John Cockrel the elder, being sworn, confirmed the evidence as to being carried away, and afterwards let go.
Being asked by the court how long after his son-in-law (the deceased) was missing it was before he heard his body was found, said that in the April following he was sent for to Sir Cecil Bishop’s; that there he saw the deceased Richard Hawkins mangled in a most terrible manner, having a hole in his skull; that he knew him by the finger next the little finger of his right hand being bent down to his hand.
Matthew Smith deposed that one night in January last was twelvemonth, he was at the prisoner Reynolds’s house, the Dog and Partridge, on Slindon Common, and saw Curtis and Mills ride up to the door (Mills with a man behind him), and Curtis called out to Robb, and said, “We have got a prisoner”; and that then they all went in together into the back parlour.
Richard Seagrave, another witness, deposed that he lived at Sir Cecil Bishop’s in Parham Park, and saw the body of a man taken out of a pond there, very much mangled and bruised; and was likewise present when John Cockrel the elder came there and said he knew the body to be that of his son-in-law, Richard Hawkins.
Jacob Pring, another witness, deposed that being at Bristol, he there fell in company with the prisoner Mills; that they came together from thence to his house at Beckenham in Kent; that on the road he asked him whether he knew of the murder of Richard Hawkins of Yapton; that he told him “Yes,” and related to him the particular manner in which it was done, as follows: that in the beginning of January was twelvemonth, they had two bags of tea stolen from the place where they had concealed some stuff, and suspecting Hawkins and the Cockrels to have it, he and Jerry Curtis went and fetched Hawkins from a barn where he was at work, and carried him to Reynolds’s, on Slindon Common, where Robb and Winter, commonly called the Coachman, were before them; that he and Robb whipped Hawkins with their horse-whips till he owned that the Cockrels had their tea; that then he and Curtis went and fetched the Cockrels, and as they were bringing them behind them on the road, Robb and Winter met them and told them that the man was dead whom they had whipped; that they then sent the Cockrels home and went and took Hawkins’ dead body and carried it to Parham Park and threw it into Sir Cecil Bishop’s pond.
Here the counsel for the King rested it.
The prisoner being called upon to make his defence, denied the murder, and said he left the deceased Richard Hawkins alive and well with Robb and Winter, when he and Curtis went to fetch the Cockrels, and how Hawkins came by his death he could not tell. This was Mills’s defence.
The counsel for the prisoner Reynolds objected to the indictment, and said, though it might be extremely right with regard to the prisoner Mills, yet it was not so with regard to the prisoner Reynolds; for as Reynolds was indicted as a principal in the second degree, he should be concluded in the judgment as all principals are in murder. The court said this was a matter that might be offered in arrest of judgment, but not at that time.
The counsel, in his defence, said the prisoner Reynolds was no ways privy to or concerned in the said murder; that the persons who brought Hawkins to his house were in a room by themselves, and what they did there was without the privity or knowledge of the prisoner Reynolds, and that they should call witnesses to prove the same.
William Bullmar was called, who deposed that one day in January last was twelvemonth, he was at the prisoner Reynolds’ house with William Rowe in the kitchen; that he saw Curtis in the house, and heard there were other people with him in the new back parlour; that himself was there till twelve o’clock at night, and that the prisoner Reynolds was with him during all that time, excepting when he went to draw beer for his customers in the kitchen.