WHY JOHN GRIPSTONE WAS KILLED.

New Zealand Times, Volume LIV, Issue 9867, 25 March 1893, Page 2 (Supplement)

WHY JOHN GRIPSTONE WAS KILLED.

(By Major Arthur Griffiths.) < The interior of a gaol is strangely impressive in the silent watches of the night. It may best be compared to suddenly arrested life: the vast edifice brilliantly lighted within and tenanted by hundreds of human beings seems deserted and dead. Not a sound breaks the gruesome stillness: not a soul is to be seen, save when the ghost-like form of the patrol glides noiselessly by in his ‘ sneaks,* or cloth shoes, with their thick felt soles. The great tower clock of the Hawksham Gaol had just struck twelve, and the watchmen who had ‘ pegged their clocks * and met to exchange reports in the central hall were turning on their heels to resume their perambulations, when a clear-cut, blood-curdling yell suddenly split the stillness like a kniie. A second and third followed in quick succession. waking all the echoes of the lofty rocf with their terrible and discordant sounds : ‘ Save us alive !’ cried one officer. ‘What is it?’ said the other in an awestricken whisper. ‘Comes from the “ sociated cell,”* answered the first. ‘ We’d better go that way,’ and they hurried along, while a clamour of voices, ejaculations of terrified inquiry, were heard on all sides from the abruptly awakened occupants of the surrounding cells. There was no doubt whence the cries had proceeded. As the warder approached the large and associated cell, used when three or more prisoners are lodged together for observation or security, sounds of a scuffle in progress and loud appeals for help were distinctly heard. The cell door was quickly opened and a terrific spectacle disclosed—two prisoners in mortal 4 confiict, while a third lay in a great pool of blood and motionless upon the floor. ‘ Help ! Help 1 He’ll kill me as he has Gripstone. Seize him! Hold him! He’s mad for blood!’ cried one prisoner as he dodged away from the other and ran in behind the warders for protection. The other, who was brandishing an uplifted cell stool, dropped it almost at once looked vacantly, in seemingly dazed bewilderment, at the new comers, but made nc attempt to pursue his enemy further. ‘ It’s that Jeapes—the “ barmy ” (insane) chap,* said the orderly officer, or senior warder on night duty, who now came upon the scene. ‘ Evidently he has the fit on him and must be secured before he does more mischief. See to it, Mr Atkins, and you, Gosnell, while I attend to this poor chap on the ground.’ The two warders entered the cell rather expecting another struggle, but Jeapes surrendered himself quietly. There was the same half-stupid, bewildered look on his face as he was led off to the padded cell, where

for greater security he was handcuffed and left to himself. Meanwhile the first examination of the unfortunate man who had been the third occupant of the large cell showed that he was quite dead. It seamed as if he had been killed instantaneously, it was found that his skull had been fruclurea by one tremendous, murderous blow. Who had struck it? The lunatic Jeapes—that was the first and obvious conclusion, which was presently corrooorated by the evidence of the only eye-wit-ness to the deed, the prisoner Charles Burcham, who had bepn found fighting for his life with the enraged lunatic. The two men, John Gripstone and Burcham, had been placed ‘ in association,’ as it is called, with Jeapes, who was an epileptic, and showed signs of mental failure. This malady, according to the surgeon of the prison, was not yet very strongly marked—certainly no homicidal tendency had been exhibited, The chief fear was the development of melancholia, and that in some deeper fit of depression he would try to lay hands npon himself. He was constantly watched day and night by two attendant prisoners—steady, quiet, well-behaved men, specially selected and fully instructed in their peculiar and responsible duties. One of them was to watch Jeapes continually—the other might 2'cat; but the two were not to be asleep at the same time, and the man Jeapes was never te be left to himself. The strict injunction had been unhappily neglected on the night of the murder. All three had turned in to their hammocks —it was before the introduction of plank or wooden bedsteads—at ‘ locking up time,’ and after a brief conversation had fallen off to sleep. There had been only a slight disagreement between the lunatic and Gripstone ; a few quarrelsome words had passed, but peace (as Burcham stated) had been restored. He knew nothing more till he was aroused by the terrible cry which had disturbed the whole prison—the death shriek of the madman’s victim. In the dim light of the one gas jet that illuminated the cell from without Burcham, to his infinite horror, saw his companion prostrate on the floor, while Jeapes stood over, with the heavy cell stool uplifted, prepared to strike a second murderous blow. Burcham sprang from his bed, and with loud calls for help ran to his comrade's assistance. He was too late to save him, and for a time his own life hung in the balance — the infuriated madman would assuredly have also done him to death but for the timely intervention of the warders from outside. Such was his story. When the coroner’s jury came next day they proceeded first to view the body and then the cell, which had been left just as it was, absolutely intact. Both pointed to the horrible character of the crime. The hands that struck the blow must have been backed up by an immense, almost superhuman strength. The murdered man’s face had been so completely battered in as to be an almost unrecognisable, formless, featureless, surface of pulpy flesh; and blood had spurted profusely from the cruel wounds in great jets that had stained the furthest wall, or dripped slowly, leaving masses of clotted gore below the hammock which had contained the corpse. In the second struggle—that between the madman and Burcham, the second attendant —everything in the cell had been overturned. Chaos reigned everywhere; books and tins, furniture and utensils, lay about in dreadful disorder, and all around the air was thick and heavily laden with pungent, indescribable odours, which deepened the painful, bloodcurdling sentiment of the scene. The principal and onlydirect witness at the inquest, held in a large room in the prison, was the surviving attendant Burcham. He was a thick-set, stalwart man in the prime of life, physically most powerful, but at this 1 moment not strangely after the terrible experiences of the previous night, he seemed morally weak and unstrung. His nerves were quite shaken; he could hardly tell his horrible story, but answered the coroner’s questions in an uncertain voice and broken, hesitating manner. From time to time he looked with obvious terror at the accused, who, though deemed irresponsible, was legally bound to be present at the inquest. Jeapes, murderer, or no murderer, was the most unconcerned person assembled. Except for the troubled and confused look that flitted sometimes across the poor, vacant face, as though his clouded mind sought vainly to penetrate the mists that obscured it, there was nothing to indicate that he realised his position. He was of low physique, a feeble, fragile creature, consumed with a frequent cough, which with the narrow chest and bright hectic spots on the pale cheeks, plainly showed that phthisis had marked him for its own. ‘lt puzzles me,’ whispered one juror to another, ‘ how that poor, puny chap could have struck that blow.’ 'Me too,’ replied his neighbour. * Let’s ask the doctor. Now, the other prisoner, that Burcham, could fell an ox, to look at him ’ At that moment the prison surgeon was explaining to the jury that it was by no means rare for persons of unsound mind to exhibit phenomenal strength during fits of frenzy, and that it was not impossible for Jeapes, although seemingly so weakly, to have done the deed. b . *We are all pretty well agreed, I think, Mr Coroner,’ said the foreman, after looking round and gathering the sense of the jury. ‘lt is a case of wilful murder against * * Stay; I must ask him if he has anything to say for himself. Wo do not know him to be insane. You have heard all the evidence, Jeapes. Do you wish to make any remarks ?’ Jeapes staffed silently and stolidly at the speaker, and then his eye travelled slowly round the room. There was a long pause, and at length the coroner said: ‘lt was only a matter of form, gentlemen. You are agreed? And you find a verdict of wilful murder against Dominic Jeapes while of unsound mind ? Is that so?’ ‘lt is. We are of opinion that the murder was committed by ’ ‘ Hina I him!’ The voice was that of Jeapos, and it rose to an shriek

he pointed his finger with wild emphasis towards the prisoner Burcham. who cowered and shrank before it. For several seconds the madman continued to gesticulate and pour out a torrent of broken, unintelligible words. Whether he wished to denounce his comrade, and in the light of one evanescent flash through the dark recesses of his blinded intelligence to proclaim his own innocence and shift the blame onto the right shoulders, or whether he was merely venting upon him the full force of his accumulated and vituperative hate, it was impossible to say. Just when the coroner was about to question him and lead him gently into some more explicit statement, Jeapes dropped suddenly on the floor, foaming at the mouth, and in all the awful convulsions of epilepsy. The court was cleared, and the jury, under the direction of the coroner, anxiously debated this fresh and most curious phase of what had seemed a perfectly straightforward case. ‘lt is just one man’s evidence against the other’s,’ suggested one juryman. ‘ Well, not exactly,’ corrected the coroner; ‘ one witness was on his oath and presumably worthy of credence; the other, we are informed, and you can see for yourselves, is not a responsible person.’ ‘ Yet it is between these two. One of them must have committed the murder. What if the sane man did it knowing that the insane could not bear witness against him ?’ ‘ The hypothesis is not absolutely impossible, but it is surely far fetched.’ ‘ Ought it to be neglected in the face of what this poor fellow has said ? And think how much more feasible it was for the big man to have done it. I don’t believe that slip of a lunatic could have hit such a knockdown blow, not for all the doctor says,’ went on the obstinate and inconvinciblo juryman. * Well, gentlemen,* the coroner at lust admitted, ‘ it may be best for you to return an open verdict. Further steps can always be taken. One of the incriminated we shall 1 always have on our hands. This Jeapes is ( bound to be certified as a lunatic and sent to an asylum. He will be kept there awaiting Her Majesty’s pleasure. As for the other, I find Burcham has still seven months’ imprisonment to undergo. So he is also safe if wanted within that time. Meanwhile, inquiries can be set on foot.’ ‘By the police?’ ‘ Precisely. They must ascertain if possible whether any other grounds exist for suspicion against the man Burcham. If, for instance, it was found that he knew Gripstone previously; whether there was any cause of quarrel between them, or any motive for the commission of this crime. Until these are answered we had better adjourn.’ ‘I presume the lunatic, or epileptic, or whatever he is, will be questioned further whenever he is well enough to appear before us?’ ‘ It will be right to do so, although I can’t say I am hopeful of any good result,’ said the coroner, shrugging his shoulders. Nothing, in fact, came of the future inquiry. Within a week Jeapes was sufficiently recovered in body to be produced before the adjourned inquest, but his mind was completely gone. He had become a hopeless imbecile. Nothing—no questions, not an allusion, not a name—evoked the slightest glimmer of intelligence. He had drifted out into the shoreless sea of insanity. The police failed, too, in bringing home the slightest suspicion against Burcham. Any evidence they obtained was of a negative kind, and in his favour. He was an attendant at race meetings, a confidence trick man, who had visited Hawksham for the first time during the Hawksham Handicap week, and had come to conspicuous grief. Gripstone, on the other hand, was a native of Hawksham, had never left it, and was already an inmate of the gaol when Burcham first came to the town. As both were men of a rather better class than the general run of Hawksham prisoners—of greater intelligence and therefore more trustworthy—they had been invited to take charge of the supposed lunatic Jeapes. Neither, so far as it could be ascertained, had had any previous acquaintance with Jeapes, a poor creature, whose antecedents were fully known. He had once been in fairly good circumstances as an agent and commercial traveller, but he had fallen away through dishonesty to drink, and from excess to epilepsy. The end of it all was that the coroner’s jury found Jeapes guilty of murder, and exonerated Burcham. The lunatic in due course passed to Broadmoor, where he lingered only a year or two, and died. When the time came for Burcham’s release he left the prison with the few worldly possessions he had brought in with him. They consisted of a seedy suit of clothes, a bowler hat, seventeen shillings, and a briarwood pipe. Yet within a few months be was living in considerable comfort in a seaside villa at Castletown, Isle of Man. He had inherited a fortune, or struck oil in some questionable coup. There were few to ask the question, even if ho were inclined to answer it. While most most parts of the ‘tight little island,’as its natives love to style it, are periodically overrun with holiday tourists from the manufacturing districts on the mainland, the ancient capital offers few attractions beyond the old Danish castle, from which it takes its name, and is little frequented. So no one came to remind Mr Burcham of the darker passages in his life, and he grew to be quite a respected and respectable inhabitant, with no worse reproach against him than that he kept himself too much to himself. He was, in truth, a shy, lonely, low-spirited creature, who spent his days in interminable walks and wanderings along the old sand-strewn racecourse, or in climbing the steep and rugged cliffs of the seagirt shore. It was in one of these expeditions that he came upon a family party bivouacked upon the sands near Santon—good people who had trudged some miles to make a homely sort of picnic, and they were lying about idling when Burcham came upon them unawares. He would have passed on, but someone hailed him by name, and he found himself face to face with Mr Gosnell, an old warder from Hawksham Gaol, now on his annual leave. Some strange impulse drove Burcham to turn tail and run, as if for his life. He took a wild and rugged path perfectly well knows

to him, yet it led him straight to destruction. I He must have overrun himself, slipped, or I lost his footing; the cause was never properly explained, but he went over the edge of the cliff, and fell rolling from rock to rock a hundred odd feet on to the sands below. He was picked up senseless, and taken home for dead, but he recovered speech for a time, and with his dying breath made the following strange confession : ‘ It was I who murdered the man John Gripstone in the large cell at Hawksham Gaol. I was lead to it by greed and illtemper. When wo were first with the epileptic man wo talked together quite friendly always, and although lie had fits he was mostly rational. Ho had great ideas of wealth—of the money that he had owned and made. He had a store put by safely which he could draw on whenever ho chose. He left it where it was for the present, he told us, because he did not dare use it. It would bring suspicion on him. The money was the property of his old firm—those who had prosecuted him. They were mad to get it hack and if he showed it they would certainly be on to him again. We talked about this money again and again until we firmly believed its existence, and both Gripstone and I were resolved to have it for ourselves. It was concealed, as Jeapes told us, in the moors about Hkley. He gave us, in his simple, childish way, a good notion of the spot—enough, we thought, to lead us to it. There was no chance for Jeapes ever to get out again. Why should we hesitate? That was how Gripstone and I reasoned, and satisfied our consciences—as much as we had of them. We were to do the trick together—he and I. Our time expired almost simultaneously, and we swore not to move one without the other. Then Gripstone, who was detained while sureties were found, heard that his friends meant to come forward, and he expected to be released at once. This would be months before I got out, and I began to have horrid suspicions that he would play me false —go first to the hiding place, lift the money, and be off. He would give me no satisfaction when I taxed him with this intention. He only laughed and jeered at me when I asked him to swear he would be true to his pal; said he had me in a cleft stick, and would do just as he pleased. I sometimes think he never meant what he said. If he did not he was foolish to say it, for it cost him his life. When I had killed him, which I did with the stool, I put the stool in Jeapes’s hand, and began striking at him and shouting for help, That was what maddened him—that and the murder,. which he must have seen. I did not fear detection. It was was not possible, I thought, that his evidence could he taken against mine. It was not until I was brought before him at the trial that I began to be afraid, and when he denounced me I was sure my last hour had come. Now I must die, I know, and escape the gallows, but I deserve a shameful death. Gold help me ! I have never had an hour’s peace since I did the deed; and the money, base bribe to crime, has never brought me a moment’s happiness or consolation since I found it where Jeapes' had concealed it on the moor.’