The Northern Guardian. — 1894-07-02 (Hartlepool, Cleveland, England)

THE MOOR.  A shocking murder was committed on Saturday night on the Town Moor, Newcastle, the victim being a young married woman named Annie Harland, belonging to the unfortunate class, and the whole of the circumstances associated with the crime are so peculiarly identical with those of the Gosforth tragedy that quite a feeling of alarm has arisen, and there is a prevailing impression that a blood-thirsty and murderous criminal like "Jack the Ripper" is abroad in the district. An elderly man named Thomas Murphy, a labourer, residing in Sunderland Street, had a restless night on Saturday, and being unable to sleep he decided to take a walk across the Town Moor early on Sunday morning. The morning was beautifully bright ani warm, and whilst walking leisurely over the green sward, at *bent a quarter to four, he discovered  A TOCNO WOMAN LYING IN A POOL OF BLOOD with her head, face, and neck mutilated in a dreadful manner. The old man's nervous system sustained a severe shock, and he states that it required him to make an effort to recover himself before he was sufficiently able to proceed to the North Road Police Station for the purpose of informing the police. P.C. Scott was in charge of the station, and he immediately roused Superintendent Brooks, who lives on the premises. Without any delay Superintendent Brooks went to the Moor, where he found the young woman lying in a small hollow at a distance of 200 yards in a westerly direction from the North Road, and about 150 yards to the north of the Recreation Ground. She was on her left side, and Superintendent Brooks, who has been a witness of many sad tragedies duling his long period of service in the force, says she presented a frightful and sickening sight. Her face was completely  DISFIGURXD WITH LARGE OPEN WOUNDS, and her bead in the position it was leaning appeared to have been almost severed from her body. A close examination showed that she had received two long clean cuts just above the forehead, running from the front of the top of the head to the back. Her right eye was badly bruised, and cut over the eyebrow, and at the same time these injuries were inflicted the perpetrator of the foul deed apparently brought the weapon that he used straight down the right side of the face, making a clean cut through the cheek and top lip. The worst and most deadly wound was a gaping injury in the neck four inches long. Considerable force had obviously been used in inflicting this injury, as the murderer had laid bare the internal portions of the victim's neck, and his instrument had gone through the jugular vein and several other important arteries.  DEATH MUST HAVE RESULTED almost instantaneously, as the parting of the jugular vein would prove fatal. The features of the victim were so completely destroyed that Superintendent Brooks failed to recognise her as Annie Harland, 32 years of age, residing at 20, Mulgrave Terrace, Gateshead, a woman who was well known to him, as she had frequently been in custody for drunkenness, and on one occasion she had been in trouble for keeping a house of ill-fame, in conjunction with her husband. She was attired in a light-coloured dress with pink bodice, and wore a small sailor hat and black pair of cotton gloves. Her bodice and the ground on which her head was resting were saturated with blood, which had flowed copiously from the neck. Only 641 was found in her possession, and her clothing was disposed about her person in the ordinary fashion, showing no signs of a struggle. All the observations of the scene made by the police left no doubt that she had been deliberately murdered. The body was rettioved on a stretcher to the mortuary, and the police immediately commenced to institute a search for the perpetrator of the murder, who is believed to be A