The Sun. — 1844-11-21 (London, England)

HORRIBLE MURDER AT YARMOUTH.  One of the most brutal and unprovoked sacrifices of human life which it has ever fallen to the task of public journalists to record, took place yesterday at Yarmouth, under the following circumstances :—The deceased, named Harriet Candler, was a widow woman, very quiet and respectable, was a member of the Wesleyan Society, and managed a kind of chandlery shop, selling flour, oatmeal, pollard, &c. The night policeman on duty found her street-door partially open ; he called to her, but receiving no answer, proceeded to examine the till, suspecting some robbery had been committed. 'Lying down by the side of the till, with her head forced under the counter, he found the deceased, literally deluged in her own blood. Her skull had no less than five wounds inflicted upon it ; one of them in the left side so severe as to throw the upper portion of the bone so as to overlap another broken part of the skull. On the right side of the neck a wound had been inflicted sufficiently severe to sever a portion of the vertebrce of the neck, and one of her fingers was cut off, probably whilst uplifted in defence. The following is the probable history, as gathered from the evidence at the coroner's inquest (proceeding when this report left):— Deceased lived quite alone in the house, and went to a public-house opposite to purchase her supper beer, leaving the street door closed, but unlocked, whilst she was gone. During an absence of ten minutes, the murderer or murderers (probably two) secreted themselves in a bin where peas or bran was kept. The deceased sat for a time reading a religious work, and drank a portion of the porter; she then went into a shop to take the money out of the till, when she was felled to the ground by the murderer's hammer. The first blow rendered her insensible ; the remainder were given lest the " intent and not the deed" should confound them. A knife covered with blood lay by the side of the deceased, but the surgeon was of opinion that the wound in the neck was inflicted with the cheese• cutter (a kind of short axe) which contained a portion of blood upon it. Last Saturday deceased had taken A division of property amounting to 1501., left by her husband's mother and uncle. Several of her relatives live in Yarmouth and neighbourhood, and received similar sums ; it became common talk amongst them, and the deceased was incautious enough to say that as the 150/. was for her son, she should put it under her bed until she could hear from his trustee, as she expected a much larger sure, This got noised abroad, and parties doubtless sedulously watched her movements on the night in question, in order to plunder her, and as they were recognised and known by her, to murder her rather than be detected. The 150/. was taken without disturbing the bed; 1001. was in a cheque on Messrs. ()limey and Co.'s bank. During the inquest a portion ofmoney, consisting of gold, silver, and about Si. or 101. in coppers, were found near the Battery, In a bag which was taken from the deceased's premises the night of the murder—the contents of the till, doubtless. It had, wrapped up in it, a man's purse, containing a token, enveloped in four papers, and written upon, in a man's writing, " The Lord iAlti tint() my lord, Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thy enemies my footstool." No clue has been at present found. A reward will, we believe, be offered; but at this moment no tidings of any noise in the next house, or anything likely to lead to the detection, has been discovered. There were several places where the murderer had wiped his hands upon, and the till was found thrown up in one corner of the shy, empty.—Yarmouth Chronicle of Tuesday.