Читать книгу True Crime Chronicles - Camden Pelham - Страница 52

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THIS unhappy child was but ten years of age when he committed the dreadful crime of which he was convicted. He was a pauper in the poorhouse belonging to the parish of Eye, in Suffolk, and was committed, on the coroner’s inquest, to Ipswich jail, for the murder of Susan Mahew, another child, of five years of age, who had been his bedfellow. The following is his confession, taken by a justice of the peace, and which was, in part, proved on the trial, with many corroborating circumstances of his guilt.

He said that a trifling quarrel happening between them on the 13th of May 1748, about ten in the morning, he struck her with his open hand, and made her cry: that she going out of the house to the dunghill, opposite to the door, he followed her, with a hook in his hand, with an intent to kill her; but before he came up to her, he set down the hook, and went into the house for a knife. He then came out again, took hold of the girl’s left hand, and cut her wrist all round to the bone, and then threw her down, and cut her to the bone just above the elbow of the same arm. That, after this, he set his foot upon her stomach, and cut her right arm round about, and to the bone, both on the wrist and above the elbow. That he still thought she would not die, and therefore took the hook and cut her left thigh to the bone. His next care was to conceal the murder for which purpose he filled a pail with water at a ditch, and washing the blood off the child’s body, buried it in the dunghill, together with the blood that was spilled upon the child’s clothes, and then went and got his breakfast. When he was examined, he showed very little concern, and appeared easy and cheerful. All he alleged was, that the child fouled the bed in which they lay together; that she was sulky, and that he did not like her.

The boy was found guilty, and sentenced to death; but he was respited from time to time on account of his tender years, and at length pardoned.