Celebrated trials of all countries, and remarkable cases of criminal jurisprudence / Selected by a member of the Philadelphia bar [i.e. J.J. Smith].

  • John Jay Smith
Date:
1835
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Celebrated trials of all countries, and remarkable cases of criminal jurisprudence / Selected by a member of the Philadelphia bar [i.e. J.J. Smith]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    road, within about one hundred yards of Greensall's ; Mary Ashford walked on, and he never saw her after; she was nearly opposite to Greensall's. Whilst he was in the field, he saw a man cross the road for James's, but he did not know who he was ; he then went on for Erdington workhouse to see if he could find Mary Ashford; he stopped upon the green five minutes to wait for her; it was four o'clock, or ten minutes after four o'clock. He went by Shipley's on his road home; and afterwards by Holden's, where he saw a man and woman with some milk cans, and a young man driving some cows out of a field. He then went towards Twamley's mill, where he saw Mr. Rotton's keeper taking rubbish out of the nets at the flood-gates ; he asked the man what o'clock it was 1 he answered, near five o'clock, or five; Twamley's mill is about a mile and a quarter from his father's house, with whom he lives. The first person he saw was Edward Leake, a servant of his father's, and a boy; that his mother was up. He took off a black coat he had on, and put on the one he now wears, which hung up in the kitchen, and changed his hat, and left them both in the house; he did not change his shoes or stockings, though his shoes were rather wet, from having walked across the meadows. That he knew Mary Ashford when she lived at the Swan, at Erdington, but not particularly intimate with her; that he had not seen Mary Ashford for a considerable time before he met her at Tyburn. He had been drinking the whole evening, but not so much as to be intoxicated. Thomas Dale.—Assistant constable of Birmingham; after the examination was taken by the magistrate, I went up-stairs with the prisoner to examine his person ; he unbuttoned his breeches ; shirt, and flap of his breeches, both bloody; he owned he had had connexion with the girl by her consent, but he knew nothing about the murder. Joseph Cooke.—Was at the dance at Tyburn, saw the prisoner there; saw the deceased there. He (the prisoner) asked Cotterell who she was] He (Cotterell) said Ashford's daughter. He (the prisoner) said he knew her sister very well; he said he had had connexion with her sister, and he would with her or die by it, Daniel Clarke.—I keep the Tyburn-house (where the dance was) ; next morning I went to Castle Bromwich; I found the prisoner on the turnpike road on a poney. I asked him what became of the young woman who went with him from my house last night 1 He made no answer, and I told him she was murdered, and thrown into a pit. Prisoner said murdered ! I said, yes, murdered. Prisoner said immediately, I was with her till four o'clock this morning. I asked him to come along with me to clear himself; he went with me to my house, better than a mile; he said he could soon clear him- self ; he said nothing more about this; we were talking about farming, and the like. He went into the room, and had something to eat and drink; he might remain there half an hour. I did not offer to discourse about it after- wards, and yet I was very much shocked. I did not know that the prisoner had been with her till four in the morning till he told me. I thought he appeared a little confused when I first put the question to him. George Freer, Surgeon.—I examined the body; between the thighs, and the lower part of the legs, was a great deal of blood; the parts of generation were lacerated, and a quantity of coagulated blood was about those parts; I proceeded to open the body, and found the parts of generation lacerated ; some coagulated blood about them; and she had the menses upon her. 1 then opened the stomach, and found in it a portion of duck-weed, and about half pint of a thin fluid, apparently chiefly water. In my judgment she died from drowning. Two lacerations, quite fresh; I was perfectly convinced, till those lacerations, she was a virgin; some coagulated blood adhered to them. I saw the coagulated blood on the ground; the menses do not pro- duce such blood as that; that coagulated blood proceeded from the lacerations; the lacerations were from the sexual intercourse. There were no lacerations but what might, or might not, arise from sexual intercourse with a virgin.