The Sun. — 1844-08-16 (London, England)

MYSTERIOUS MURDER AT HIGH EIGHTON.  A most cruel and horrid murder was perpetrated at the above place, in the county of Durham, on Saturday last. It appears that a potatoe field, belonging to Mrs. Mitcalfe, of High Eighton, had suffered severely from depredators of late, and Mr. Fleck, manager of the farm, had placed a watch to prevent a recurrence of these losses. On Saturday night last he had sent a young man, named Yarrow, to watch; and he, in company with two other men, had proceeded to the brakehouse of one of the pits of Ravensworth colliery. Yarrow, as far as we can learn, had stayed in the brakehdase till the brakesman, Thomas Robson, and J. Jefferson, had gone to see that all was right. While they were proceeding along the top of the field, Jefferson observed somebody in the hedge, but went on without speaking ; the brakesman also observed one, and called out " Iloilo," upon which the villain instantly fired a pistol at him, and he staggered a few yards and fell dead. His comrade was so paralysed by the dreadful deed, as to be completely deprived of his faculties, and he also fell, and remained in a state of stupor for a con • siderable time. At length Mr. Fleck came to the spot, and found them as described. Robson was quite dead, his heart having been partly blown out of its place, and his breast dreadfully shattered. On Monday an inquest was held before J. M. Favell, Esq., County Coroner, and a most respectable jury, at a farm-house on the Team Colliery, where the deceased had held the situation of a brakesman. The testimony of the youth Jefferson, Mr. Fleck, and Mr. Davis, a surgeon, were taken, but the result of the examination only left this coldblooded murder involved in still deeper mystery. Mrs. Mitcalfe's potato-field in High Eighton looks upon the public road, from which easy access is gained and according to the statement of Jefferson, he and the deceased Robson were passing through the field on Saturday night, on their watch, when a man who was sitting under the hedge, wearing a hat and round jacket, discharged a weapon at them, and struck his companion. Robson staggered a few yards, and then fell dead on the ground. Mr. Fleck afterwards came up and found Jefferson in a state of great alarm. Seeing something lying on the ground, he asked Jefferson what it was. Jefferson replied, it might be a white cat. Fleck then went up, and saw Robson, as he fancied, asleep, but he soon found out that he was dead, and then Jefferson told him that the deceased had been shot. The body was removed, and a medical man called in, but of course the deceased was beyond all aid. Mr.f Davis, the surgeon, and another medical gentleman, took a post mortem examination of the deceased. The apex of the heart was shattered, and no fewer than 187 shots were found in his body, the greater part of them being in the back part of the chest, and many of them were flattened by coming into contact with the ribs. The Coroner said that no time had yet been allowed to the police to make inquiry into the circumstances, and therefore he would adjourn the inquest till Friday morning, at ten o'clock, in order that more information might be procured. The inquest was then adjourned. Many rumours are afloat, which it would be premature at present to mention.—Tyne Mercury.