| No. confined. | |
| Chester, County Jail | 29 |
| Durham, County Jail | 3 |
| Kent, House of Corrections | 1 |
| Lancaster, Lancaster Castle | 5 |
| County Jail and House of Correction, Kirkdale | 156 |
| House of Correction, Preston | 3 |
| Lincoln, Lincoln Castle | 1 |
| Middlesex, House of Correction, Giltspur-street | 1 |
| Ditto, Coldbath-fields | 13 |
| Jail of Newgate | 3 |
| Westminster Bridewell | 13 |
| Monmouth, County Jail | 63 |
| House of Correction, Usk | 4 |
| Northumberland, House of Correction, Newcastle | 19 |
| Nottingham, County Jail | 23 |
| House of Correction, Southwell | 12 |
| Somerset, County Jail, Ilchester | 3 |
| Surrey, Queen’s Bench Prison | 2 |
| Warwick, County Jail | 28 |
| Wilts, County Jail | 8 |
| House of Correction, Devizes | 1 |
| Worcester, Jail and House of Correction | 3 |
| York, York Castle | 69 |
| E. Riding, House of Correction, Beverley | 2 |
| N. Riding, House of Correction, Northallerton | 12 |
| W. Riding, House of Correction, Wakefield | 19 |
| Wales, 63. | |
| Brecon, County Jail and House of Correction | 12 |
| Glamorgan, House of Correction, Swansea | 1 |
| Montgomery, Jail and House of Correction | 50 |
| Total | 559 |
JAMES OWEN, GEORGE THOMAS, alias DOBELL, AND WILLIAM ELLIS, alias LAMBERT.
CONVICTED OF MURDER.
THE case of these prisoners is scarcely excelled in brutal atrocity by any of those by which it is preceded.
The prisoners were tried at the Lent Assizes at Stafford on the 16th of March 1840, on an indictment which charged them with the wilful murder of Christina Collins, on the 17th of June 1839, at the parish of Rugeley, in the same county.
On the part of the prosecution a great number of witnesses were called, from whose evidence the circumstances appeared as follows:—
The deceased, Christina Collins, wife of Robert Collins, was by business a dress-maker, and had resided for some time at Liverpool, supporting her husband, who found it difficult to obtain employment there, by her needlework. Her husband being very anxious himself to obtain work for their mutual support, resolved upon a journey to London. He accordingly left Liverpool, and arriving in London was so fortunate as presently to meet with a situation according to his wishes. Upon this he wrote a letter to his wife at Liverpool, inclosing her a sovereign to assist her upon her journey, that being all the money he could command, and requesting that she would immediately come to him in London. She left Liverpool, and having little money beyond the sovereign received from her husband, took her passage by one of Messrs. Pickford and Co.’s fly-boats, as being the cheapest conveyance to London. The three prisoners, with a boy named Musson, had the care of the boat, Owen being the captain. Deceased entered the boat at Preston Brook. It was proved that the boat arrived at Stoke-upon-Trent, in Staffordshire, at noon on Sunday the 16th of June, and left that place again about four o’clock the same afternoon, the deceased being then on board. The boat proceeded thence to Stone, where it arrived about eight the same evening. At Stone the deceased complained to a check clerk of the canal company that the prisoners were becoming inflamed with liquor, and said, that she was afraid of going on in the boat with them. The deceased, however, went on with the boat from Stone, having got out there and walked by the towing-path side some distance. About dusk they were met by another boat, when some gross language in reference to the deceased was used by one of the prisoners, and a short time afterwards they were again met, and the prisoners used expressions in reference to their intentions as to the deceased of too disgusting a nature for publication. About twelve o’clock on Sunday night the boat arrived at a place called Hoo-mill-lock. By the side of the lock was a house occupied by the lock-keeper and his wife. They were both awoke at midnight by loud cries of distress, and immediately opened their bed-room window, when they perceived the boat in question in the lock. The deceased was in the boat, and upon the prisoners being asked who she was, they replied that she was a passenger, and that her husband was in the boat with her. Proceeding a little farther, they came to a place called Colwich-lock, and after they quitted that place the deceased was not seen alive. The body of the deceased was found in the canal at a part of the canal known as Brindley’s-bank, between Colwich-lock and Rugeley, and about three miles from the former place. The prisoner Owen appeared in great alarm when seen by a woman early on Monday morning. He stated that a passenger was lost and must have drowned herself, and he believed that she must be deranged, for that she had constantly been calling out, “Collins, Collins, oh, my Collins!” The arrival of the boat at Fazeley at six o’clock on Monday morning was proved, when, in consequence of suspicions against the prisoners, they were taken into custody and examined. Before any questions were asked them about the deceased, they had abused her with oaths and foul language, saying, that if she had chosen to drown herself they could not help it. The cabin of the boat was searched, and in it were found the bonnet and shoes of the deceased, the bonnet being very much crushed.
The remaining evidence against the prisoners consisted of a declaration made by Owen, on his apprehension by Harrison, the headborough of Fazeley, to whom, in answer to an observation that the deceased had been found in a very shallow part of the canal, he intimated that she was dead before she reached the canal; and a similar confession, attended with a detail of other circumstances, which he made to a fellow prisoner named Orgill, while in custody in Stafford jail.
The prisoners, it appeared, had been tried at the summer assizes at Stafford in the year 1839 for the rape upon Mrs. Collins, a bill of indictment for the murder having then been also preferred and found. The prosecution for the rape rested upon evidence similar to that which we have just detailed, added to the testimony of two surgeons, who swore that the capital offence of violation had been committed, apparently with great barbarity; but the jury deemed the proofs adduced insufficient to warrant them in pronouncing a verdict of conviction. Upon the indictment for the murder being then proposed to be proceeded with by the learned judge, an application was made on the part of the prosecution for the postponement of that trial until the next assizes, on an affidavit, which stated that there were grounds for believing, that further evidence of a very important character might then be produced. This evidence was the testimony of a man named Joseph Orgill, who had been just before convicted of bigamy, and sentenced to eighteen months’ imprisonment, and who had received from Owen a narrative of the circumstances attending the commission of the crime upon the deceased woman. The application was immediately acceded to; and upon representations at the Home Office, a free pardon had been granted to Orgill to enable him to become a competent witness upon this investigation.
Orgill was now called, and he stated that he was a prisoner in Stafford jail at the same time with the prisoners. On Sunday, the 21st of July, he attended the Jail Chapel in company with them, and slept with the prisoner Owen at night. After witness and prisoner Owen were in bed they talked of the crimes with which they stood charged, when Owen told witness he knew he should be hung, from the lesson taken from the Old Testament read in the chapel in the morning, which was concerning the hanging of Saul’s sons. Owen then made a statement to witness, speaking of the charge for which he and the others were in custody, informing him that they (the prisoners) had some whiskey on board the boat, which they stole and drank; that they then used the woman roughly, and she got out and walked on the towing-path. The greater part of the rest of the statement is unfit for publication; but it amounted to an admission, that the capital offence charged in the former indictment had been committed upon the unfortunate woman by all three of the prisoners, and that her struggles to escape were so great that, in their belief, she died, and they then threw her overboard.