As the clock struck eight, the door was thrown open, and Sheriff Cox and his officers appeared. The governor approaching him, said, “I attend you, sir;” and the procession to the scaffold, over the Debtors’-door, immediately succeeded. He had no sooner ascended it, accompanied by the Ordinary, than three successive shouts from an innumerable populace, the brutal effusion of one common sentiment, evidently deprived him of the small portion of fortitude which he had summoned up. He bowed his head under the extreme pressure of ignominy, when the hangman put the halter over it. This done, Mr. Wall stooped forward and spoke to the Ordinary, who, no doubt at his request, pulled the cap over the lower part of the face, when in an instant, without waiting for any signal, the platform dropped.
From the knot of the rope turning round to the back of the neck, and his legs not being pulled, as at his particular request, he was suspended in convulsive agony for more than a quarter of an hour. After hanging a full hour, his body was cut down, put into a cart, and immediately conveyed to a building in Cow-cross-street to be dissected. He was dressed in a mixed coloured loose coat, with a black collar, swan-down waistcoat, blue pantaloons, and white silk stockings. He appeared a miserable and emaciated object, never having quitted the bed of his cell from the day of condemnation till the morning of his execution.
The body of the unfortunate gentleman was not exposed to public view, as was usual in such cases. Mr. Belfour, secretary to the Surgeons’ Company, applied to Lord Kenyon to know whether such an exposure was necessary; and finding that the forms of dissection only were required, the body, after those forms had been complied with, was consigned to the relations of the unhappy man, upon their paying fifty guineas to the Philanthropic Society.
JOHN TERRY AND JOSEPH HEALD.
EXECUTED FOR MURDER.
THESE villains were executed for the wilful murder of a poor old woman, named Elizabeth Smith, aged sixty-seven years; their object being to possess themselves of a small sum of money, known to have been recently before transmitted to her by her son.
Their trial came on at York, on Friday the 18th of March 1803; and the indictment alleged the murder to have been committed at Flaminshaw, near Wakefield, in the same county.
It appeared that the deceased was a respectable woman, who obtained an humble living by disposing of the produce of two cows which she possessed. Misfortune, however, fell upon her, and her cows died; but through the instrumentality of her neighbours a subscription was raised for her, by which one cow was purchased. Her son, who was engaged in a decent way of life at Leeds, sent her eighteen guineas to buy another; and this was the bait by which the wretched men, whose crime we are about to describe, were allured. On the morning of the 14th of January 1803, the poor old woman was found to have been murdered in her own house, under circumstances of very great barbarity; and suspicion having fallen upon the prisoners, they were taken into custody. Terry then, driven by remorse, made a confession to Shaw and Linley, the constables by whom he had been secured. He said that he and Heald, having determined upon the perpetration of the murder, agreed to meet outside the house of the deceased at about one o’clock on the morning of the 14th of January. They met in accordance with their appointment; and Heald having first entered the house, by making his way through the first-floor window, with his (Terry’s) assistance, he directly afterwards placed something against the side of the house by means of which he was enabled to follow him. On their gaining the room of Mrs. Smith, they found that she had been alarmed by the noise which they had made, and was getting up; but they directly attacked her, and knocked her down; and when Heald had struck her several blows, he took out a razor. The deceased was now still on the ground, and he (Terry) held her head, while Heald cut her throat; but at length his fingers being wounded, he called to his companion to desist, as they had done enough, and proposed that they should go and see if all was safe. He then ran down stairs, but returning in a few moments, he found that Heald had got the old woman into another room, and was beating her over the head with a pair of tongs. Upon seeing him, he struck her no more, and then they directly secured the money and made off. From the evidence of the constables it further appeared that Heald, on hearing the confession of the other prisoner, upbraided him for deceiving him, and added, “Thou knowest I was not with thee.” Terry answered, “Thou knowest there is a God above, who knows all;” and upon Heald remarking, “Thou hadst better lay it upon somebody else,” he replied, “I will not hang an innocent man; thou knowest there were but us two, and God for our witness.”
This, together with some other circumstances of suspicion, proved against the two prisoners, constituted the evidence against them; and the jury returned a verdict of Guilty. Sentence of death was then immediately