The Sun. — 1844-02-26 (London, England)

MURDERS BY A YOUNG CHILD. On Monday was to Lincoln Castle, for trial, charged with the wilful murder of her two little brothers (on•the mother's side), Mary Johnson, a girl not yet thirteen. The inquest was held at Benington, near Boston, the place where the parties reside, and it has proved a most painful and intricate investigation. • The prisoner's improbable story is as follows : She went to Mr. Overton's shop, the Post-office, to inquire for a letter ; there not being one, she went out again, and in about ten minutes returned, and asked for a pennyworth of arsenic, which, after a deal of hesitation, she obtained. The same night, when partaking of their meal, the two children were poisoned, and died the next morning, within two hours of each other. On the night in question, after their meal was over, Farr (the father) and his housekeeper went to a Ranting chapel, in an adjoining parish, and upon their return home they found the two children at a neighbour's house, under 'the same roof, retching, purging, and vomiting, which continued with but little intermission until they died. The father fetched Mr. Cummack, a surgeon, but upon his arrival William expired. The day after the death of the two children, the father, hearing that the prisoner had procured poison at Mr. Overton's, took her with him, and confronted her with Mr. Overton, putting the question, " Did this girl get any poison here ?" Being answered in the affirmative, the father then asked the girl what she did with it ? She replied, " I gave it to a woman on the road, who sent me for it." At another stage of the investigation, being asked by the Coroner if she should know the woman again, or describe her dress and person, she answered, she had never seen her before or since; that she was a tall woman, wearing a brown cloak, a white straw bonnet with coloured ribands, and carrying a reticule basket; and that she accompanied the woman on the high-road as far as the guide-post leading to Butterwick, being a distance of betwepn 200 and 300 yards from Mr. Overton's, where the woman left her, and pursued her journey towards Boston, and the girl returned home. After vigilant inquiry by the officers and pollee no such woman can be found.  At this stage of the proceedings a witness was produced who completely refuted the statement of the prisoner, and swore that on the day in question she was going on the high-road. to Boston, and saw a woman coming over Mr. Overton's stile, and that she also saw the prisoner, but that they never came near one another, and that no communication did or could take place between them.  - Mr. Overton proved serving the prisoner with a quarter of an ounce of arsenic, and he asked her how they were going to use it ? She said "to poison mice." lie advised the girl to be very cautious where she put it, as it was highly dangerous, and then took the precaution of duly labelling it with the word "poison." Mr. Cummack made a post mortem examination of both bodies, and detected arsenic in their stomachs.  The housekeeper underwent a severe cross-examination by the Coroner, but nothing could be elicited from her or the father to criminate any one but the prisoner ; and upon the Coroner's address to her upon the verdict, and the painful duty which devolved on him in sending one so young in years to prison and to trial, she appeared to be the only one, in an unusually crowded Court, who remained unmoved, indifferent and mute.