The Northern Daily Times. — 1857-05-23 (Liverpool, Merseyside, England)

EXTRAORDINARY CHARGE OF MURDER.  At Kingston, on Thursday, Mr. W. Carter held an adjourned inquest on the body of Mary Ann Kebble, who was alleged to have been murdered by a named James Smith. Thomas Harrod, a lamplighter, deposed to finding the body of deceased in the river Thames at twenty minutes after five o'clock on Thursday morning. Mr. W. Nichol], optician and jeweller, said that on yesterday week, while he was at the White Horse public house, Esher, he noticed a man carrying a bundle, and the woman following him. The man was the prisoner, and the woman the corpse upon which the inquest was being held. They had something to drink, and the man desired the woman to pay, which she refused to do, and he got up and followed her as if to strike her. He heard the man say, " Stop till I get you into Kingston ; it shall be the last day you shall ever be with me." The witness said that he saw them again in the weaning of tho namo day at the Marquis of Granby, Long Ditton-marsh. Joseph Eagleton ostler at Mr. Cox's, the Masons' Arms, Long Ditton, testified to having seen the deceased at that house about nine o'clock on the evening of Wednesday week. She was alone, and said that she had had a few words with her husband. She left about ten o'clock, rather the worse for liquor. Miss Susannah Eades, of Westfield-road, deposed to having seen a man and woman pass by the Fox and Hounds public-house about half-past eleven o'clock. She (the witness), accompanied by a gentleman, proceeded towards Kingston, when they heard a shriek. This was about 12 o'clock. P. C. Hughes also testified to haviug heard a " piercing shriek ;" the next morning he heard of the finding of the body, and at twenty minutes past six the prisoner came to the stable where it was. The circumstance of the prisoner having come at that early hour in the morning induced him (the witness) to take him into custody. Mary Dandy, servant at the Black Lion, Kingston, recognised the prisoner as having taken a bed between nine and ten o'clock on Wednesday week at that house: She saw the prisoner in bed at a late hour, and he got up about seven o'oclok the next morning. The house was closed by a back door leading to a back lane, with folding gates at the end, which are bolted into wool in the ground, and fastened by an iron bar staple and lock. When she came down in the morning, she found these gates open, and the fastenings wrenched asunder. Thomas Green, a stone sawyer, loging at the Black Lion, at Kingston, said that the accused came to lodge in the same house on Wednesday night week. He had seen him before, and he had dressed two hats for him. About ten o'clock he saw him upstairs when he undressed himself and went to bed. Witness awoke in the night, but he did not miss any one. He got up at six o'clock, and saw the prisoner in bed. Police constable Jay, V 146, swore that he met the prisoner on the road to Ditton, at a quarter or twenty minutes past eleven on the night in question, and when ho was brought oat of the cell he at once recognised him. Some other evidence of an equally contradictory character having been given, the jury returned an open verdict " That the deceased died from immersion in the water, but how she got therein there was not sufficient evidence to prove."  A pike weighing 3541bs was killed in the River Barrow by a .gentleman residing in this town on Saturday last. This is the largest fish taken in the river fer several years. Saunders' News Letter.