MURDER FROM LOVE

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 48, 24 August 1935, Page 25

MURDER FROM LOVE

; Two sisters stood in the 'dock at Bamber Bridge Police Court, near Preston, England, recently, and heard a third sister tell of their devotion to an imbecile brother whom they are accused of murdering, says the "Daily Mail." ■ . Catherine Gertrude Walsh, aged 39, and Mrs. Evelyn Constance Alexander, aged 35, appeared on remand, charged with murdering George Walsh, aged 30, by' administering coal gas to him. They were committed for trial at the Manchester Assizes. Mr. E. G. Robey, prosecuting, said that the murdered man was an imbecile and was looked after by the. sis--ters, who never dared- to let him out of their sight. * • On June 10, the sisters had a quarrel with a neighbour during which someone said, "You have got an imbecile in that house." They then realised that it was common knowledge in the village that their brother was there, and they were extremely upset. Mrs.' Mary Hibbert, of Brqwnnedge Road, Bamber Bridge, a sister of the accused women, said that, before their mother died in March, 1934, Mrs. Alexander and her sister promised always to look after their brother. , 'After she (Mrs. Hibbert) found' Walsh dead in the house on June 11, both her sisters said, "Look what we have done," and one of them added.

"We are happy to know that he has gone to his mother and that we have carried out her wish to the last that he had never to go away." In reply to Mr. H. Fazackerley, deI fending, Mrs. Hibbert described Walsh's violent rages. He would . drag his sisters about, throw them across the room, and, shortly afterwards, he would sit on their knee and be petted by them. He spent all his time in the kitchen. His bed was there, and the sisters used to sleep one on each side of him. ' ...■'■ So that the neighbours would not hear him, they boarded up the kitchen window, and when he was shouting >thsy would put on the gramophone. Detective Orgill said that in a statement Mrs. Alexander said that they committpd the murder for the' love of their brother. "We promised mother," the statement read, "that we Avould do it." . When they were, charged, Walsh said: "I lived for him and I loved, him." Mrs. Alexander said: " I want you to understand this. The terrible thing we have done has not only been a duty but a promise to-a dying mother. It was love and devotion for a hapless and helpless being." ■ Mr. Fazackerley submitted : that it was a case, not of murder with malice aforethought, but with love aforethought.