Brighouse & Rastrick Gazette. — 1890-11-01 (Brighouse, West Yorkshire, England)

SHOCKING TRAGEDY AT HAMP STEAD.  MOTHER AND CHILD MURDERED.  On Friday evening between 7 and 8 the dead body of a woman about 30 years old was found lying in ICrossfield-road, South Hampstead, with her head nearly severed from her;body and the skull smashed ; in, evidently with a heavy, sharp, penetrating instrument. The police were soon on the spot, land the body was removed on an ambulance to ; the mortuary and carefully examined by two doctors, one of whom said that it was evidently a case of murder of the most brutal character. The woman had been dead but a very short time, and the wounds which had caused her death were probably those at the back of the head. In all probability the woman's throat was cut after she had been killed by the terrible blows from behind. The knife used in cutting the throat must have been not only 11 large but sharp. I About an hour after the tragedy was discovered, a policeman in Hamilton-terrace, a mile from ICrossfield-road, discovered on the pavement an empty bassinette perambulator, in which was a woollen rug stained with blood. Detective Brown found near the spot where the woman was discovered a nut, and one is missing from the perambulator. On Saturday two women named Hogg and Piercey called at the Hampstead Police-station and reported that the sisterin-law of the former, of !Prince of Wales's; road, Kentish Town, was missing. They were immediately taken to the mortuary, and identified the deceased afterwards at Portland Town policepolice-station recognising the perambulator. It seems that Mrs. Hogg left home on Friday afternoon to go for a walk, taking her only child, Plicebe, aged 18 months, with her in the perambulator, and did not return. The murdered woman has a niece in service in St. John's Wood, and the police communicated with this niece, who thereupon visited the mortuary and identified the body as that of her aunt, Mr. Hogg also identified his wife. At night the police apprehended the woman named Mary Eleanor Piercey, aged 24, of Priory-street, Kentisl Town, married, and charged her with the wilful murder of Mrs. Phoebe Hogg, and on suspicion with murdering the child of the deceased woman. The accused went to Hampstead with Miss Hogg to see the body in the mortuary, as has been stated. Subsequently detectives visited the apartments of the accused and searched the house. It is said that a blood-stained carving knife was found, windows were smashed, and other things were discovered that made the police officers feel justified in taking the accused into custody. Mrs. Piercey has been for some time on intimate terms with Mr. and Mrs. Hogg and their relatives. It is stated that Mrs. Piercey's hands when she was arrested were cut and scratched, while her clothing sliewed stains, to remove which an attempt had evidently been made. It is thought that jealousy may have furnished some motive for the crime. The body of the child was found on Sunday by a gipsy named Smith in a field just off Finchley-road, the body lying among some furze bushes. The clothes were saturated with rain. no body was removed to Hampstead mortuary and placed beside its mother. A post-mortem examination of Mrs. Hogg's body revealed, in addition to the injuries of the woman which had caused death, abrasions on the wrist, which might have been caused in a struggle or in breaking a window. The child's body shewed no mark's of violence, and its death is believed to have been caused by suffocation.