The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle. — 1876-08-12 (Stourbridge, West Midlands, England)

PAINFUL CASE.  At the Gloucester assizes, Elizabeth Cole has been charged with the wilful murder of her child Fanny Cole upon the 24th of July. Mr. Gough appeared for the prosecution ; Mr. George Browne, at the request of the learned Judge, defended the prisoner. The prisoner was the wife of a labourer, at Ty therin gton, and she bad been married to hire about six years. She was described by her neighbours as a fond wife and de voted mother, and her personal appearance in the d )ck bore out this testimony to her character. On the day in question it appeared her husband was away, and she was left in the house with her three children, the s oungeet bting Fanny Cole, an infant of three months. There was evidence that her manner hai been strange at this time, and a little girl, the daushter of a neighbonr, was engaged to stay in the house and watch her. Upon some pretext the prisoner sent her into the garden where her two elder children were. The girl lorel only been away a few minutes, when, hearing a noise, she returned to the house, and found the prisoner on her knees, and the child with its head hanging over the stairs. She also heard as she approached what she described as the sound of chopping. The prisoner, on seeing her, said, "I have been and done for it, Annie," and the girl then ran awayito call assistance. The mother of the girl was the first to appear, and she found the child lying in a pool of blood on the stairs, and close beside it a chopper of formidable size, She went downstairs to the prisoner, and said, "Oh, you naughty woman." Upon which the prisoner replied, "I could not help it." The prisoner was afterwards examined as to the state of her mind, and from the evidence of two scientific witnesses on the subject who were called, her insanity was not a matter of doubt. Dr. Needham, superintendent of a lunatic asylum, said he was satisfied at the time of the murder and some time previous she was insane, and though he was not prepared to say that she did not know what she was doing when she killed her child, yet he was of opinion that she was quite unable to know the nature of the act. It was proved in confirmation by the mother and brother of the prisoner that she had been insane at times before her marriage, and that since her last confinement she had been I.o9:lasing into a state of melancholy, and Dr. Needham, in answer to the learned Judge, said that was not unusual, and that recurring fits of insanity were not uncommon even when there was no apparent cause for the relapse. The learned Judge, in summing up, laid down the now well-known definition of legal insanity, and told the jury it was not necessary, to prove madness, that a person was perfectly ignorant he was taking away human life provided he took it away under a delusion that there was nothing wrong in the act. The question here would be whether the prisoner believed she was doing a right act, or was so void of belief as to be unconscious she was doing a wrongful act. In either of these views it would be their duty to say "Not guilty, on the ground of insanity." The jury at once returned a verdict in this sense, and the prisoner was ordered to be detained during Her Majesty's pleasure.