The Sun. — 1863-08-15 (London, England)

MURDER IN WOLVERHAMPTON.  WOLVERHAMPTON, Aug. 14.  A terrible crime has been Committed in this town. In Bilston-street there is a wide court known as the Barracks, but correctly as No. 4 Court. It contains about eight houses, tenanted at 2s. 3d, a week. On the occupancy of one of these there entered five or six weeks ago a young man and woman, who seemed to obtain a livelihood by making and selling forks and skewers of iron ware. On the Monday evening, about a month ago, the woman locked the house door and told a next-door neighbour that sho was going out, and asked her to say if any one called that sho was gone to the country. A few days after her departure P. respect able-looking woman came from Willenhall, a neighbour: 2'g township, and enquired for Mr. Williams, her son,who WaS alledged to be the tenant of the house and who had passed as the husband of the woman referred to. The message left by the woman was delivered,and old Mrs. Williams desired that her son should be told to write to his mother,as she wished to bear from him. Whether or not the woman who mado the inquiries was the person she alleged herself to be has not yet transpired. After that time no one called, and the house remained closed. An offensive smell, however; for some days back has been noticed to proceed from the house, and this morning the neighbour with whom the message had been delivered by the woman-tenant began to suspect that something was wrong. At her request, a neighbour named Mary Lees procured a key and opened the door. The smell then became very strong. Lees, however, went upstairs,and saw a dead body lying in the front room. She called out to a neighbour named Smith for assistance, and they both entered the room. On the floor lay a mattress, and upon it there was stretched, covered with a sheet and coverlet, what was evidently the corpse of a man, it isneedless to say, in a horrible state of decomposition. The murdered man, for such the deceased would seem to be, wore,as he lay in bed, only a shirt and waistcoat ; and there is no doubt that some hand must have tended him after he was unable to do anything for himself. This is clear from the manner in which his head was covered with the bed clothes. These were fastened over the face tight enough to secure ' suffocation, if death had not previously taken place. The colour of the hair and other circumstances convinced them that the deceased was the young man Williams. The inquest was held yesterday afternoon, Before the inquiry commenced a woman present volunteered a statement to the effect that, some time since, she had known the deceased by the name of Bill, and she now remembered his name to be William Williams. She was able to identify him by his trousers,which on one occasion she had mended. His mother lived at Portobello, a small town near Wolverhampton. A letter addressed to him had once been left at her house, and she had known him when he lived in Birmingham. He was not married, but had lived with a woman named Rose. This woman she had not seen for more than three weeks. She had a very bad character. Mary Lees, the woman who first found the body, and the first witness called, said,—l last saw Williams alive on Monday three weeks at the bottom of the court, and he then appeared to be in good health. On the evening of the same day I saw the woman with whom he lived go to the top at the back of the building for some water. After filling her kettle she returned to the house, and I have not seen her since. The witness then stated what the woman had said before geing to the country, and the manner in which the body had been discovered. A policeman who went to the house soon after the discovery said that a pair of trousers was found under the deceased's body. He added that in the house there were some articles found which he could prove belonged to the woman Rose,  • Rachel Barry corroborated the last witness in some par ticulaz s.  The inquiry Was then adjourned until the last day of this month. Br. Gibbons, the surgeon, in the meantime, was instructed to make a careful post mortem examination of the body.