Disley, Printer, High street, St. Giles, London.
LIFE, TRIAL, CHARACTER, CONFESSION, AND EXECUTION OF
STEPHEN FORWARD,
For the Horrid Murder of THREE CHILDREN near Holborn, also of his WIFE AND CHILD at Ramsgate.
Murder of Three Children by Poison, near Holborn.
On Wednesday, August 9th, 1865, the neighbourhood of Red Lion Square, was thrown into a state of excitement owing to a report that three brothers had been murdered at the Star coffee-house, Red Lion street.
It appears that on the Saturday, a man called at the above hotel, and inquired if three children could be accommodated with a bed for a few nights. Having been informed that there was one room unoccupied, he said the children were aged respectively six, eight, and ten years, and that accommodation would be suitable. He called again on the Monday evening with the three children, and saw them to bed.
Half-past eight, when one of the chambermaids entered the first room in which the two younger children were in bed, and to her extreme horror found they were dead. She immediately raised an alarm, when the proprietor and others entered the room in which the eldest child had been placed, and there found that he also was in the sleep of death. Medical assistance and the police were instantly summoned, the surgeon firstly arriving, and upon his examination of the bodies, pronounced life to have been extinct for some hours, the limbs being rigid and cold.
From information gained by the police, it appears that the person who left the children at the coffee house went by the name of Southey.