The Blackpool Herald. — 1884-02-22 (Blackpool, Lancashire, England)

SENTENCE OF DEATH.  At the Liverpool Assizes, on Thursday, before Mr. Justice Butt, the trial of Catherine Flannagan, 55, lodging-house keeper, and Margaret Higgins, 41, charwoman—charged with the wilful murder of Thomas Higgins, husband of the la•ter prisoner, at Liverpool, on the 2nd October, 1883; also with the murder, on the 25th January, 1883, of Margaret Jennings, who lodged with Flannagan prior to her death ; also with the murder of John Flannagan' son of Catherine Flannagan, at Liverpool, on the 7th December, 1880—was commenced. Margaaet Higgins was also charged with the murder of Mary Higgins her stepdaughter. The • prisoners pleaded "Not guilty. Mr. J. B. Aspinwall, Q.C. (Recorder of Liverpool), and Mr. WOonnell appeared for the prosecution; and Mr. Shee and Mr. Pickford were assigned by his lordship as counsel for the defence. The trial was continued on Friday, and terminated on Saturday, and during the hearing of the case there were some startling revelations made as to the diabolical manner in which tho prisoners had poisoned their own relations in their greed for money. The first case gone into was that of the murder of Thomas Higgins. It was proved that the motive for the crime was a desire to obtain the money for which Thomas Higgins's life had been insured in five different offices within a few months of his decease, and the prosecution, by the evidence they brought forward, made it only too plain that the insurance was effected in order that the murdered man's death might be pwfitable. The method the prisoners adopted was to procure fly-papers, in which there is a large proportion of arsenic, and these they soaked in water. They then gave the unfortunate man the liquid to drink. Dr. Campbell Brown, one of the witnesses for the prosecution, expressed his belief that the arsenic with which Higgins was undoubtedly poisoned had been obtained from fly papers. Nothing was easier, he said, than to procure it from such a source. And again it was proved that the life of Higgins was insured without his consent or knowledge. After Mr. Arminall and Mr. Shee had addressed the jury, His Lordship slammed up, and the jury, after an absence of forty-three minutes, returned a verdict of guilty against both prisoners. liis Lordship, in passing sentence upon the prisoners, and addressing them, said :—" The relations that the murdered man bore to you, to say nothing of others whose deaths it has been suggested you have caused, makes the murder so horrible, and it has been carried out so cruelly, so relentlessly, and from motives so sordid, that it makes one shudder to think of the depths to which common humanity is capable of sinking." After assuming the black cap His Lordship passed sentence of death in the usual form, on hearing which Mrs. Higgins swooned, but Mrs. Flannagan left the dock apparently unmoved. A sad episode was witnessed under the collonnade of the hall. The daughter of the prisoner Fianna. gan, a girl of 14 years, was here waitiug the result of the trial, and upon hearing it fainted away with a loud scream. The court and hall emptied rapidly, and many of those who had attended the trial, together with a number of persons who had waited outside, congregated at the large doors giving egress from the cells under the court. In due time the 'doors opened, and the prison van, having inside tie ' two prisoners, was driven rapidly out, its appearance being greeted with loud groans on the part of the populace, some of whom ran after the van for some distance on its way to the gaol. The execution of the women Flannagan and Higgins will probably take place on Monday, the 3rd March, at Kirkdale prison. The verdict of the jury on Saturday meets with entire approval, and the remarks both of the counsel engaged in the case and of Mr. Justice Butt as to the dangers and temptations arising out of the facilities given to the working classes for insuring lives unknown to the assured receive universal endorsement. The Liverpool police have very strong reason to believe that the sninvicts Flannagan and Higgins were not alone in their nefarious business, but were the principal members of a gang of persons at whose hands a number of deaths have taken place in Liverpool. It appears to be regarded as probable that Flannagan and Higgins may make a confession before their execution.