‘No,’ said her husband, ‘we will coax her a little until her passion be off, and then take an opportunity to shoot her.’
Upon which Houseman appeared satisfied and said, ‘What must be done with her clothes?’ Whereupon they both agreed that they would let her lie where she was shot in her clothes.
She, hearing this discourse, was much terrified, but remained quiet, until near seven o’clock in the same morning, when Aram and Houseman went out of the house. Upon which Mrs. Aram, coming down-stairs, and seeing there had been a fire below and all the ashes taken out of the grate, she went and examined the dung-hill; and, perceiving ashes of a different kind to lie upon it, she searched amongst them, and found several pieces of linen and woollen cloth, very near burnt, which had the appearance of belonging to wearing apparel. When she returned into the house from the dung-hill, she found the handkerchief she had lent Houseman the night before; and, looking at it, she found some blood upon it, about the size of a shilling. Upon which she immediately went to Houseman, and showed him the pieces of cloth she had found, and said ‘she was afraid they had done something bad to Clark.’ But Houseman then pretended he was a stranger to her accusation, and said ‘he knew nothing what she meant.’
From the above circumstances she believed Daniel Clark to have been murdered by Richard Houseman and Eugene Aram, on the 8th of February, 1744-5.
Several witnesses gave evidence that the last persons seen with Clark were Aram and Houseman, and two surgeons gave it as their opinion that the body might have lain in the ground about thirteen or fourteen years.
During the inquiry Houseman seemed very uneasy: he trembled, turned pale, and faltered in his speech; and when, at the instigation of the coroner, in accordance with the superstitious practice of the time, he went to touch the bones, he was very averse so to do. At last he mustered up courage enough to take up one of the bones in his hand; but, immediately throwing it down again, he exclaimed: ‘This is no more Dan Clark’s bone than it is mine!’ He further said he could produce a witness who had seen Clark after the 8th of February; and he called on Parkinson, who deposed that, personally, he had not seen Clark after that time, but a friend of his (Parkinson’s) had told him that he had met a person like Daniel Clark, but as it was a snowy day, and the person had the cape of his great-coat up, he could not say with the least degree of certainty who he was.
Of course, this witness did not help Houseman a bit, and then the suspicion increased that he was either the principal, or an accomplice in Clark’s murder. Application was made to a magistrate, who granted a warrant for his apprehension. At his examination he made a statement, which he would not sign, saying, ‘He chose to waive it for the present; for he might have something to add, and therefore desired to have time to consider of it.’ This confirmed former suspicions, and he was committed to York Castle.
On his way thither he was very uneasy, and, hearing that the magistrate who committed him was at that time in York, he asked him to be sent for, and he made the following statement:
The examination of Richard Houseman, of Knaresbrough, flax-dresser.
‘This examinant saies that true it is that Daniel Clark was murdered by Eugene Aram, late of Knaresbrough, schoolmaster, and, as he believes, it was on Friday morning, the 8th of February, 1744, as set forth by other informations, as to matter of time; for that he, and Eugene Aram and Daniel Clark were together at Aram’s house early in the morning, when there was snow on the ground, and moonlight, and went out of Aram’s house a little before them, and went up the street a little before them, and they called to him to go a little way with them; and he accordingly went with them to a place called St. Robert’s Cave, near Grimble Bridge, where Aram and Clark stopt a little; and then he saw Aram strike him several times over the breast and head, and saw him fall, as if he was dead, and he, the examinant, came away and left them together, but whether Aram used any weapon or not to kill him with, he can’t tell, nor does he know what he did with the body afterwards, but believes Aram left it at the Cave’s mouth; for this examinant, seeing Aram do this, to which, he declares, he was no way abetting, or privy to, nor knew of his design to kill him at all. This made the examinant make the best of his way from him, lest he might share the same fate; and got to the bridge-end, and then lookt back, and saw him coming from the Caveside, which is in a private rock adjoining the river; and he could discern some bundle in his hand, but does not know what it was. On which he, this informant, made the best of his way to the town, without joining Aram again, or seeing him again till the next day, and from that time to this, he has never had any private discourse with him.’