Twelve months after, his guilty servant met a similar fate. Before his execution he made a full confession, from which the above particulars are partly taken. Such was the powerful influence of Scanlan’s family, that, though they could not avert his fate, they succeeded in keeping it a secret from a large portion of the community, for they had influence enough to prevent an insertion of his case in all the Limerick newspapers, and it long remained unknown, except in the immediate neighbourhood of the transaction.
The trial of Sullivan, however, revealed his own and his master’s guilt; and the whole circumstances of the frightful deed then came fully to light.
This story has supplied the author of “Tales of Irish Life” with the materials of a most interesting sketch called “The Poor Man’s Daughter.”
JAMES NESBETT.
EXECUTED FOR THE MURDER OF MR. PARKER AND HIS HOUSEKEEPER.
THE night of Friday the 3rd of March 1820, was marked by the perpetration of a murder, not exceeded in point of atrocity by any whose circumstances are detailed in our Calendar of Crimes. It bears a striking resemblance to that committed by Hussey; for the victims were an old gentleman and his housekeeper—a Mr. Thomas Parker, aged seventy, and Sarah Brown, about forty-five years old.