The North-Eastern Weekly Gazette. — 1888-03-10 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

MIDDLESBROUGH.  TRIAL AT YORK ASSIZES.  THE VERDICT.  At the York Assizes on Monday Annie Carrie Ryder (171 was charged with the murder of her child at Middlesbrough on the 4th February. Mr Thomas prosecuted, and Mr Skidmore defended.  In opening the ease Mr Thomas said that at the end of last year prisoner, who was charged with the murder of her illegitimate child, was in domestic service at Middlesbrough, where her father lived. Learning of her condition, the father took her out of service, and told her she need not trouble about the child, as he would keep it for life at her home in Innis-street. Arrangements were made with a midwife, and prisoner was safely delivered on the morning of the let February. The child and mother progressed well. The midwife dressed the child on the 4th of February, and found it healthy. The midwife tied a night-gown on the child, and certainly there was no mark then around the neck. At half-past seven that night prisoner's parents Left her in charge of a little girl, and returned...WO hours after, finding the mother bitterly weeping about the death of her child. Evidence would be called showing that the child bore a red mark round its- neck, and that death was due to strangulation. The jury would have to consider whether that strangulation was due to accident or to prisoner's wilful actiou. It would be shown that the red mark round the neck did not correspond with the proper position of the night-gown, and the prosecution would suggest It was from prisoner's action. While admitting .that every kindness had been shown the girl, and that every preparation had been made for her at home, the prosecution would suggest that the motive for the murder, if committed, was shame of illegitimacy and fear for future chances in service with such a character.  _ Counsel then proceeded to call evidence in support of his opening. Dr. McCuaig spoke to the post-mortem examination, and to the death of the child being due to strangulation. Cross-examit.ed : All the internal appearances were consistent with suffocation. The breadth of the mark round the neck fairly well corresponded to the string of the night-dress. If the child had been freely suckling it would more easily be suffocated from pressure of the bed clothes, or from pressure of the mother sleeping in bed against it, and the action of the mother on bearing the cry and taking the child hurriedly upon her knee might easily have increased the pressure of the night-gown upon the neck. The chili had a very soft skin, which would easily be abraded. The excoriation of the skin was slight. • The internal appearances of the child were consistent with death from suffocation, and also strangulation. Mr Skidmore, in addressing the jury, said he had many times defended women for child murder, but never remembered being engaged in a case where the evidence on which it was s3ught to take away the life of a fellow-creature was so slight and unsatisfactory. They started with the case without the slightest nossible motive for the murder of the child. From the birth of the child to its death every act of the prisoner was that of attention and affection, and subsequently she showed genuine anguish at its end. bl defending the prisoner he had relied solely upon the medical testimony, which allowed that the internal appearances of the child were as consistent with death by suffocation as with death by strangulation. The protruding of the tongue and other external appearances were as consistent with suffocation as strangulation. He sug. geated that the mark made by the night-gown had been made by accident, and that death was due to suffocation by accident, and prisoner was not guilty of murder. The Judge, in summing up, said he concurred with Mr Skidmore that this dia seem to be a case of murder or nothing. At the same time he did not withhold from the jury the right of reducing the offence to one of manslaughter. With regard to the motive of the crime, he agreed that it was apparently absent. They would have to satisfy themselves that the act was committed by the prisoner by design to kill her child. The learned Judge then went into the evidence in detail. The jury, after about two minutes' consideration of their verdict, found prisouer