Middlesbrough & Stockton Gazette and General Advertiser. — 1872-11-21 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

THE PICKERING TRAGEDY.  Trts mystery of this revolting crime has now been partially dispelled. The prisoner, Robt. Charter, has made two statements, which amount to a confession of his being at least the chief actor 41. the murder and subsequent mutilation of the bodies of the father and child. In the first statement he speaks of having found the dead body of Joseph Wood, the father, and burying it so as to avoid suspicion. the second he admits having struck him with a piece of iron' but alleges that he did so in self. defence and had no intention of killing The medical evidence shows that death had probably been caused by a blow on the head. These two statements are evidently only approximations to the truth, and a fuller confession will no doubt be made should the prisoner survive. It is seldom that a crime, of which so many traces were within reach, has escaped so long without detection. It was committed so far back as the 17th May last, whe,n the disappearance of Mr Wood and the child awakened suspicion, and an investigation WAS made by the police. This however, was without result, so cempletely had all evidences of the crime been removed from the vicinity of the farm house where the old man had lived. A letter was forged purporting to have been written by the deceased from Liverpool, and addressed to Charter, in which he stated that he was leaving for America. '1 his letter was a clumsy device but strange to say, it so far imposed upon all parties as to prevent further proceedings at the time. The deceased had also the reputation of being an eccentric person, and there seems to have been a delicacy felt on the part of his relatives with regard to his property. However unlikely it might be that an old man, in comfortable circumstances, should think of leaving the farm where he had lived so long, and emigrating to America, tht.re was still a latent possibility of such a notion getting into his head. The coolness of Charter must also have been very perplexing to them, although it would be difficult to get rid of the suspicions' that must have haunted the very atmosphere, where such a crife remained undivulged. The mutilation of the bodies was carried to a revolting extent, in the vain effort to destroy every trace by which they might be ideutified. The prisoner and his accomplice have had to keep up the show of innocence at a dreadful cost. No wonder that Charter's nervous system has at length fairly broken down. The possession of so dreadful a secret, and the ingenuity required to prevent its disclosure, must have preyed ' upon his conscience like a concealed fire. The revolting means adopted in order to get rid of the bodies of the unfortunate victims were no doubt the result of these fears of detection. It will be long before the memory of this barbarous crime will cease to a.sf•ociate itself with the quiet country scene whose monotony it Iris so rudely disturbed.  Loma  CCIDENT  m orning,  GUN AL on Sunday and a corn' Marske-by-to. Fletchers pocket both discha tance was on a gate, where amputate below state. MIDDLESBROUI meeting of the , Council was lowing were Committee, A Committee, Committee, \ Councillor Todd; Williams; Gas Ferry Committ Committee, Alth poses Committee, determined to at ing Committees Ferry.  I panion,  •the-Sea,  dischirged, ,btained,  in TOWN CooNom.—The first It-elected committees of this _ on Friday. The fol elected chairmen : Watch cirmau Wilson ; Finance tor D. D. Wilson; Free Library minor Bell; Streets Committee, Sanitary Committee, Councillor Committee, Alderman Gilkes ; Councillor Dixon; Park ,an Hopkins; General FurCouncillor Vaughan. It was imit reporters to the followStreets, Sanitary, Gas, and.  newly  held  Councillor  Coun,  Committee,  terman  AY