The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser. — 1841-08-13 (Liverpool, Merseyside, England)

THE MURDER AT WYMONDHAM.—JOHN SELF'S CONFESSION.— About nine o'clock in the morning of the day of the day of the murder, Jemima Simpson passed him on her way from a neighbouring cottage to her work. A few words passed between them of only common import. At his dinner hour he walked to her, and found her seated on a bank. He sat down by her side. She had a knife in her hand : he asked her to let him look at it. He took it, and put it into his pocket, and said he should keep it. He began to play with her; and, after a time, took hold of her clothes in a manner that she much resented, threatening to tell her mother of him, and to expose him. He desisted, and denies at any time having violated her person. He returned to his work ; and, brooding over the threat, first thought of murdering her, if she would not retract it. At four o'clock he left off work, and met her near the fatal spot. After they had got over the gap, he inquired whether she still intended to tell ber mother. She replied, yes ; and that she would " mob' him for it wherever she met him. He said, then she would tell nothing but lies, and he took her by the throat. She said she would tell her mother that he graned her. Upon this, he threw her down, and struck her with his spade, and repeated the blows till he supposed he had killed her. She shrieked after the first blow, he believes, but once. He then took her by the heels, and dragged her on her back to the pond, and threw her into a part of it that was not deep. He returned to the place of the murder, and finding there her hat and apron, in which she had tied up some sticks, he took and hid them in an adjoining field, and then returned for his spade. When he came back, lie saw, to his great surprise, the poor girl sitting on the margin of the pond about two yards from it. The blood was running from her wounds. She fixed her eyes on him, but neither cried out nor spoke. He again took her by the heels, and dragged her as before. On the way, she caught hold of the grass, and clinched it in her bands. He threw her into another part of the pond, and put his spade upon her neck, to keep her under the water; and, after a short interval, he pushed her with it into the middle of the pond, and left her with her head, and mouth more especially, above the surface. The and immediately says, that h e sawca causing the wound, which was whole of this latter scene of the horrid transaction did not occupy, according to his account, much more than a minute. He denies having struck her in this second attack, except in described thrusting the spade upon her death, when she was sitting he Hesitated, se and on theii tsi fdthespaioa h e pond. didO n being asked whether he was sure that not shriek during this part of the murder, her neck as more ; dot remember that she did ; which might b e th e case in the hurry, confusion, and agitation that must necessarily have accompanied the whole of this horrid deed. The bloody cloth which was found was what it was sworn to be, and the wet stocking was his father's. The blood on his trousers belonged to the poor girl, but the stain on his hat was not the stain of blood.