The Sun. — 1868-03-13 (London, England)

THE SUN, LONPON, FRIDAY EVENING, MARCH 13, 1868.  A WOMAN 'SENTENCED TO DEATH.  A married woman named Frances Kidder, aged 25, has been convicted of wilful murder at Maidstone, and sentenced to death by Mr. Justice Byles, before whom she was tried. The act for which she will suffer is characterised by such calculated malice and utter heartlessness that it will be remarkable in the annals of similar horrible crime. glie is the wife of a greengrocer, or hawker of vegetables, and resided at Hythe. Before she was married to kidder she had an illegitimate child by him, and hehad also another illegitimate child, a girl, by another woman. This daughter of his was named Louisa Kidder Staples. It was she whom her stepmother murdered. The child was 1.1 years old ; the prisoner hated her, often expressed her hatred openly, constantly ill-used her, and frequently threatened her. Sometimes neighbours remarked that the child's pinafore was stained with blood that flowed from her face when the stepmother had been beating her. The woman was known to have a violent temper, and she proved to be unscrupulous in her cruelty. On the 17th August last there was a fair at New Romney, where her father and mother lived. She went to stop with her parents, and took with her the child Louisa, as well as her own child. She prolonged her visit till the 25th August. On that day, which was Sunday, her father and mother went out for a walk, leaving her at home with a brother and a sister of hers and her husband's little girl. She sent her brother and sister out for a walk with her own child, and so was alone with Louisa. She directly took the child's Sunday clothes off, and clad her in a poor ragged dress ; then changed her own apparel for commoner garments, and quitted the house, taking the step-child with her. When the others came back, finding that she was absent as the night came on, they became alarmed, and her father, with others, went out to search, but did not discover her. At about ten o'clock her mother heard Frances Kidder knock at the back door, and let her in. She said directly, " Oh, mother, lam so wet —I am wet through," and her clothes were wet. Her mother inquired where Louisa was. The woman at first made no answer'; then she turned her head, and, pointing out of the door, said, " There." She afterwards said that she and the child were coming across some fields, when they were frightened by two horses, and the child fell into a ditch from which she could not extricate her. Her mother and her husband, Kidder, suspected foul play; the latter sent for a policeman and gave her in charge. At the police-station she described the ditch in which the child lay. There it was found dead by drowning in water fourteen inches deep. There were evidences of struggling on the bank. Testimony was adduced that the accused had spoken of her desire and intention to get rid of the child, and that she had said she should never go back to Hythe with her. Other incriminatory evidence was given, and the case was left to the jury. After a retirement of ten minutes, the foreman brought a verdict of guilty into court, and the judge thereupon passed sentence of death. The prisoner heard her doom pronounced without any exhibition of emotion, and apparently was callous to the horrors of the position in which she stood. One painful feature in the case was, that the principal witnesses on whose action and testimony she was convicted were her awn father, mother, husband, and sister.