JESSIE KING.

Woodville Examiner, Volume XXVIII, Issue 4627, 14 May 1915, Page 4 (Supplement)

JESSIE KING.

On February 17, 18SS1, Jessie King, the Edinburgh baby-farmer, was tried at the High Court of Justiciary, and found guilty of the capital offence. The indictment contained three charges in connection with children committed to her care. The jury, after an absence of forty minutes, found the prisoner guilty of two of the charges, and the Lord Justice Clerk, Lord Kingsburgh, in an impressive address, passed sentence of death. His words were pronounced slowly, find Ins lorcisliip \vns evidently labouring under considerable emotion, as the unfortunate woman groaned and shrieked in the most heartrending manner, and finally collapsed. _ During her incarceration in the Cation Gaol, awaiting execution, she twice attempted to commit suicide. One afternoon n wardress discovered she liad a long pin in her possession, and, when challenged, Jessie protested that it was for picking her teeth. On another occasion a piece of hempen cord was found in her cell. As time went on she became inspired by a hope that the sentence would be commuted to penal servitude, and was totally overcome when informed by the magistrates that the law must take its course.