ACQUITTED.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 961, 31 October 1910, Page 7

ACQUITTED.

THE QORSE HALL TRAGEDY. ; By .Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. London, October 28; . ' Mark, Wilde,' the ex-soldier, charged with' the murderVof Mr. G./H. Storrs, at.Gorso Hall, on the moors of. Cheshire, on the night of November 1 last, has been acquitted. . .

AN UNSOLVED CRIME. Gorse Hall is a mansion standing in the .midst of, a great estate stretching away over the moors on the borders of Lancashire and Cheshire. . There' Mr. Storrs, one of tjie largest, builders and contractors iir England, resided with his wife. They-had no children. The murder, which is .believed to' have been 1 one of'.revenge, took'place on the night of November 1,. It was a quarter-past nino,on,a wet; and misty evening, and Mr.,'Storrs, his wife, and Miss Linley, in adopted 1 daughter, were in the diningroom. The isolated mansion was quiet anil tranquil; there was nothing app irently to disturb the domestio ■ peace ' of the household. Suddenly screams are heard, in ' the hall, and the cook rushes ■into the room. She had teen a man hiding,.in-a-recess in the kitchen. Ho presented a revolver at her. . "Now, not a word;" he .exolaimed. She ran away screaming to the dining-room, and the ■'alarm, instantly 6tirs the. whole famiiy -to excitement,. Mr. Storrs dashes out into tho_ hall, and almost, at the door of the dining-room encounters the ■ unknown man, who had followed hotly on tho heels of the servant.

The stranger's words are proof that his obfeot is not burglary. The person he i seeks is Mr. Storrs. Ee shouts, "Now I've got you," and the two men close at once in a fierce struggle. Up and down the passage the two men struggled; until Mr. Storrs rushed his antagonist down the passage and into the scullery, where he locked him in. The man was by no means done with, however. (With a milk-can ho smashed the scullery windows, climbed out, and rushed round through • the kitchen door. What happened then is merely conjecture, as there were no witnesses. The probability is, however, that Mr. Storrs, mortally wounded, had collapsed near the kitchen door. His' murderer then rained blow on blow upon his prostrate victim,; completing his fearful work. When found, Mr. Storrs was just able to gasp, "I'm done," and aftor asking about his wife, passed away. Tho miscreant rushed away, and was not seen again. In tho darkness and mist, he would have every opportunity of getting clear away unobserved. On November 17, Cornelius Howard, a cousin of the murdered man, was arrested and ' charged with having , committed the crime. He was an ex-6oldier, and had served for seven years with tho i'Roynl Field Artillery in India. In April of this year he was drafted into the reserve, and, with the exception of a brief visit to tliie summer, little, was known of his movements aftar he left the army. Ho was thirty-one years of ago and unmarried.- Howard declared that he was in Huddersfiold on tho night of tho murder, and on his trial at Chester in March this alibi was •Supported to the satisfaction of the jury, and ho itas exonerated and set free..