The New Hampshire Gazette

Remarkable Detection of a Murder.

Farmer, on his return from the market at Southam, in the county of Warwick, was murdered. A man went the next morning to his wife, and enquired if her husband came home the evening before; he replied no, and that he was under the utmost anxiety and terror on that account. Your terror, said he, cannot equal mine, for last night, as I lay in bed, quite awake, the apparition of your husband appeared to me, shewed me several gashy stabs in his body, told me he had been murdered by such a person, and his carcass thrown into a marle pit. The alarm was given, the pit searched, the body found, and the wounds answered the description of them. The man whom the ghost had accused, was apprehended and committed on a violent suspicion of murder. His trial came on at Warwick, before the lord chief justice Raymond, when the jury would have convicted, as readily as the justice of the peace had committed him, had not the judge checked them. He addressed himself to them in words to this purpose; "I think, gentlemen, you seem inclined to lay more stress on the evidence of an apparition, than it will bear. I cannot say that I give much credit to these kind of stories; but be that as it will, we have no right to follow our own private opinions here: We are now in a court of law, and must determine according to it; and I know not of any law now in being which will admit of the testimony of an apparition; nor yet if it did doth the ghost appear to give evidence."..... "Crier," said he "call the ghost." which was thrice done to no manner of purpose, it appeared not. "Gentlemen of the jury, continued the judge, the prisoner at the bar, as you have heard, by undeniable witnesses, is a man of a most unblemished character: nor hath it appeared, in the course of the examination, that there was any manner of quarrel or grudge between him and the party deceased.... I do verily believe him to be perfectly innocent: and, as there is no evidence against him, either positive or circumstantial, he must be acquitted. But from many circumstances which have arose, during the trial, I do strongly suspect that the gentlemen who saw the apparition, was himself the murderer; in which case, he might easily ascertain the pit, stabs, &c. without any supernatural assistance; and on such suspicion, I shall think myself justified in committing him to close custody, till the matter can be further enquired into." This was immediately done, and a warrant granted for searching his house, when such strong proofs of guilt appeared against him, that he confessed the murder, and was executed at the next assize.