WHEN MURDERED PEOPLE VANISH.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVIII, Issue 245, 13 October 1917, Page 15

WHEN MURDERED PEOPLE VANISH.

, A KNOXTI" rHOBLEJI SETTLED. i .... xne moot point as to whether a convlcl«on for murder cuu be upheld when the i body of the victim cannot be found has hi length been settled for good and all, says Lloyd's News." The Court of down Case. Reserved, consisting of six judges, has decided the question in tbe affirmative, and (from now onwards their decision will be | the law of the laud. Up till now the point I has been left to the discretion of the particular judge who has tried the case, the result being a divergence or views. One of the earliest cases, a very famous one in judicial annals, concerns the alleged murder of a man named William Harrison, who held the responsible position of ste-wn-d to the Viscountess Campden, of Campj den House, Gloucestershire. j The affair happened in the latter half ;of th seventeenth century. Harrison bad Igone to collect some rents from tenants ■ residing at the village ot Charrlngton. and had failed to return. A labourer on the | estate, named John Terry, went In search of him, and was away all night, returning i next morning without any news of the | missing man. Meanwhile, however, a battered and bloodstained hat had ibeen found on the high road to Charrlngton by a beggar woman, who had also picked up near the same spot a comb, such as gentlemen then wore in their long powdered hair. This article, like the hat, was iblood-stnlned. and. In addition, it bore marks of cuts, done presumably by a sword or knife. The authorities started a searching Investigation. And eventually John Perry, whose accounts of his movements on the fatal night were contradictory, was arrested on suspicion. He at once said that he was nor guilty, and accused a travelling linker, whom he named, of having committed the crime. The tinker was traced and arrested, but was able to prove that he was not anywhere near Charrlngton at the rime. Brought up from prison a week later. Terry said that he would speak the truth this time, and told a most circumstantial story of having seen the deed committed by a tall stranger wearing a black mask. who had hidden the body In a certain beanrick, which h e indicated. The rick was thereupon pulled to pieces, but no body was found. Remanded once more to prison. nn,l again brought up before the magistrates, John Terry ended by accusing his own mother, Joan Terry, and his elder brother. Richard, the motive for the murder, he alleged, being robbery. Asked what had become of the corpse, he told the magistrate that it had been thrown Into the "Great Sink" In the mill-pond at Campden House. The pond was emptied, but again no body was found. Nevertheless, the three Perrys were together placed upon their trial. John at once pleaded guilty, and so, too, after a while, did the other two accused. This seemed to clinch the matter, but the judge before whom they were arraigned took a different view, and refused to admit their plea, holding that as no body had been found no conviction could lie. The accused were accordingly discharged, only, however, to be at once re-arrested, and committed to the next assizes. Here another judge took the opposite view, and ordered the trial to proceed, with the result that the accused were --onvictetl, mainly on John Perry's original confession, and all three were hanged. Three years Inter Wjlllum Harrison turned up alive and well. Ills story was that he h.-.d been waylaid and rol_>cd by highwaymen, who had smuggled him aboard a ship at Denl. the master of which had afterwards sold him Into slavery amongst the Turks. Another case or* a somewhat similar nature occurred In Deal many years ago. Two seamen slept ovrnlght lv one room In an Inn there. Very early In the morning one of them paid his bill and left. Later in the day the landlo-d went to call the other, but found hlra missing. The bed In which he had slept was saturated witn blood, the bedclothes tumble. End disarranged. The tnnn who had paid his bill and gone was followed and arrested. Ou hlrn was found a knife. identlOed as the property of the missing seaman. The arrested man accounted for its possession hy saying that he had borrowed It from Ills room-ninte . during the night in order to prise open the rusty catch of a door leading to tne back garden of the Inn, where was a convenience he had occasion to visit. When he returned to bed he found that the lender had disappeared. This defence was not deemed satisfactory, the accused was put upon his trial, convicted, and sentenced to be hanged. Hut the hanging was Imperfectly performed, and the condemned mnn recovered after being cut down. He promptly went to sea ■ again, and two or three years later he met on board the ship he was serving In the man he was said to have murdered. The latter had, It appeared, been bbd by a surgeon on the day of the supposed crime. During the absence of his room-mate the bandage had come off his arm, which bled copiously, and he got tip hurfredly in search of the surgeon. But directly he set foot In the street outside a press gang pounced upon him, and carried him aboard a man-of-war. After these two flagrant cases of miscarriage of Justice most judges upheld the view that where no body had been found no conviction could lie. There has always, however, been a minority holding lhe opposite opinion, and there have been several later instances of convictions in the absence of the corpus delicti, notably in the ease of murders committed on the high seas. On the other hand. In connection with what is known In legal annnls as the St. Luke's ense. the Crown refused to prosecute, on the ground that no body had been found A German baker, named Nnpnleon Stanger. carrying on ibus-ness In Lever Street, St. Luke's, disappeared mysteriously one day In the year 1882. nnd the police advanced the theory that ho had been murdered by a compatriot of his, named Felix Ptumm. another baker, who. they alleged, had cremated bis victim In the hitter's own oven. The suspected mnn wns arrested, nnd although, as has heen said, the Crown deI clrlcd not to prosecute on tne capital charge, 1 Stumm was eventually found guilty of forging Sfnnger's name to n variety of documents, and sentenced to a long term of penal servitude.