It is not improbable that the concealment of the articles took place immediately after Bishop and his associates were taken into custody.
It now became a subject of serious deliberation whether the case, as it now stood against the prisoners, with whatever evidence might arise in the interim, should be sent to the ensuing Old Bailey sessions, commencing the 1st of December, or whether it might not be advisable to await the issue of the second charge of murder which Mr. Thomas preferred against the prisoners, Bishop and Williams.
Mr. Minshull was in favour of keeping the case open for the reception of fresh evidence; and the Recorder of London waited upon Mr. Minshull to request that a case of such public importance might not be sent to the Old Bailey unless the evidence was as complete as circumstances would allow. The same anxiety was also, we understand, expressed at the Home Office.
The exertions of the police officers were now leading them to the discovery of another murder committed by the horrid wretches, Bishop and Williams; and which, perhaps, never would have been detected, but for the discovery of the murder of the Italian boy.
It will be remembered, that in consequence of the strict search which Mr. Thomas caused to be made at the residence of Bishop, a quantity of human flesh, together with the scalp of a woman's head, to which a considerable portion of long brown hair was attached, were found in the privy. It was at first conjectured that these were portions of a subject which Bishop had procured from a churchyard, and that the limbs had been sold to the surgeons separately,—a practice by no means uncommon. Recent events, however, having raised a strong suspicion that the residence of Bishop has been the scene of more than one murder, Mr. Thomas, acting upon that impression, went yesterday (Wednesday 23rd) to Bishop's house, with the view of making a still further search, and appeared before Mr. Halls on the same day at Bow-street to communicate the result.
Mr. Thomas was accompanied by two females, mother and daughter, who lived in the neighbourhood of Bishop's house. The mother had stated to him, that about three weeks ago a daughter of hers had disappeared in the most sudden and mysterious manner, and under circumstances altogether unaccountable. She had taken tea with her mother and sister on the evening of her disappearance, and went out to execute some trifling errand. Her return was therefore expected every minute; but from that time to the present she had neither been seen nor heard of. There had been no previous quarrel to account for her absence; and her relatives were under the dreadful impression that she had been waylaid and murdered.
Mr. Thomas added, that in consequence of his having made further discoveries that morning, in the house adjoining to Bishop's residence, the mother and sister of the missing young woman, who were now present, called upon him at the station-house, and upon showing them the hair which was previously found in the privy, they both of them declared it to be similar to that of the young woman, whose absence had given rise to such dreadful apprehensions.
Mr. Thomas then called forward the mother and daughter, and asked the latter to describe her sister's hair. She replied, that it was of a dark brown colour, very long, and that it closely resembled her mother's hair.
Mr. Thomas then drew the attention of Mr. Halls to the mother's hair, and observed, that it was exactly like the hair which had been found in the manner before described. He then added, from inquiries he had previously made, he was enabled to prove, that about the time when the young woman was first missed from her home, Bishop had sold two subjects, one of them the body of a young female, at Guy's Hospital. Having been engaged, however, at the time he ascertained this fact, in the case of the Italian boy, he did not feel it necessary to make any particular inquiries respecting the two bodies he had mentioned, but he should now feel it his duty to cause such inquiries to be made.