SHOCKING MURDER IN ENGLAND.

New Zealand Mail, 21 February 1901, Page 13

SHOCKING MURDER IN ENGLAND.

RESERVIST’S WIDOW BUTCHERED. A terrible tragedy is reported as having taken place at the little Norfolk village of Stokesby. The cottage of a woman whose husband had gone to South Africa on active service was broken into late on Christmas Eve by a man, whose motive can only be presumed. The woman must have offered resistance, with the result that she received two frightful stabs . in. the abdomen, causing the intestines to protrude. Her assailant escaped, but the woman, who was found

the following morning in a deplorable . condition, was just able to speak. Policemen and doctors were summoned, also a magistrate to receive the unfortunate woman’s deposition, but before this could be taken she expired. Meanwhile, acting on a clue furnished by the woman before her death, a police inspector effected the arrest of a young labourer belonging to the village, who was charged with the murder of the woman, but denied any knowledge of the crime. The police, on searching accused, found a clasp knife of a large make. The accused is described as a sullen and morose individual, who has been already convicted of disembowelling a pig at a farm at Rollesby, an adjoining village. The deceased, who wa.s the mother of a child, was about 30 years of age. The accused is about 20 years of age. A later message states that the name of the murdered woman was Kelly, and it transpires that her husband, who went to South Africa as a Reservist, died there lately “ from disease. Her child was in bed. with the deceased when she was attacked. It- was only 14 weeks old. The man arrested lived in a house 300 yards from the scene of the crime.