cause of death was suffocation by drowning.—The defence was that the prisoner walked into the river in a state of mental distractiou.—The jury, after a consultation which lasted-nearly an hour and a half, found the prister not guilty, and she was acquitted.  , A