The Blandford and Wimbourne Telegram. — 1886-03-12 (Blandford, Dorset, England)

GIRL MURDERED BY HER MOTHER  AND SISTER.  A FAMILY OF PURITY MANIAC:4.  The Mt ?bourne Argas tells an extraordinary story of is tragedy which has recently occurred at Coburg, where a girl named Ethel May Hampton, aged nine, had been murdered in the bedroom in which her mother and three elder sisters slept. Her head was almost severed from her body. The three sisters were suffering from severe cuts on the arms, and the mother was covered with blood. Subsequent inquiries shoaed that the child had been killed and the wounds inflicted on the others as the result of insanity, and that the turn It had taken was traceable, in some degree, to the so-called Pall Mall Gazrth " revelations " and the Stead case. The girls, inheriting a taint of mania from their mother, became imbued with the belief that in an indefinite way there were designs upon their purity, and as the confession of one of them shows, they resolved to kill themselves iather than be compelled to lead bad lives. When the police were sent for, Sergeant Bass found the little girl lying on the floor of the bedroom with her throat cut, and the three elder girls bleeding : profusely from wounds in the arm above the elbow, cutting right down to the bone, dividing the muscles, but just missing the principal arteries. They \vete fully dressed, but the sleeves of their dress had be• n cut off to allow the penknife which was useo, and which was picked up covered with blood, to cleave the arm freely. Annie Eliza was the most dangerously wounded, having two deep cuts on either arm, and her life is in some dimger, Sh  professes a wish to kill herself, and has to be kept under surveillance. Like the others, she reso. . lutely refused to say anything about the tragedy. After Mrs. Hampton had been arrested on a charge of murder, and her sisters had been removed from  the room, 'Mary was prevailed upon by Dr. Cutts and Elliott, who attended the injured girls to make a confession, which is full of the strangest • statements, and which has to be read in the light of facts vouched for by one of the brothers, that the girls have have been great readers of the " Stead " case and other literature of that kind. The confession' is as follows :—"For some time past we have been • under the influence of a secret society, which has . endeavoured to get us to go to the bad. We felt that we were much influenced, and that we had nol. option. At last We prayed that we might be delivered from the influence. One night we were talking about it with mother, and she ' asked us if we, rather than do wrong, would. -' rather die. We decided to die, and yesterday evening we went into the front room and took the little girl with us, so as to prevent her being brought under the influence. When we got into the front room we thought the matter over and then knelt-. down and prayed. And as we prayed we felt that the spirit was gently leaving us. We heard a peal dr' thunder, and we thought that it was a warning to • strengthen our resolution, and we were confirmed in our wish to die. Then we prayed again, and felt an inspiration telling us we must die, and we decided that the first life to be taken was that of the little one. We then deliberated who was to do it, and it. was settled that I and mother should kill the child, and then we should kill each other, and mother should die last. I held the child, and mother cut its throat. We then agreed to kill each other by cutting our arms, and as the blood flew from the veins we felt the evil influence of the society was leaving us, and we knew that we were safe. Then a peal of thunder came, and we screamed. After cutting the first aria we felt that we would not die, and we then cut the other." The cuts were made across the arm from the inside to the outer side, showing that the wounds could not have been self-inflicted, but the girl who made the confession would not tell by whom the knife had been used.