Cradley Heath & Stourbridge Observer. — 1864-03-26 (Stourbridge, West Midlands, England)

THE MURDER AT LEOMINSTER.  HERITORDSHIRE ASSIZES.—WEDNESDAY. Before Mr. Baron noorr. James IF atkiss, who last evening pleaded guilty to having murderedhis wife, at Hennor, near Leominster, ' on the 18th of January last, but subsequently, on the reeomendation of his Lordship, withdrew that plea, was this morning placed in the dock to undergo his trial for that offence. The Court and its precincts were densely crowded, and after an early hour it was impossible to obtain admission. The prisoner looked pale and careworn, and was frequently moved to tears. There were no less than forty-four witnesses prepared to be be called to speak to the actions and whereabouts of the prisoner for some days before and subsequent to the murder' and his Lordship called attenticn to this laboured attempt so secure a conviction as unnecessary, and one that persons engaged in getting up evidence would do well to avoid in future. The first witness called was one John Lane, the gardener to Captain at Hennor House, at whose house Mary Watkins Stevenson,the mnrdered woman, washed on the day of thr murder; the deceased woman left about six o'clock, but expressed fears that something would happen to her. His dog had growled at some one in the neighbourhood of the house. About ten o'clock he was called up by Lipscombe to go to the place where the woman had been discovered with her skull beaten in, but still groaning. He assisted in taking the body to the Workhouse at Leominster, He knew that Mary Watkins did not live with her husband, who was reported to be in the neighbourhood. having deserted from the service in which he enlisted when he left her. Superintendent Alexander, of Leominster, said that having been called upon at two o'clock in the morning of the lfiith of January, he went to the Workhouse, where lie saw the body of Mary Aim Watkins, and from thence he went to the place where she had been found. Here lie saw a large quantity of blood. The place by this time had been so much trampled that he could not distinguish any track; but at the point marked' fron tile pCau tle Wintefsatral 02-5-‘ver,2-4,l2eeP', clog. They appeared to have been produced by some one walking backwards and forwards, as if he had been waiting thereabouts, and at a short distance some one had sat down upon a bank with the same clogs on. By the light of his lamp they were traced some distance, and on the morrow the investigation was resumed, when the bonnet of the deceased was found without strings; it was pressed as if some one had fallen heavily upon it. The marks of the clogs were then traced towards Risbury (where prisoner's mother lived), up the road to the Trumpet, and across the Bromyard Road. On Tuesday, Wednesday, aud Thursday, the investigation was continued, and on the latter Say the clog marks were traced into Brierley Wood, and finaly to Eardisland and Haven, where they discovered the prisoner standing at the door of a farm house, occupied by a Mr. Bray, and talking to his wife. Prisoner was at once taken into custody, and the clogs—impressions of which they had tracked for several miles, through three successive days—were upon his feet, The usual method of taking impressions were adopted and no other tracks but those made by the prisoner's clogs could be found anywhere in the neighbourhood. The prisoner who, on being apprehended, was cautioned not to criminate himself, said, "I did not do it, but I heard that the man who committed the murder had drowned himself;" on examining prisoner's trovrsers he found several marks or blood upon them. On cross-examination the witness said he did not have the marks analysed. Mr. Weightman, who appeared for the defence, grounded it chiefly upon the fact that the evidence was purely circumstantial, and such as no jury should convict upon, especially in a case in which the life of a fellow being wai at stake. r The Judge summed up with great pains, and the Jury, after an absence of 25 minutes, returned a verdict of" Gui!ty." His Lordship then put on the black cap, and pro• nonnced sentence of death in the usual form, which the prisoner received without any marked symptoms of feeling,