The New Hampshire Gazette And General Advertiser

LONDON.

The following is a remarkable instance of the danger of allowing circumstantial evidence alone to be competent to the proof of a criminal offence:

A man was tried for, and convicted of the murder of his own Father. The evidence against him was merely circumstantial, and the principal evidence was his sister.

She proved that her father possessed a small income, which, with his industry, enabled him to live with comfort. That her brother, the prisoner, who was his heir at law, had long expressed a great desire to come into the possession of his father's effects: and that he had long behaved in a very undutiful manner to him, wishing as the witness believed to put a period to his existence by uneasiness & vexation. That the evening the murder was committed, the deceased went a small distance from the house to milk a cow he had sometimes kept, and that the witness also went to spend the evening and to sleep, leaving only her brother in the house. That returning home early in the morning, and finding that her father and brother were absent, she was much alarmed and sent for some neighbours to consult with them, and to receive advice what should be done. That in company with these neighbours she went to the hovel in which her father was accustomed to milk the cow, where they found him murdered in an inhuman manner, his head being almost beat to pieces; that a suspicion immediately falling on her brother, and there being then some snow upon the ground, in which the footsteps of a human being to and from the hovel were observed, it was agreed to take one of the brother's shoes, and to measure therewith the impressions in the snow: this was done, and there did not remain a doubt but that the impressions were made with his shoes. Thus confirmed in their suspicions, they then immediately went to the prisoner's room, and after a diligent search, they found a hammer in the corner of a private drawer, with several spots of blood upon it, and with a small splinter of bone, and some brains in a crack, which they discovered in the handle. The circumstances of finding the deceased; and the hammer as described by the former witness, were fully proved by the neighbours whom she had called; and upon this evidence the prisoner was convicted and suffered death, but denied the fact to the last: --About four years after, the witness was extremely ill, and understanding that there was no possible hopes of her recovery, she confessed that her father and brother having offended her, she was determined they should both die; and accordingly, when the former went to milk the cow, she followed him with her brother's hammer, and then laid it where it was afterwards found; that she then went from home to give a better colour to this wicked business, and that her brother was perfectly innocent of the crime for which he had suffered. She was immediately taken into custody, but died before she could be brought to trial.