Star. — 1831-03-24 (London, England)

TAUNTON.) MURDER OF TWO CHILDREN DT THEIR OWN BOTHER. Mary Revel stood indicted for having, on the 18th of October last, feloniously and wilfully murdered John Fowel and William Fowel, by strangling and suffocation. The unhappy prisoner, on being placed at the bar, exhibited the clearest symptoms of insanity. Her mental aberration was entirely of a religious character, and during the whole of the trial she continued muttering detached sentences, to the effect that her children were happy, that she had killed them in obedience to the commands of her Saviour, who had appeared to her, and given her directions upon the point, and that she should be glad to ace them again; with other expressions of a similar character, all denoting the highest degree of fanaticism. Mary Wilcox deposed that she lived in the same house with the prisoner and her husband in Plymouth. The husband worked in the Mck-yard. They had two sons, one of them about six years and a half old, and the other younger. Witness saw them both alive, and in good health, on the 29th of October last. On the following morning she saw them lying dead in one bed. The prisoner said that they had died at four in the morning, and that the room was surrounded by angels at the time of their death. The prisoner has always been in the habit of talking • great deal to herself during the time that witness knew her, which was more than three years. Witness never thought the prisoner right in her mind. William Honeycomb deposed, that on the 30th of October, the prisoner came to her husband in the Dock-yard at Plymouth with his breakfast. She told her husband that the children were dead. The husband answered that if they were, she murdered them. She replied, that no woman ever killed children. She;said that they had died near the morning. She then asked witness to persuade her husband not to come home, and inquired where the sexton lived that she might fetch him to measure the children for their coffins, and she also requested witness to come and help to bury them, as she wanted to get them out of the way as soon as possible. Her husband had been on watch in the dock-yard that night, all night. She had previously often told witness that her husband was insane. Ambrose Nosworthy deposed, that he saw the prisoner sitting on the 30th of October, in the morning, by the side of the bed where her two children lay dead ; her hands were clasped and in her lap, and she looked wild, and turned her eyes away from the bed. The children had marks of finger nails on their necks and other parts of the body, and the hands of one of them were firmly clinched, and he seemed to have died very hard.* She said that they died a natural death, and had a happy release; her husband asked her to tell him how it hap. pened. She said to the husband, " You are mad, not I." Her eyes were very wild; she asked witness to bring her a Bible when he took her to gaol ; witness thought her decidedly insane. (One of the preceding witnesses deposed, that on the evening in which the children had been murdered the witness was engaged in reading the Bible.) James Day deposed, that he had known the prisoner for a long time, and that she was subject to a pain in the head, which affected her mind. In July last she told the witness that she had been a long time in bondage. but that she was become • free woman, for that her Lord Jesus Christ had at length appeared to her. Thomas Crossing, &surgeon, deposed, that he examined the bodies of the children after death. There were marks of human nails upon their necks, and he had no doubt whatever of their death having been pro. diced by strangulation and suffocation. Witness considered the prisoner as most decidedly insane. The Jury, under the direction of the learned Judge, returned a ver. diet of Not Guilty, upon the ground of the prisoner's having been Mame when she committed the act.  The learned Judge directed that she should be detained in custedy until his Majesty's pleasure should be known as to the method in which she was to be disposed of. His Lordship stated, at the same time, that there existed no ground for imputing any negligence to her husband, as he had long before the destruction of the children, requested the parish officers to place the woman in a Lunatic Asylum, which they refused to do.