To Harrison, the watchman, on the Thursday after his wife’s death, when giving him a card for her funeral, he said there was an inquest on her. When Harrison asked why, the prisoner said, “Can they detect a grain or a grain and a half of strychnia?” “Why,” replied Harrison, “have you given her any?” “No,” replied Dove; “but I got some of Morley’s man to kill cats, and some might have been spilt and she have got it.” Again Harrison saw him the next day, when he said, “Mr. Morley has told me they have found poison in my wife. Could they take me if I go back?” “I should,” replied Harrison. “If you are innocent, go back; what occasion have you to be frightened? They will not take you if you are innocent,” and Dove then went away.
To his wife’s mother, Mrs. Jenkins, who came to his house after her daughter’s death, he said at breakfast on the Friday, the day of the adjourned inquest, “Do you know that a sprinkle of oil of almonds will kill a person? Arsenic you can detect in a body after 20 years. Belladonna you cannot; one is a mineral, the other a vegetable. There is a poison like this”—taking up a piece of salt—“in a man you can detect it, in a woman you cannot.” He told her also that he could not think but that he should marry again. When he talked about the poisons another person, a Mrs. Risdon, was present.
To Mr. Scarth, a pupil of Mr. Morley’s, who, in consequence of the latter’s engagement, was the first to see her on the 25th of February, he put the question whether Mr. Morley would require a post mortem examination if his wife died. Scarth replied that Mr. Morley generally did on all his patients who died suddenly, when the prisoner said, “I will not consent.” “Probably,” said Scarth, “as you did when your father died.” “His wife,” replied Dove, “would not consent.”
On the close of the case for the prosecution, Mr. Bliss called on the counsel to put into the box the remainder of the witnesses whose names were on the back of the bill, and Mr. Hardy, in the absence of his leader, declining to take this responsibility, Baron Bramwell, on the authority of the case of R. v. Woodhead, ruled that the prosecutor need not do so, but was bound to have the witnesses in Court so that they might, if required, be called by the defence.[82]
THE DEFENCE.
Though the defence of the prisoner was mainly rested on the question of his sanity, Mr. Bliss urged on the jury that the circumstantial evidence against him was inconclusive, turning the openness of the prisoner’s acts and conversations, and his attention to his wife during her attacks, to the best advantage. On the question of his sanity, in addition to the mischievous and cruel acts that had been elicited in cross-examination, he cited as further proof his belief in witchcraft and his frequent consultations with the witchman Harrison, and his request to that person to torment his wife, professedly to force her to return to his bed. The witchman, said counsel, not contemplating the murderous result, encouraged him, and held out such promises of future happiness that the desire ripened into practice, and the wife was murdered. Even after detection was inevitable, the confidence of the dupe remained unimpaired, and he firmly believed that the witchman could rescue him from his doom. As a proof of this insane belief the following letter written in his own blood, which had been found in his pocket when in jail, was read:—
“Dear Devil,—If you will get me clear at the assizes, and let me have the enjoyment of life, wealth, tobacco, more food and better, and my wishes granted till I am sixty, come to me to-night. I remain, your faithful subject,
“William Dove.”
MEDICAL EVIDENCE FOR THE DEFENCE.