A further warrant for the detention of Bishop, May, and Williams, upon this fresh charge, was then made out, and Mr. Thomas was requested to make every possible inquiry among the hospitals and dissecting-rooms in the metropolis, to ascertain, if possible, whether any body, answering the description of Mrs. Pigburn, had been offered for sale by any of the prisoners within the last six weeks. Mr. Thomas said he would not relax his efforts to throw every light on these horrible transactions, and thus the inquiry terminated.
On Friday, December the 2nd, 1831, the prisoners Bishop, May, and Williams, were placed at the bar of the Old Bailey to take their trial, upon the charge of murder preferred against them.
The court was crowded to excess at eight o’clock in the morning, the greatest anxiety being manifested to witness the proceedings.
The indictment charged the prisoners with the wilful murder of Carlo Ferrari, and the second count with the wilful murder of a male person, whose name was unknown. At ten o’clock Chief Justice Tindal, Mr. Justice Littledale, and Mr Baron Vaughan took their seats upon the bench, the remaining portion of which was instantly occupied by members of the nobility and persons of distinction, amongst whom was observed His Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex.
The prisoners, on being placed at the bar, seemed but little moved by the awful situation in which they were at that moment placed; and they encountered the inquisitive glances of the assembled crowd with a careless air. Their appearance rather indicated low cunning than hardened ferocity.
Mr. Bodkin having opened the case,
Mr. Adolphus proceeded to state the leading facts of it to the jury. In doing so, he said that he did not feel it necessary to solicit their most serious attention to it, for he knew that it would receive such attention from them, being a case in which the three prisoners at the bar stood charged with the foul crime of murder; and one of which, as persons living in society, they must have heard a great deal for many days past. Aware as he was that they knew this to be a case of great and important interest, he felt certain that they required no suggestions from him to induce them to pay the strictest attention to all its details; and having alluded to the interest which it excited out of doors, he was sure that he need scarcely remind them, that they should not allow themselves to be at all swayed by any thing that they might have heard with regard to this case previous to their entering that box, but that their duty there was merely to judge the case by the evidence which should be laid before them. When he spoke of their deciding on this case according to the evidence which should be laid before them, he begged to say that there was one point to which he was anxious to call their particular attention. In cases of murder, it often happened that the direct evidence of eye-witnesses could not be produced as to the blow which had been struck, or the injury which had been inflicted, and the infliction of which constituted the crime; but it was settled by the constitution of this country, that in all cases of the kind a jury might select, from the circumstances of the evidence laid before them, such facts as might produce a conviction in their minds as to the guilt of the prisoners charged with the offence. The application of the facts and circumstances of a case for such a purpose was, by the law of the land, vested in a jury constituted as they now were;—and it was for them to decide according to the evidence which should be laid before them, as it appeared to their minds; it was for them, after they had heard the great body of evidence which would be submitted to them in this case, to say whether the prisoners were or were not guilty of the heinous crime laid to their charge. If the facts which would be laid before them should produce on their minds a conviction of the guilt of the prisoners, he was sure that they would without hesitation pronounce a verdict which would consign some, if not all of them, to a certain, speedy, and ignominious death; and he was equally sure that if an opposite conviction was the result of the evidence, the jury would at once acquit the prisoners at the bar. Without further introduction, he would proceed to state to them the facts which had given rise to this painful and extraordinary inquiry, as he felt justified in calling it; for the murder to which it had reference did not appear to have been committed through any of those motives that had ordinarily occasioned the commission of such a crime in this country. It was not to gratify revenge for wrong done, that the unfortunate victim, in this instance, had been deprived of existence. The minds of his murderers were stimulated by no passion of that description to the commission of the dreadful deed. Neither wealth, nor the other common allurements which influenced the actions of wicked men under such circumstances, had impelled them to perpetrate this crime. Nothing but the sordid and base desire to possess themselves of a dead body, in order to sell it for dissection, had induced the prisoners at the bar to commit the crime for which they were now about to answer before a jury of their countrymen.
The learned gentleman then proceeded to detail the facts of the case, as they were afterwards stated in the evidence subsequently produced. He dwelt in terms of well-deserved eulogy on the meritorious exertions of Mr. Thomas, the superintendant of police, and of Mr. Corder, the vestry-clerk of St. Paul’s, Covent-garden, in prosecuting the inquiry which had led to the trial. He acknowledged that the case depended on circumstantial evidence; but he contended that a large and well-connected body of such testimony was, in many cases, superior to the positive declarations of eye-witnesses. The judgment of an eye-witness might be deceived; but it was impossible that the jury, after putting all the circumstances of the case together, and weighing them seriously and deliberately, could be mistaken in their decision; it was for them to say, after doing so, whether the prisoners at the bar were, or were not guilty of the crime with which they stood charged. He was convinced that they would give this important case the deep and serious attention which it deserved; and he relied confidently on the integrity and good sense of a British jury, which a long life of practice had left him no room to doubt.
The evidence, the particulars of which we have recited, was then adduced, Mr. Curwood and Mr. Barry, on behalf of the prisoners, cross-examining the witnesses examined, with little effect in impugning their evidence.
The prisoners being called on for their defence, they put in written statements. Bishop’s was first read to the Court. He said that he was thirty-three years of age, and had followed the occupation of a carrier till the last five years, during which he had occasionally obtained a livelihood by supplying surgeons with subjects. He most solemnly declared that he had never disposed of any body that had not died a natural death. He had been in the habit of obtaining bodies from workhouses, with their clothes on, so that he could have no difficulty in procuring them after a natural death. The statement then went on to describe the localities of the prisoner’s residence, in order to show that they admitted of great facilities of ingress and egress to all persons in the neighbourhood. His garden and premises were open to them, and theirs to him. With respect to the clothes found in his garden, he knew nothing. As to the cap, he should be able to prove that it was bought by his wife from a woman named Dodswell, who resided in Hoxton Old Town. The prisoner called upon the jury to divest their minds of all undue prejudices, and judge his case by the evidence alone. By so doing, they would be discharging their duty, and would acquit him of the crime then alleged against him. In conclusion, the prisoner declared that neither Williams nor May knew how he had procured the body.