Ad Aristocratic Sensation.

Opunake Times, Volume II, Issue 58, 22 January 1895, Page 4

Ad Aristocratic Sensation.

The body of a comely, well dressed young woman named Dawes, about flirty years old, belonging to the un fortunate class, was found in a much frequented thoroughfare, Holland Villas Road. Kensington, with her throat cut from ear to ear late last November, and on December 4th the detectives found tbtir clues led directly to Reginald Llewellyn Bassett Saunderson as the perpetrator of the deed. Saunderson is a nephew of the famous Colonel E. J. Saunderson, the Orange leader, J.P. for North Armagh, a Magistrate and Deputy Lieutenant, and son of Llewellyn Basset Saundereon, a J.P. of Dublin, Ireland, who married Lady Mary Scott, third sister of the Earl of Clonmel. One of Reginald Saunderson’s aunts is Lady Edith Caroline Monk, wife of the Hon, Henry P. C. Monk, the eldest son of the fourth Viscount Monk. Another of his aunts is Lady Maria Henrietta Fitz Clarence whose husband is a brother to the Earl of Munster, and a grandson of William IV. So much for the pedigree of the alleged culprit, who it appears is only twenty-one years old, tall and handsome, and an expert at football, rowing, and swimming. But he is far from being strong-minded, and was sent to a school for the protection and education of gentlemen of weak intellect, at Hampton, in the south of England. It is said his homicidal condition of mind -was induced by poring over the newspaper details of the trial of a man named' James C. Read at Southend, England, for the murder on the 24th of June last, of a young woman named Florence Denmen, w 7 ith whom he (Read) was intimate. The police first got on the track of Saunderson in Belfast through a confession in an unsigned letter, and took him into custody, but while the prisoner was being conveyed to Dublin he escaped. He was recaptured on December 3rd, at Killeshandra, near Armagh, and imprisoned at the latter town, where, according to a later despatch, his father visited him on sth December. It is said that the prisoner tried to commit suicide since bis arrest, but the gaol officials refused to give any information on the subject. It is also stated that Saunderson has confessed to the governor of the goal that he committed the murder. A second despatch of December Bth says Saunderson had been arraigned in London. He seemed much depressed. The letter which the police reoived from Dublin, giving details of how the woman Dawes was murdered, was read. It was signed “ Jack the Ripper.” It is said to bo in the prisoner’s handwriting. After the formal evidence was presented, the prisoner w’as remanded.