THE ST. LEONARD'S MURDER.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 2745, 15 February 1890, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE ST. LEONARD'S MURDER.

[By W. McDonald, Edinburgh Detective ] Early one fiue Suuday morning in summer, on the park side of the wall that encloses the house of David Deans, where the Laird of Dumbiedykes in times gone by courted Jeanie, th'e watchman on St. Leonard's Hill, while going round his beat, thought he heard alow moaning sound. He listened, and the feeble moans were repeated. .., , ; ~ ; .. Instantly the man was over the wall, and close to.it on the dewy grass found a woman, evidently fast dying, and literally, covered with wounds and blood. ;He stood by the body and sprang his rattle, which in the stillness of the morn echoed among the crags and quickly aroused the park rangers, two of whom soon reached the knoll, where the murdered woman lay- " She was alive one minute ago," said the watchman. " She drew tier last breath just as you were running through the valley." "Dead !" cried one of the rangers, letting fill her arm he had just raised ; and turning to the watchman, he said, " You go to the police-office tor the stretchers, and we shall remain beside the body until you return." ■■■'-.... "Be careful then," replied the watchman, "not to walk about the spot, as the footprints, of the • murderer will, be searched by the detectives, and do not touch the body. Just leave things as they are till I return." I had just finished the tying up and labelling of stolen property found in the pockets of a travelling English thief, who for three weeks had bsen doing good business at the theatres and other public place?, but who was now secure within the cells, with evidence asrainst him clear enough to light him on his way to Millbank, when the men carrying the stretcber passed alone , the passage leading to the dead-house. The boiy was placed upon, a table where I had seen many laid, and after I had carefully noted down the utato of the dress, from the boots to the bonnet, the ghastly corpse was stripped of its pory clothingr. All over the face, head, and body the work of the murderer was terribly evident; but on the left temple was the deepest gash of all. The turnkey tied up the clotted garments, which I labelled and took possession of for Fiscal; and, accompanied by my assistant, I then went out in search of the murderer.

No one within the police office could identify the body, but the well-worn boots, darned stickings, and faded cotton grown so plainly told, the tale of abject porerty, that some other cause for the murder than that of robbery was clearly to be sought for. The doctor thought my guess at the woman's age from 35 to 40 pretty correct,, and while looking at the naked fiDger on which the marriasre ring is worn, to.see if any mark of it was there. I noticed on the hand what I took to be marks such as are seen on the hands of shoemakers, caused by wax threads used at their work. The eyes of those present apparently only saw clotted blood on the hands I was so carefully examining, and from force of babit I said nothin? regarding this discovery until we were out on the street, when I told my assistant, knowing thai before joining the force he had been a' shoemaker. We were turning into Hunter. Square on our way south to the sceue of the murder, when he stood still and said, "I wish you would return to the dead-house till I see if it is really resin that is on the hands. Perhaps you may bo mistaken." "Certainly," I replied ; and in a minute or two he held the cold hand of the corps in his, while I looked on ■awaiting the verdict. ... ~ " Yon are right," he said ; " it is resin ; aisd to rtll Etpps.iraooG she had done a hard day's work on Saturday,. If wa waalwd tiro hands, all olge but ttjege

thread , marks would/disappear. She has not been a boot-closer," ha continued; " the, thip threads used by bootclosers do not tear and make the hands like'this. My life on it she has been a pnggiemaker.", " A what ?" I asked, " a puggie-maker, did yoii say?" , " Yea,"-he replied, Sintlirig at my look ' of amazement, ''ptiggie is the na'megiven by the shoemakers tothe shoe worn by a child,jijst beginning to walk, and there are niariy women in Edinburgh who live by. making and, selling them to the 'shop's'." .-,■ ''.'!', <■■■■■■■ ; '■*• Come, on," I said, as T replaced the "olHth that covered thei ! body ; ! ■" this r q.uiok discovery of bow the woman earned "her'fivfpg will doubtless soon lead us to her "friends and,'her .home, which is a stt'aiaht and long step "in the right direction But .meantime let us go to the knbwe' at St I ,' Leonard's and'see what the fobtpr.irit's'tnere are like." My assistant J smiled,, and said how innocent men could be convicted by the evidence'of "a footprint in the soil, for just ai' there' were women ,1 making and selling to ' the ''shops shoes ', for the children, by the/ 'dozen,, so were there men'daily .doing the same thing for .grown up people. .';, ' ; : ' ','. ;. •/.*:!,(have myself," he,-jsaid,''.'' made;a doze^Lga^rs^ol^men'iij.shoei oh' the 'same pairm-tests, anS solS them to different ■,ehop;s in'ithß of shoes. as like as-eggs-togthe.other ; and supposing twelve men, each to have purchased a pair ;of,, these shoes, and footprints answering to one of .the pairs to have , been fpiind in the soil where a murder had•;been committed, with no further evidence but that, would suspicion not equally, point to each and all of the twelve men wearing these shoes ?" I made no reply, to this question on the danger of convicting men on this kind of circumstantial -evidence, but comforted mysejf' wit-h the recollection that those whom I had been instrumental in eeuding away upon such evidence were wellknown housebreakers.' .:, : . Two men who had been sent were guarding the spot when we but the grass where the deed had been done had no appearance as if a struggle for life had taken place, I concluded from this that the wound on the left temple, which was doubtless inflicted by a lethal weapon,; was the first and fatal blow struck, and tha.c all the nther wounds on the body were the mere after-play of the vicious murderer. Reliev ing the men from their irksome duty, we returned to thecity, entering it by the head of the Pleasance, where we began our inquiries regarding all the men who had been seen going in the direction of St. Leonard's on Saturday, especially those accompanied by.women; and from information received, we had by nine o'clock that night locked upseven men on suspicion. Although it was my duty to apprehend and detain those men. I was certain from their manner.that I had not yet got the murderer, and I said so in the report I prepared and laid before the chief. Before the Magistrate had taken his seat on the bench on Monday morning the body bad been identified as that of a woman called Jessie Pender, living in the south side of the town, who supported herself and her'mother by making and selling children's shoes, or, as my assistant had technically called them, puggies. I now. longed to \ be,on the hunt for the murderer, but there were two cases for trial in which I hid to give evidence. I cot them called and disposed of early, and was., leaving the Court when a batoh of men and women were placed at the bar, charged with being, riotus and, disorderly on Sunday morning in a house in Advocates' Close,, High Street. Some of them were well known to me, and one of the men,, when he saw me, appeared so anxious to get behind the man next him and also to plead euilfcy — a thing he had seldom done before—that I suspected, he had Home reason for it, and went into the Lieutenant's room to inquire about the cafe. All I learned there was that he camn into the office at 5 20 on Sunday tnorninsr, and I returned into Court to take a parting look at. my suspicious acquaintance. I was late, however, for they had all imitated him and pleaded guilty. Some had been fined and others confined; but ho whom I was interested in had got twenty days' hard labour. The turnkey was just about to look the baton into the oells, when I took my man by the collar, and looking , hard into his eyes, said, •' At what .hour did 'you go to that house in Advocates' Close?" " At twelve o'clock on Saturday night," he sulkily replied, at the same trying to shake himself clear of my grip. " That's a Hβ " shouted the'woraan who occupied the house; "that's a lie: for it was me tbat let youin at three o'clock on Sunday mornin' , ; and if there is onytniner up," she continued, turning to me, " mind I ken naething aboot it There's a wp« shawl that he gied me to wa*h. He said he had been feohtin' and got hin nose bled." The shawl was clotted with blood, and, holding it before his scowling face, I said, " Where did you get that shawl?" ' With a hideous grin, meant for a ' laugh, he replied, " Do not believe that ' woman ? Nohody would believe her on 1 her oath. I never saw that shawl till ' this minute. Let go my coat. I've got < twenty days for being in her den ; but it ' will be twice twenty before I go back to • it" ; and with another grin he tried to J get from me. , ' I have always found that the closer I ' stuck to a suspected criminal, even when he had no chance of escaping, the nearer 1 I was to the work in hand, and the more t likely to get at what I wanted, and as I f held on to his collar, a girl who had been a in the row, and had been fined ten t shillings, quietly said, " What a liar you c are, Jamie. I saw you give Mrs Scott c the shawl the minute you entered the I door, aud I heard you ask her to wash \ the blood oat of it." c " She's likci you and you're like her," i he roared, and he attempted to get at r the girl; then boldly staring me in the 1 face, he snapped his fingers, saying. c •' That for the lot o' ye. What can ye \ dae." I Come this way and see, I replied ; a and after taking him into a cell, I j questioned the woman and the girl, to v make certain of this story about the a shawl. A third witness, a soldier who t had been taken from the house in rf Advocates' Close, but who had not vet t spoken, told me he also had seen the man j give the woman the shawl when he came a in , early on Sunday morning. I feit s confident I now had the murderer, and a sent my assistant with a cab for Jessie'* e mother, who at once identified the shawl as the one worn by her daughter the last g time she had seen her, which was at nine v o'clock on Saturday night. She looked through the "spy" in the door and also identified the wretch chafing in the cell v as a man whom Jessie soniptimes kept h company with, much against her will, c This in the meantime was enough to b justify mo in aoeusintr thfl prisoner of the e murder. I brought him from the cell h and placed him at the bar, where he wa* c ohareed with the wilful murder of Jessie c Pender and remitted. i' Two months afterwards ho was tried in £ the High Court of Justiciary, and though b the proof of hie guilt was overwhelming, 1 the evidence of the medical witnesses as n to the real oause of death was very con- 1 fhotinar. Tho dnofors hr> nrir - iifc thn I il posf-*i4r<>-m n ;.;-f)ni>»- ; i" ki-mh' 't. \vn-. i their betjet Uit*t> &fca wmuido *Jti bb« twiy ■ ti

were not in themselves fatal, but that the woman had died from expcmure, she beunable after the assault to rise from tho place where she was found: while other two, equally able to speak professionally, swore that death had been caused by the wound on the left temple. The puplic prosecutor, who knew wha' the medk-al evidence would be, and 'evidently, feared that the! prisoner mighf altogether escape punishment if charged with wilful murder, put the alternative in the indictment, and th« jury, taking the/ safe side,' aa juries invariably do, returned a verdict of eulpahie homicide. The judge had doubtless expecte'i something different, for, .without making a single observation, he sentenced the ruffian to fifteen ypnri , pph->) on-jtude.