MURDEROUS ATTACK ON A YOUNG WOMAN.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 11, 29 August 1911, Page 8

MURDEROUS ATTACK ON A YOUNG WOMAN.

TERRIBLE FIGHT FOR LIFE. ASSAILANT COMMITS SUICIDE. On tho lonely fells of the Cumberland Lake District, between Troutbeck and Ullswater, a murderous attack was made on Margaret Ann Nixon, aged 29, domestic servant at the vicarage of Matterdale-on-Ullswater, last month. Her assailant was Joseph Smith, a Carlisle farm labourer, who had been an acquaintance of Tiers. Nixon was sent during the evening with letters to Troutbock post office, about four miles away, and on the road was seen in company with Smith. When she reached the post office, however, Smith had apparently felt her. On the return journey, as she was pushing her bicycle up a steep hill near the quarry, Smith suddenly rushed out .from the hedge, and said: “We may as well die together.” Ho then made a brutal attack with a pocket knife. In tho encounter tho blade was broken. The woman got away, and ran of?, but Smith caught her, and pulling out a big butcher’s knife, which lie had concealed, inflicted fearful injuries. She screamed and struggled, so that she escaped again. A man named Hoad, living in a cottage near, hoard her, and went to her assistance. Smith picked up tho woman’s bicycle, tossed it over tho hedge, and jumped after it. Then he made off inwards Moll _ Fell, where the Territorial rifle range is. A messenger vas sent to the vicarage, and soon three erectors and Superintendent Barron ai rived from Penrith. The woman’s injuries were very serious, and she was in a precarious condition. Superintendent Barron, after making inquv es. sot out in search of Smith. Up the fell, where the trees give place to the rough screes and rings of the mountain top, tho party found Smith’s body hanging from a beech tree, the last tree on the ridge. It was stiff and cold, showing that death had taken place some hours before. Clearly tho case had been one of deliberate suicide, for the body was in almost a sitting posture on tho side of the hill, and was hanging by a piece of window cord. No motive can lie assigned for the outrage, unless it lie jealousy. Smith, wiio was apparently about sixty years of ago, had been seen hanging about the district for several days.