The articles purchased were then produced and identified by the granddaughter, as having constituted part of the personal property of the deceased.
At this stage of the case the counsel for the prosecution called a number of witnesses, for the purpose of showing that one Caroline Walsh, who died a pauper in the London Hospital at the period of the murder, was not the one suspected to have been destroyed by those described in the indictment.
John Skeig, a parish beadle, stated in evidence, that he found, on the 20th of August, an Irishwoman, named Caroline Walsh, lying on the steps of a hall-door in London-street, Fenchurch-street, apparently so exhausted by sickness and distress, that he resigned her to the care of the superintendent of Hoxton Workhouse, not being able to discover the residence which she mentioned to him as her temporary address.
The surgeon and several nurse-tenders in that establishment deposed, that the old woman so confided to their care, was in a state of such squalid filth and nastiness, that it was found necessary to dispose of all her raiment, by depositing it in the burying-ground. It was also ascertained that her hip-bone was fractured, whereupon she was transferred as a patient to the London Hospital, and shortly afterwards expired.
A professional gentleman and one or two domestics in that institution described minutely her personal appearance, which did not at all correspond with that of the deceased Caroline Walsh. The one was found in a state of loathsome squalidness, whereas the other was particularly cleanly and neat in her appearance. The one wanted her fore teeth, whereas those of the other were wholesome and un-decayed. The feet of the pauper were deformed by bunions and such-like excrescences, but the female supposed to have been murdered was entirely free from such a defect. The one was about sixty years of age, and the other upwards of eighty; and, to leave no doubt whatever upon the subject of identity, the body of the pauper was disinterred in the presence of the granddaughters, who, at once, denied that it bore any resemblance to that of their relation.
The case here closed on the part of the prosecution.
The prisoners, on being called on for their defence, severally put in written papers, asseverating their innocence of the crime with which they were charged, and maintaining that the evidence of their son was a tissue of unnatural and nefarious falsehoods.
Mr. Justice Parke then proceeded to address the Jury, and summed up the whole of the evidence, having previously explained the state of the law affecting accessories and principals as it applied to cases of murder generally, and more particularly to that which it was their duty to decide upon.
The Jury retired for half an hour, and returned a verdict of Guilty against the female prisoner, acquitting her companion, who was detained for the purpose of being indicted as an accessory after the fact.
The woman was immediately sentenced to death by the Recorder, and ordered to be executed at the usual hour on the following Monday. She did not testify any such emotion as might have been expected, but persevered in protesting her innocence, without, however, offering any plea for the postponement of the execution of her sentence. This wretched woman is Irish, if we may judge by her accent, and her paramour is apparently a native of the metropolis.