The Sun. — 1862-09-25 (London, England)

THE ALLEGED WHOLESALE POISONINGS. Constance Wilson was indicted for the wilful murder of Ann Atkinson by administering poison. There was another indictment against her for causing the death of Maria Somes. The Attorney-General prosecuted; and Mr. Oppenheim and Mr. M. Williams defended. The cases against the prisoner were very complicated, but the following outline contains all that is interesting to the public : The first death was said to have taken place as far back as October, 1856, and evidence is to be adduced to show that the deceased woman lived in the same house with the prisoner, and that she was taken suddenly ill and exhibited all the symptoms of choleraic diarrhcoa, and the prisoner attended upon her and gave her medicine. She died, it appeared, very shortly afterwards, and the medical man who had been called on was so struck by the character of the symptoms and the suddenness of the death that he refused to give any certificate as to the cause of death until there had been a post-mortem examination. This examination took place, but no poison was discovered. In this particular instance the poison that was suggested to have been given to the deceased was celchi • cum. It would seem that, very shortly after the deceased died, the prisoner made a very extraordinary statement to one of the witnesses, which was to the effect that she was in possession of a very great secret respecting the deceased, which secret was that she had committed suicide, and she at the same time said that her reason for doing so was that she had been engaged to bo married to some man whom she had discovered to be an unworthy character, and that this man had borrowed £BO of her, and she could not get any of the money back. The prisoner also said that this man was in the constant habit of applying to the deceased for money, and that in all probability a letter would be received from him on the following Saturday. It appeared that on this day a letter did arrive purporting to come from some man who admitted that he had borrowed £BO of the deceased, and stated that he could not repay her unless she made him a further advance of £lO. It would appear that none of the family of the deceased had the slightest knowledge of the existence of such a connexion between her and this man, and, in addition to this, there was evidence that the letter to which he had called their attention was in the handwriting of the prisoner. In the second charge against the prisoner it also appeared that the transaction took place a considerable time ago, namely, in the year 1860, but the evidence was not so strong against the prisoner as that in support of the former charge. The deceased resided at Kirkby Lonsdale, in Yorkshire, where she and her husband carried on some business, and she was in the habit of coming to London every three months for the purpose of paying for goods that were supplied to her, and she generally brought with her £BO or £lOO, and it appeared that she was in the habit of stopping at the residence of the prisoner. She was taken ill almost immediately after her arrival in town upon the last occasion, and exhibited the same symptoms as were shown in the other case by the deceased, and the medical man who attended her found that the remedies he prescribed failed together in alleviating these symptoms, and the deceased died a very few days after she was attacked. A suggestion appeared to have been made that there should be a postmortem examination of the deceased, but this was opposed by the prisoner, who said that the London doctors always desired to be cutting of the bodies of their patients after death, and the decceved was buried From what afterwards took place, however, the body was exhumed, and in this case also there was no trace of poison discovered. The prosecution appears likely to occupy the Court at least a couple of days.