WHO IS THE MURDERER? A PROBLEM IN THE LAW OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE, IN A LETTER TO CHRISTOPHER NORTH. York, 15th March 1842. MY DEAR CHRISTOPHER-A trial for murder occurred here a few days ago, during the spring assizes for this county, which, taken altogether, is, in my opinion, the most remarkable that has been witnessed in this country for many years-little less so, indeed, than that of Eugene Aram; to which it bears, in several respects, a striking resemblance. The more I reflect upon it, the more am I struck with its peculiar interest and difficulty; and I consider it so calculated profitably to exercise the understandings of all clear-headed persons, lay or professional, interested in the administration of justice, and so illustrative of the working of our principles of criminal law, that I have determined to devote my leisure evenings at this place to the task of giving you, and through you the public, a pretty full account of it. That there are in it circumstances of mystery and horror is certain; but I shall reveal no more of them than is necessary for my purpose; for both you and I scout the idea of ministering to minds diseased. by that degrading appetite for the loathsome details of crime, which certain late publications have engendered in persons of inferior capacity and education. They will find little to interest them in this article; but I hope, and believe, that it will be otherwise with those of your readers who are of a - higher order who may live under, or be acquainted with, other systems of criminal jurisprudence, (say in Scotland, and on the Continent, particularly in France,) with which I shall enable them to compare that of England and to say how such a case as the present would have been dealt with by their own system. Who, indeed, here or elsewhere, can fail to be profoundly interested on behalf of justice when in quest of a great criminal, and endeavouring, spite of a long lapse of time, to frustrate all his devices for secrecy and concealment; and in ascertaining that neither the innocent has been condemned, nor the guilty acquitted? I shall proceed to enable you to form a judgment on this case for yourself, just as if you had sat beside me in court during the trialobserving the demeanour of the different witnesses, and listening to their testimony-with your eyes, too, riveted-at moments of intense and thrilling interest, upon the features of the man standing at the bar, to answer the most dreadful charge on which man can be arraigned before man. Q. Q. Q. In the summer of the year 1830, there lived at a place called Eagle's-cliffe, near Yarm, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, a man of the name of William Huntley. He was one of the sons of a respectable farmer who had died about ten years before, leaving behind him a widow and several children, and considerable property to be divided between them; but his will was so imperfect and obscure as to have led to a Chancery suit, in order to determine the true distribution of the property according to his intention-which was, to leave his widow the interest of a certain sum for her life, and considerable legacies to each of his children, payable as they became of age. His son William was, in the year 1830, about thirty-four years of age, and married, but lived apart from his wife, with whom he had quarrelled. Owing to his being so long kept out of his little property, he became a weaver in order to support himself-and was, in fact, in very humble circumstances. In point of personal appearance-a matter to which I call your particular attention he was of middling stature; he had a broad, squat face; his head was very large behind; his forehead a retreating one, with rather a deep indentation between the eyebrows; and he was pitted with the smallpox. But there was one peculiarity in his face-a very prominent tooth on the left side of the under-jaw-which caught every one's eye on first looking at him. It occasioned him to have a sort of «twist of the mouth » — for which he had been always known and ridiculed by his companions, even at school. The solicitor who had the management of the affairs in Chancery was a Mr. Garbutt, residing at Yarm, and still living. He had occasionally assisted the family, and, amongst them, William Huntley, by small advances during the time of their being kept out of their property. At length, on Thursday, 22 July 1830-I also beg your attention to dates-Mr. Garbutt was enabled to pay over to him the money due under the will; and on that day gave him a sum of L.85, 16s. 4d. the balance due after deducting the abovementioned advances in seventeen L.5 bank-notes of the bank of Messrs. Backhouse and Company, bankers at Stockton-uponTees, and the remainder in silver and copper. He was also entitled to receive other money, which Mr. Garbutt had received instructions from him to endeavour to obtain; and I believe that he would have been entitled to a still further sum on his mother's death. As I have already mentioned, Huntley at this time resided at Eagle's-cliffe, but was in the constant habit of coming over to a small village at a few miles' distance, called Hutton-Rudby, where his mother, and also an intimate friend of his, one Robert Goldsborough, whose house, on such occasions, he was in the habit of making his own-always passing the night there. Goldsborough was about Huntley's age; was a widower, with a couple of children, and in very destitute circumstances, having even been in the receipt of parish relief down to within a very few months of the period at which this narrative commences. On the day of Huntley's receiving his money, viz. Thursday, the 22d July, he went over to Hutton-Rudby, and stayed there one or two days, principally in company with his friend Goldsborough. There is some reason to believe that Huntley was desirous of preventing two or three creditors of his from knowing that he had received so considerable a sum of money; and also that he had, about the time in question, intimated to one or two persons a wish to go to America. He appears to have gone very frequently to and fro, between HuttonRudby and Eagle's-cliffe, during the ensuing week. At an early hour, five o'clock, on the morning of Friday, the 30th July, he was seen coming to Goldsborough's house; again, about three o'clock in the afternoon of that day, walking on the high-road, in company with Goldsborough, and a man named Garbutt; a third time, at eight o'clock in the evening of the same day, sitting in Goldsborough's house; and about ten o'clock that night, he, Goldsborough, and Garbutt, were observed walking together in a cheerful and friendly manner -Goldsborough with a gun in his hand-all apparently bending their steps towards Crathorne Wood which was close by, on a poaching errand. From that moment to the present, Huntley has never once been seen or heard of. The circumstance of his disappearance was noticed as soon as six on the ensuing day, Saturday, and his continued absence rapidly increased the suspicion and alarm of the neighbourhood. A quantity of stale looking blood being seen on the side of the highroad, on the ensuing Monday morning, very near the spot where he had been last seen walking with Golsborough and Garbuttand also a man's recollecting that, between eleven and twelve o'clock at night, he had heard the report of a gun in Crathorne Wood, added to the circumstance of Huntley's having been seen so frequently in Goldsborough's company, down even to the moment of his sudden disappearance, naturally pointed suspicion at Goldsborough, and anxious enquiries were at once made of him by many persons, to know what had become of Huntley To one person, a creditor of Huntley's, Goldsborough said, with an easy confident air, that he had set Huntley on the road to Whitby, where he was going to take ship for America. To Whitby instantly went several persons in quest of the missing man, but in vain; no such person had been seen or heard of in that direction, nor was there-nor had there been for some time - in that port any vessel bound for America. The disappointed enquirers returned to Goldsborough, to an nounce the fruitlessness of their search, when he gave another account of Huntley's movements; namely, that he had set Huntley on the way to Liverpool, there to take ship for America; and a short time afterwards, to another class of enquirers, be told an entirely different story, that he had set Huntley on his way to Bidsdale, to see some friends of his residing there. All this kindled still more vivid suspicion against him. Constables and others searched his house, and found in it a watch, and various articles of clothing, belonging to Huntley, but none of which he made the least attempt to conceal. When asked to account for his possession of them, he gave inconsistent answers. First, he said that Huntley had given them to him; but, on being reminded how improbable it was that a man so covetous as Huntley should have done so, he said that the fact was that he had lent Huntley money, and, on his going off to America, he had left the articles in question as a security for the repayment of what he owed. In short, Goldsborough was universally supposed to have murdered Huntley. On one occasion he said, without any embarrassment of manner, when taunted on the subject-« You'll all see, by and by, whether he's been murdered!» On another occasion, after following to his door a person who had just quitted it, he said to a man standing near- That gentleman has been here asking after Huntley, but he'll neither find him at my house, nor at Whitby, nor no-where else. » Confident that the missing man had been murdered, the neighbours, and also the constables, searched far and wide after his body. To a party thus engaged, he once went up and said, impatientlyYou fools! it's no use searching there! Only you give up, and I'll bring Huntley to you in a fortnight!» From some cause or other, these efforts were shortly afterwards discontinued. Some week or ten days after Huntley's disappearance, Goldsborough was observed sitting opposite a very large fire in his house, reading; and a strong smell was perceived as of woollen burning. "Dear me," said a person to him, « you've a large fire for summer time?" He said he could not sleep, so he was sitting up reading. To another person mentioning the smell of woollen burning, he replied- That he had been VOL. II. 71 |