Catherine Webster Guilty of Murder

THE RICHMOND MURDER.

Catherine Webster has been convicted of the murder of Mrs. Thomas, and sentenced to death. The trial lasted five days, and every point which could be urged in the prisoner's favour was pressed to the utmost by the counsel who undertook her defence, but the chain of circumstantial evidence was too strong to be broken, and the light thrown upon the facts by her own statements, false though they were, made it next to impossible to doubt the issue. After the verdict was given the prisoner made an extraordinary statement, retracting the charges which she had made against Porter and Church, who she said were quite innocent; and protesting that she herself was not guilty of the murder, which she alleged was instigated by a man who had been her ruin, but who had never been in custody, and whom she had cherished till the last moment, though she did not see why she should suffer for a scoundrel who had led her to it. Mr. Justice Denman, before passing sentence of death, said that the prisoner had made some reparation by exonerating the two persons, who might possibly have been condemned to the scaffold from her statements against them, coupled with circumstances which it was hard for them to explain. God alone could tell whether her present statement was true, but even if it were so it would be no excuse for her, the very statement itself admitting the justice of the verdict. After the sentence the prisoner again declared her innocence, and in response to the usual question whether she had anything to say in stay of the execution of the sentence, affirmed that she was pregnant. A jury of matrons was thereupon at once empanelled, and they having heard the evidence of the matron and surgeon of Newgate Gaol, and that of Dr. Bond, found that the prisoner's statement was untrue.

Source: The Graphic, Saturday July 12, 1879, Issue 502

Law and Crime.

KATE WEBSTER FOUND GUILTY OF THE RICHMOND MURDER.

On Tuesday last, after a patient six-days' trial at the Old Bailey, the Judge being Mr. Justice Denman, Catherine Webster was found guilty of the murder of Mrs. Thomas, at 2, Vine-cottages, Richmond, on or about March 2 last, and was sentenced to Death for the crime.
The Solicitor-General, Mr. Poland, and Mr. A.L. Smith conducted the prosecution; and the Prisoner was defended by Mr. Warner Sleigh and Mr. Keith Frith.

THE DEFENCE

was ingenious, as may be gathered from a summary of Mr. Warner Sleigh's principal arguments. He first urged that it had by no means been clearly or conclusively proved that Mrs. Thomas had died of violence, or that the remains were those of Mr. Thomas. On that point he said: -

"Mrs. Thomas disappeared after the evening service of March 2, and has never been heard of since. A box is found with bones in it. Do these bones belong to Mrs. Thomas? There is no evidence that they belonged to Mrs. Thomas at all, except Dr. Bond's evidence, and upon his measurements they appeared to be like the bones of a woman over fifty. Dr. Adams, upon the first examination, believed they had been a long time in the water, and said they were those of a woman or an adult of from eighteen to thirty. I do not press the point of their being a long time in the water; do you find that they are legally proved to be the bones of Mrs. Thomas? Even if the box be thrown from Richmond Bridge, you cannot find that it is satisfactorily established that it contained the body of Mrs. Thomas."

Then as to the cause of Mrs. Thomas's death, Mr. Sleigh said: - "We are told by Julia Nicolls, that before she went into the chapel, so great was the state of her excitement that her bonnet fell off. She did not leave the chapel before the second service but before the first service was over, and she left fully ten minutes before the service had finished. Now look at her state. She was flushed, and full of the most intense excitement, and tremulous. So much so that she let her head-gear fall off in chapel. Why did she leave? Why, because she could not stay any longer. She must go back to her house. That is the excited way in which she left the chapel, having been under the same excitement all the evening. Dr. Bond held that these symptoms are consistent with a premonitory symptom of the state of a person who should break a blood-vessel, and die in this manner. I do not know whether you, gentlemen, have any experience in this matter; we, in my branch of the profession, have experience in this matter, and we know that it is a common experience of life that such symptoms are consistent with a person having a sudden attack, which would deprive him of his life. Intense excitement shook the whole person of Mrs. Thomas on the night on which it is said she died. What is there, therefore, to prove that this woman did not die a natural death, before we go to any of the after circumstances? If Mrs. Thomas is dead, Dr. Bond states that her symptoms are consistent with the bursting of a blood-vessel and external hemorrhage. Are you going to say, when there was not an eye to look upon it, that this woman did not die by the act of God?"
Mr. Sleigh next came to another important point: - "For the moment I am going to refer to the statement of Kate Webster in reference to one point, and one point only. I am not now going to discuss Church or Porter in this matter, but merely to point out one sentence in the first statement made by the prisoner as she came over from Ireland, in order to show you that the statement does not amount to the suggestion of murder. She does not say that there was a murder committed. She said, "I knocked three times at the door; Church opened the front door, when I saw Mrs. Thomas lying on the mat in the passage, struggling and groaning." I am not going to shrink from anything I have properly to meet in this matter, but I want you to understand that, taking the whole of that which the prosecution has placed before you with the statements of the prisoner, there is no evidence of a murder having been committed. She does not speak to any injuries inflicted, but she says, "I found Mrs. Thomas lying on the mat foaming." That is all consistent with the fact that Mrs. Thomas met her death from natural causes. It is possible, in cases of circumstantial evidence, to make a mistake. It has been proved over and over again that people have been convicted who were innocent and I will give you one of the cases -
Mr. Justice Denman - You are now going beyond the mark. We cannot try one case by assuming that another is a matter of the same sort.
Mr. Sleigh - I bow to what your Lordship says, and will confine myself to the general remark, which is this, that such cases have occurred over and over again, and to prove that I need not go back to books nor cite law reports. I only call attention to what must be in your own minds and what is notorious, and I beg of you before finding that this woman did not die of natural causes, to remember that mistakes of the kind when once committed may possibly never be remedied."
The admitted kindheartedness of Webster was next dwelt upon; and Mr. Sleigh then elaborated an argument to show that the statements of the prisoner accusing Church and Porter of being with her mistress on the night of her disappearance, and of being cognisant of the disposal of her remains, were absolutely the true explanations of the "Mystery."
Finally, in an earnest peroration, Mr. Sleigh said, "There is no evidence of the identity of the bones, but there is a point which I consider much stronger, and that is that there is no evidence to prove that the woman came by her death by violent means. The woman has declared that she was never guilty of murder, and I say that what she said with regard to Church is perfectly true. And, being true, it is possible that no murder was committed. It is possible that she fell down in a fit; it is possible that being so, she was dragged into the room and that she never saw any more of it. She declares through me that she never saw any more of her; she declares through me that she had nothing to do with the cutting up of the body. She declares through me that absolutely and entirely the whole of her crime consists of knowing that Mrs. Thomas had disappeared; she having said at first that she would not tell me, being in the power of these men. The complications and the arrangement about the payment of 50 pounds was all a plan of Church's to fix the guilt on to her shoulders. She said that the man had been making love to her, and that he had been making proposals to her, which you will not doubt when you recollect that he had been in the house five or six hours at a time drinking brandy with her. He was tempting her to go away with him to America. I do not wish to hurt the feelings of Mrs. Church, but Kate Webster is a young woman, and he evidently had some partiality for her. The case is surrounded with mystery from beginning to end. You are asked to take a leap in the dark, and it may be afterwards that you will think you acted upon moral belief and not upon legal belief. You may say to yourselves afterwards, "I did not know, the whole thing looked so strange." You may say to yourselves afterwards, "Church was such an unmitigated scoundrel, and the whole transaction with regard to Rose-gardens was tainted with nefariousness from beginning to end, that really it was not safe to act upon such testimony."
All these things are matters for your deep thought. If there have been shortcomings on my part, and weariness inflicted upon you by me in this case, I would venture to say, in all humility, that I had only these papers put into my hands a few hours before the case came on for trial. I hope I shall have the satisfaction of knowing that the best has been done with an earnest desire to deceive nobody, but to do simple, honest justice to my client. You are the bulwarks of safety between this woman and an unjust conviction. Upon you lies the responsibility of the verdict and the power of handing a woman to the gallows or preventing a miscarriage of justice under circumstances of such fearful mystery and difficulty. I leave her to you, to my friends for the prosecution, and to my Lord, assured that she will receive justice. Last of all, I pray, with all the sincerity of an eager and anxious heart, that you will be led to do that which is right in this case."

THE SOLICITOR-GENERAL'S REPLY

was a skilful recapitulation of the familiar points of the case as against the prisoner, the conflicting nature of whose statements proved their untruthfulness. He said there was no doubt that the prisoner took care to know that the box had been found, and that it would be discovered that it contained the body of Mrs. Thomas, and so concocted that statement to account for the disappearance of her mistress. Assuming that she did not know what was in the box, how came she so blindly to take the box away and hand it over to Church without inquiry, when she was the person to whom everything in the house was to be accounted for? Take all those statements together, it was impossible to make one part of the prisoner's statement agree with the other. Were they to reject the evidence of Church and Porter? They had called together their friends and neighbours to disprove the assertions of the prisoner, and was not the evidence of those persons to be believed? The times at which Church must have committed the crime, as suggested by the prisoner, were the Sunday and Monday evenings, and those days were amply covered, and the evidence of the Porters was completely irreconcilable with the statement of the prisoner. They were not trying Church, but applying the same rules of logic to his evidence as they would to the statement of the prisoner, was there the slightest reason for coming to the conclusion that on that Monday night Church was at Richmond aiding in the disposal of the body? If Church were guilty would he have had some portion of the murdered woman's property conveyed to his house? Would he have been anxious to communicate with Miss Ives or Mr. Manhennick, or take any other steps to ascertain whether murder had been committed? That Mrs. Thomas had been murdered was certain, and it was put before the jury on the prisoner's behalf - Whom does the evidence implicate? Who was it concealed herself, gave false accounts, assumed the character of Mrs. Thomas, disposed of the property, who had the opportunity, and who had the mind?
He had endeavoured to call attention to the facts in their proper order. It was sometimes expedient in the advocate to suggest that the facts were so doubtful that no conclusion could be come to. And when the issue was so serious he could understand feeble minds catching at such a suggestion; but that, he trusted, would not be the way in which they would deal with this matter. The law which was made for the vindication of the weak against the strong could only be accomplished by the tribunal before which the case came. They must bear in mind that they had to deal with circumstances intended to baffle detection; and while, on the one hand, they must be careful not to arrive at a hasty conclusion, on the other hand, they must also be careful, in accordance with their oath, that the verdict should be in accordance with truth and justice.

MR. JUSTICE DENMAN'S SUMMING UP

was marked by fair play and discrimination. The introduction over, the learned Judge said: - "If you entertain any reasonable doubt whether Mrs. Thomas died or not; if you entertain any reasonable doubt whether she was murdered or not; and if you entertain any reasonable doubt whether the prisoner was concerned in the alleged murder, then undoubtedly it is your duty to acquit the prisoner. To prove the prisoner guilty, the prosecution must make out its case in each and every of its parts. But when I say that, I am far from saying that there is any law abhorrent to common sense, and if you are satisfied that Mrs. Thomas is dead, that she was murdered, and murdered by or with the knowledge of the prisoner, then you have no other alternative but to find her guilty....The defence stated that the conduct of Church was such as to lead to the conclusion that he was "brazening it out;" and, going to the very verge of what a counsel may say, Mr. Sleigh said that through him she stated she had not seen the body from the Sunday evening. Was it credible that the body should have remained from the evening of the 2nd to the evening of the 3rd without the prisoner having seen it there, dead or alive? She said she had seen it struggling close to Church, and that raised a question as to whether they thought she was there the whole of the Monday and the greater part of the Tuesday, as the prosecution sought to establish. That would depend upon the view they took of the evidence and the witnesses who were called for the prosecution. If they came to the conclusion that she was taking part in disposing of the appearances presented in the house there was no degree of doubt that she must have known that the body was there. There was no doubt that there are some difficulties about the evidence, but it was impossible that witnesses could, in mere matters of memory, be absolutely accurate. It was perfectly plain that after the date Church said he was at Richmond there was ample corroborative evidence that such was the case; but before that time there was absolutely no proof of his ever having been there. They must not be impressed with the argument, which amounted almost to intimidation, that if they found this woman guilty they would be sending her to the scaffold. With consequences they had nothing to do; they were bound to give their verdict according to truth, and no man would have a right to say anything against them. Referring to the speech of the Solictor-General, the learned Judge said that he had drawn attention to the fact that Church had presented testimonials of respectability which must outweigh all other considerations. With regard to the questions put to him as to his occupation before he entered the Army, he certainly appeared to have something to hide. But even supposing that were the case, and that he had been tried for manslaughter or for stealing so many years ago, he would have to put to them what would be the effect of that upon their minds? Then was there a long intimacy between Church and the prisoner? He thought they might take it that if such a statement could have been proved it would have been. His Lordship then, after some further observations to the jury, concluded by saying that, if they were satisfied beyond all reasonable doubt that the prisoner was guilty of this murder, they ought to say so by their verdict, and, if they entertained any reasonable doubt upon the subject, they ought to acquit her.
Mr. Sleigh asked his Lordship to tell the jury that the prisoner could not be convicted as an accessory after the fact.
Mr. Justice Denman: Oh, certainly, she is not charged with that.
The jury retired at a quarter past five o'clock to deliberate on their verdict, and returned into court at twenty minutes past six o'clock, and gave a verdict of

"GUILTY."

The prisoner, on hearing the sentence, still showed scarcely any emotion, beyond what was expressed by a slight increase of previous pallor and a tight compression of the lips.
In accordance with a request from Mr. Sleigh, her solicitor, Mr. O'Brien was allowed to go into the dock for the purpose of conferring with her, and for about two minutes he appeared to be engaged in earnest conversation with her, not a syllable, however, being audible in court.
Mr. Avory, addressing the prisoner, who again stood in front of the dock, said: - "Catherine Webster, you have been indicted for the murder of Julia Martha Thomas. To that indictment you have pleaded "Not guilty," and your country put you on your trial. That country has found you guilty of wilful murder. Have you anything to say why sentence of death should not be passed upon you."

KATE WEBSTER'S LAST STATEMENT.

The prisoner, still retaining the appearance described above, spoke as follows, here and there dropping her voice so as to render it difficult to catch the exact words: -

"I am not guilty, my Lord, of the murder. I have never done it. I was taken into custody in a hurry, and I made a statement against Church and Porter. I am very sorry for doing so, but I was told to do so. Therefore they are quite innocent of anything of the sort, and I want to clear them out of it. And another thing, my Lord, the man who is guilty of all this is not in the case at all, nor never was in it; therefore, I don't see why I should suffer for what other people have done. There was a child put in my hands in 1874, and I had to thieve for that child and go to prison for it, which can be brought to your Lordship. Anybody can tell you round Kingston and Richmond too, and therefore the father of that child is the ruin of me since 1873 to this moment. He is the instigation of this, and was never taken into custody. I have cherished him till the last moment, my Lord; but I don't see why I should suffer for a scoundrel who has left me for what he has done."

THE SENTENCE OF DEATH.

The judge then assumed the black cap, and, speaking amid the deep silence of all in court, said: -

"Prisoner at the bar, after a long and very painful inquiry, and after powerful advocacy on your behalf, and all the assistance that could be given to you by a zealous and sympathising attorney, you have been found guilty upon what, even in the absence of what you have now told us, I should have ventured to say was irresistible testimony, of the crime of wilful murder. You tell us now, for the first time, that you were instigated to that crime by someone who is not in custody, and whose name is not before us; and you have made some reparation at this moment by exonerating from all charge two persons who it was not impossible might have been sentenced to the scaffold upon the statements you made against them, coupled with circumstances which it was hard for them to explain. So far, I think, all will feel that the result of this trial is in one respect satisfactory. But though you put it to me that you ought not to suffer because another instigated you to this crime, that is a consideration which would not warrant me for one moment in hesitating to pass upon you the sentence of the law. Indeed, I have no option; my duty imperatively demands it, and I must do it. Whether your statement be true, or not, God only can tell. After so many false statements which you have made it must not be assumed to be the case. If it be so, it is no excuse for you, because, in point of law, you have been proved to be guilty of the crime of murder, and, indeed, that very statement admits the justice of the verdict of the jury. I say no more. I do not wish to hurt your feelings by a single unnecessary word. It is my duty to pass upon you the sentence of the law." His Lordship then passed sentence of death in the usual form.

WEBSTER'S FINAL PLEA.

The prisoner, in a firm voice, which was heard throughout the court, said, "I am not guilty, my Lord."
Mr. Avory, Clerk of Arraigns, addressing the prisoner - "Prisoner at the bar, you have been convicted of the crime of murder. Have you anything to say in stay of execution of your sentence?"
The prisoner - "Yes, I am pregnant."
A jury of matrons was then summoned, the previous jury having retired. The matron of the prison, Thirza Belcher, denied that Webster was pregnant. After examining her in the jury-room, Mr. Bond did likewise; and the jury of matrons declared themselves of the same opinion.
The prisoner, who was in a prostrate condition, was then raised by the attendants, and almost borne by them to the steps which led from the dock to the cells below.
It was half-past seven o'clock when the Court rose, the scene from the delivery of the verdict till the termination of the proceedings having been one of painful and extraordinary interest. There was a large crowd waiting in the street outside the court during the afternoon for the result of the trial, and the precincts of the court showed how deep and widespread was the interest felt.

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MR. JUSTICE DENMAN.

Colleague of the late Lord Palmerston in the representation of the pretty little Devonshire town of Tiverton - a student who carried off high honours at Cambridge University - and a hearty encourager of University rowing, to boot - Mr. Justice Denman possesses every attribute that Englishmen admire.
Mr. Justice Denman is the fourth son of the eloquent and distinguished advocate, the erudite and eminent Judge, Lord Denman, who was elevated (or lowered - that depends upon the point of view) to the Peerage in 1834. It is Thomas Denman, eldest son of the first Lord Denman, who now holds the title. But the talents of the father seem to have been inherited by the just and able Judge whose likeness (reproduced by the graphic pencil of Mr. Thomas Scott from a lifelike photograph by Mr. Charles Watkins, late of Parliament-street, now of Torriano-avenue) we have much pleasure in adding to the PORTRAIT GALLERY of the PENNY ILLUSTRATED PAPER.
"With prudence and perseverance" is the motto of the Denmans, and a good serviceable motto it is - none better for a lawgiver. These qualities, it will be admitted, have been conspicuously shown by Mr. Justice Denman in the trial of Catherine Webster at the Old Bailey on the charge of having wilfully murdered Mrs. Thomas, at 2, Vine Cottages, Richmond, in the month of March last. The light of his clear intelligence and trained mind, which rendered his summing up lucid and impartial, tended considerably to clear up what had become to be known as "The Barnes Mystery." Throughout the hearing of this remarkable case, moreover, his incisive remarks from the Bench were of material use in condensing the threatened prolixity of counsel. Indeed, it seemed as if some of the wisdom of Solomon had descended to this modern Justice when he rebuked Mrs. Porter for her levity, and advised her to give up the drinking of gin and whisky.