The Sun. — 1846-10-26 (London, England)

EXTRAORDINARY CASE OF MURDER AND SUICIDE.  - On Wednesday, the 30th day of September last, George ;Maley, of Great Gonerby, in the county of Lincoln, labourer, brought to his father's house, at that place, a girl named Mary Hill, aged about nineteen, who stayed with him there till Thursday, the Bth instant, and on that day, during his absence, she left the house. On finding that to be the case, he left home the same evening, saying he should be back in an hour and a half, but never returned. On the following Tuesday morning, the 13th instant, information was given to the police at Sleaford, about fourteen miles from Great Gonerby, that a man had poisoned himself at a beer-shop there called the Plough, and an inquest was held on the body on the following day by Mr. George Kewney, one of the coroners for Lincolnshire, when the deceased was identified as the George Healey before named ; and from the evidence it appeared that he hail come to the Plough on Sunday evening very wet and without a hat, and said that his hat had blown off in Belton fish-pond, which is twelve miles from Sleaford, and he had fallen into the was a good deal in bed, hut came down occasionally ; and at various times of the day employed different little boys to fetch him two pennyworths of laudanum, which he put into a sodawater bottle which and water on in Monday trying to get it out. He stayed at the Plough, he had borrowed, saying he was going to take physic. In the evening of Monday he was sitting with the company in the house, drinking and amusing himself, when three boatmen came in, and one of them said to one of the company, " That's the fellow we pulled out of the river last night ;" on hearing which he withdrew from the room and went to bed, and in the morning was dis. covered dead, and the sodawater bottle under the mattress with the remains of the laudanum in it, and a small phial which he had sent for the poison, to disarm suspijcion, in his pocket. After hearing the evidence, the ury returned a verdict of felo de se; and the Coroner directed the police to look out after the girl, as the man was a very bad character, and she had not been heard of since she had left her father's house. On Thursday, the 15th instant, the body of a woman was discovered in the river Witham, in the lordship of Harroby, close to Grantham, and immediately adjoining the garden of Mr. were brou to light. It appeared that after Healey Kewney, the coroner, fourteen miles from Sleaford, which turned out to be the body of the woman in question, and had evidently been in the water some days ; and an inquest was held before the same coroner on Friday, the 16th instant, when the most remarkable circumstances ght left his father's house he went to Lincoln in search of the girl, and not finding her there he returned on Friday to Fulbeck, about 11 miles from Grantham, where he discovered she was with an aunt. He then went to the constable's house, and in his absence borrowed the constable's staff and handcuffs, stating he was the constable of Great Gonerbv (which was totally false), and was going to take a woman into custody for stealing silver spoons and sugar-bowls, at Great Gonerby. He then charged two respectable persons in the village to assist him in the Queen's name, saying he expected resistance, and went to the house where the girl was, where by main force he took her into custody on this pretended charge, and conveyed her in the Lincoln carrier's waggon to Grantham, where he took her to a respectable public House, the B Man gave her supper, and had her locked up all night, stating he should take her before the magistrates in the mornin Accordingly, in the morning of Saturda g. y, the 17th, at nine o'clock, he requested the landlord to take care of the handcuffs and staff till his return, and left the house with the girl, saying he was going to Mr. Mariner's, the clerk to the maaistrates. Instead of this, which of course he never intended, he called at the Blue Pig, another public-house in Grantham, the constable of Pulbeck, puts up, and left word t tittle Mr. Morris would find the staff and handcuffs at t Blue Man, where he had left them for him, and thence 1 to the field through lie and the woman were traced the girl where Mr. Aloririst, which the river Witham runs, where this body of_ .v,„r was found, and where they ware seen to take, tot rimr. side instead of the footpath ; and at I 0 o'clock d I out of Bothei way, the occupier of such field' picked up phe body was found, a hat with a the river, within 10 yards of the spot where . f . it,y lentified as which, on the inquest on the woman, vv?"'111' o'clock on belonging to Healey ; and between 10 ana who knew the same day Healey was met by a persont.il direction of him, on an unfrequented road, in to the waist, SlcafOrd, without a hat and wet up d the reason of 101(1 he said, on being glove and Handkerchief in d in his road fish-pond (through which he had passe being without a hat; that it hail blown off in Belton