by J C Briggs
Doctor Alfred Symonds of King’s College Hospital gave the medical evidence which showed that the young woman, Miss Rizzo had died by strangulation. Doctor Symonds described the livid circle round the lower part of the neck, created, he said, by the use of a chain of brass which had been found looped through the victim’s hands. There were glass beads on the chain and a cross. The marks on the circle corresponded to links in the chain. The internal appearances of the body were those of asphyxia. The lungs and right cavities of the heart were distended with thick black blood. Death had occurred between eight and twenty-four hours previous to his examination. Rigor Mortis was passing from the body.
After a short time of deliberation, the jury returned a unanimous verdict of wilful murder against Anthony Ferrars. The Coroner issued his warrant for the committal of Anthony Ferrars to Newgate to await his trial. However, the Coroner said he would consider an application from Doctor Matthew Mellor for further medical examination of the prisoner at the Bethlehem Hospital.
The Morning Chronicle, Thursday, December 13th
CENTRAL CRIMINAL COURT — THIS DAY
Before Mr Justice Rightman:
Mr Edmund Needle for the Crown, assisted by Mr Penn and Mr Jameson; Mr Cornelius Craft for the defence, assisted by Mr Simple and Mr Wiggott.
At the sitting of the court this morning, Anthony Louis Ferrars, aged thirty-five, was placed in the dock charged with the murder of Jianna Rizzo, a seamstress.
On being called upon to plead, he replied, “Not Guilty” in a most feeble and hoarse voice.
Mr Needle, QC, for the prosecution stated the facts of the case which, though but recently set before the public, we may notice briefly. The prisoner at the bar was discovered in a remote cottage in woodland near Westbourne Manor House where the body of the deceased seamstress, Miss Rizzo, was also found. She had been strangled by a chain of brass. The prisoner had been found in the act of painting her face. Mr Needle averred that evidence would show that the prisoner had committed the dreadful deed.
Mr Craft, QC, addressed the jury on behalf of the prisoner and said that upon the facts he felt the jury could come to no other conclusion than that of returning a verdict of guilty against the prisoner. But he had to urge upon their attention the state of mind of the prisoner which he would be able to prove was from his childhood upward unsettled, and was, at the time of the commission of the offence, unquestionably in a state of insanity.
Superintendent Samuel Jones of Bow Street was the first witness called by the learned counsel…
45: Mr Needle and Mr Craft
Day two of the trial
Dickens shifted uncomfortably in his seat as the court waited for Mr Justice Rightman to close the day’s proceedings. Mr Needle and Mr Craft were about their business with their assistants. He looked contemplatively at Cornelius Craft, a beetle-browed, coarse-haired little man with a pugnacious set to his shoulders and big hands. He looked like a boxer ready to throw a punch — at Mr Needle in the present circumstances. He looked at Needle from under his heavy brows with an expression very like a sneer. Cunning, he looked. Crafty, of course.
Edmund Needle was tall and as thin as his name promised. Born to stab, thought Dickens, or rather to prick — secret weapon, he was. A dangerous expression of blandness was his forte. Sometimes he seemed to smile at some joke that only he knew. When a man laughs inwardly, it bodes no good to other people.
Should you be in the dock, he asked himself, glancing at Anthony Ferrars, who would you fear most? Craft’s cunning or Needle’s sharp point? Neither seemed to have much pity for the prisoner — or the victims, come to that. Words, words, words — he might be inclined to bet on Needle’s rhetoric if it came to a toss-up.
He had felt the sting of Mr Needle’s pointed questions, having given his evidence about Violet Pout, Jemima Curd and the discovery of the body of Jianna Rizzo. Mr Needle had eyed him as the cat might a trembling mouse. Not that Dickens trembled, but he had felt a certain foolishness when Needle had pressed him as to why he had tampered with the evidence by wiping off some of the paint from the face of the deceased young woman. The judge had looked down his long nose. He had merely nodded when Dickens explained the horror and pity the sight had evoked. That had been a distinctively uncomfortable moment. Mr Needle had looked at him with his blandly menacing smile. He had suggested that Mr Dickens, however eminent in his own sphere, had overstepped the mark. It was not the business of the novelist to meddle in criminal matters. Some members of the jury had given him a sympathetic look when he returned to his seat. Nevertheless, the law had had its revenge for all those foolish or deceitful lawyers he had created. He thought of Sampson Brass, whose bland forbidding smile had by some foretelling anticipated Needle’s. Perhaps the lawyer had read The Old Curiosity Shop — and hadn’t liked it.
Jones had given his evidence on the first day, as had the other officers from Marylebone Lane. Jones had explained how the investigations into the deaths of Miss Flora Lambert, Miss Violet Pout and Miss Jemima Curd had led to the discovery of the body of Miss Jianna Rizzo in the cottage. The only other person present had been the prisoner, Mr Ferrars. Doctor Symonds had repeated his medical evidence regarding the death of Miss Rizzo by strangulation.
Mr Needle had been remorseless in in his pursuit of the facts. The evidence of Miss Ferrars had been the most painful part of the business. The prisoner’s early life had been laid bare — his mother’s madness and incarceration, the prisoner’s sleepwalking habits, his attempt on the life of a servant, his strange disappearances, his grief at the death of his first love in Ferrara, Italy, and the suggestion of his involvement in the death of a girl found drowned in a Venetian canal.
Jack Marchant had given his evidence, too. He had turned up, sleepless, unshaven and haggard, to confess that he had been searching for Jianna. Then he had read the news of her murder. The young man was shaken to the core. Dickens sympathised — not so Mr Needle who had interrogated him in exquisite detail about his relationship with the murdered girl. Poor Miss Rizzo, he had observed to the jury, to have fallen into the hands of two unscrupulous men. Mr Marchant seemed to have been quite content to let her go with a man who called himself — “Polidori”. He had a way with pauses, did Mr Needle. That was the way, he supposed regretfully, in artistic and theatrical circles. Jack Marchant could not answer.
Poor Jack — he had looked crushed. Magpie’s wings had been well and truly clipped.
A collective gasp from the courtroom had been heard when Miss Ferrars had been asked by Mr Craft, to remove her veil so that the jury might see her injured face — she had looked shattered at the end of her ordeal. Dickens hoped that her tragic bearing would influence the jury — she and her brother had suffered dreadfully at the hands of their mother, as Mr Craft had been at pains to point out.
The paintings had been brought in for the jury to examine. Cipriani Lloyd identified them at the work of the prisoner. He spoke of the prisoner’s interest in Miss Rizzo who had been the model for some of his own sculptures. Mr Craft pointed out the absence of faces — surely evidence that prisoner was not in his right mind.
It would be for the doctors, Dickens knew, to convince the jury that the prisoner was insane. Doctor Winslow looked benevolently confident — or was that complacency? Doctor Jessop wore his usual melancholy air. Jones had said that Doctor Mellor of the Bethlehem Hospital had been called by Mr Needle. He looked irascible — not the kind of man to suffer fools gladly, even to save them from the gallows.
He looked at Anthony Ferrars again. He might as well have been absent — when asked his plea he had spoken in a voice scarcely more than a whisper: “not guilty”, but Dickens felt that he had no idea what the words meant. He would not be called to give evidence — how could he?
46: The Evidence of Doctor Forbes Benignus Winslow
Day three of the trial
Anthony Ferrars looked yet more haggard and confused. He rested his manacled hands on the ledge — long, sensitive, painter’s h
ands, hands that had looped a chain round a girl’s neck and more than once. Had he known what he was doing?
There was a whispering in the court, the shuffle of feet, and a sudden sense of expectancy. Dickens looked away from the white face. Doctor Forbes Winslow was being called.
Mr Craft was ready with his question: ‘Do you consider the prisoner at the bar to be of sound mind, and a responsible agent?’
The jurymen shifted in their seats. People in the public gallery craned forward to see the famous alienist. Doctor Winslow looked perfectly composed. He was an impressive figure, broad-shouldered with a high domed forehead from which his greying hair receded. A thick moustache and far-seeing eyes gave him a grave dignity. The reporters had their pencils poised. Dickens stole a look at Mr Justice Rightman. His long face was sombre, but perfectly neutral. He was not known, as some judges were, to be very much opposed to the insanity plea. Ferrars was fortunate enough not to have come before Baron Rolfe, whose view was that the insanity plea was a defence too often upheld. Still, neutrality was no guarantee.
Doctor Winslow cleared his throat: ‘I do not.’
‘The court would be obliged if you would explain your views of the prisoner.’
‘The principle with regard to a diagnosis of insanity is to look at the personal character of the individual, to his grade of mental power, to the whole course of his life, as well as to the nature of the act with which he is charged. Miss Ferrars, the prisoner’s elder sister, has testified to his childhood sleepwalking and propensity to abstraction and reverie. These manifestations began after his own mother, in a somnambulist trance, had attempted to suffocate the boy. He was three years old at the time. And, as the jury has seen, the burns to Miss Ferrars’s face were inflicted by the mother who held a burning candle to her daughter’s face. Later, the children were told that their mother had drowned when sleepwalking. They discovered that she had actually been confined to the lunatic asylum in Venice.
‘Miss Ferrars protected her brother by locking him in his bedroom and giving him laudanum. Miss Ferrars has told how her brother evaded her supervision and in his sleep trance pushed a servant into a canal. The servant survived and was compensated by Mr Ferrars senior. The boy had no recollection of the incident.
‘The misguided father sent the boy to school in England, believing that a complete change of scene, a cooler climate, and a healthy, vigorous regime such as our public schools operate, would improve him. Mr Cipriani Lloyd has recounted the loneliness and melancholy of the boy at school. The other boys thought him a mad foreigner and shunned him. Mr Lloyd was his only friend and has testified to his sleep-walking habits, his fascination for water, and his tendency to become fixed on one subject — the poems of Byron, for example and the works of Doctor Polidori, or the colour green. These aspects of the prisoner’s early life and character are sufficient to indicate latent insanity.
‘Doctor Polidori was a visitor at the prisoner’s Venetian home. Doctor Polidori had written on sleep disorders and was invited to treat Mrs Ferrars. The treatment — laudanum, cupping, and locking her in her room, did not work. It is significant to me that the prisoner assumed the name of Polidori — a harking back to his childhood terrors.
‘The prisoner adopted the name Antonio Ferrara — again a retreat into the past. This was the place where his tragic love affair took place — the death of Caterina Vecelli, an account of which has been heard in the letter from Mr Aurelio Paladini, a native of Ferrara. This young woman who had returned his love found that her father opposed it — Mr Ferrars, he thought a mere artist, unworthy of his daughter of aristocratic lineage. Moreover, he disliked the English — I remind you that the prisoner took an Italian name. Miss Vecelli committed suicide although a verdict of accident was brought in because she was found with her rosary coiled round her neck. Mr Ferrars does not believe that Caterina Vecelli is dead.
‘The law states that the plea of insanity can only be upheld when the accused is suffering from delusions. A delusion is a belief of things as realities which exist only in the diseased imagination of the patient, a belief of facts in which no reason could believe.
‘The prisoner came to believe that Miss Vecelli was alive somewhere and that he must find her. When he saw a woman with distinctive red-gold hair, he pursued her. He wanted to paint her. His diseased imagination told him that he must preserve his beloved forever. But he could not paint the face of the woman he had found nor any of the others. He does not know why. His melancholia is such as to contribute to acute degeneration of his mind.
‘I should mention here the traces of paint found on the cheeks and lips of the deceased woman. When I questioned the prisoner on this point he told me that Caterina was changed. He wanted to give her back her beauty. This is a delusion out of which he cannot be reasoned.
‘He cannot remember the other young women who died. My colleague, Doctor Jessop, and I have tried him with the names, but he remains mute about them. He does not know who Miss Rizzo is. The only subject which elicits any spoken word from the prisoner is Caterina.
‘As to the question of whether the prisoner knew at the time that his act was wrong, I do not believe we can apply that question. We cannot know for he cannot tell us, but we can take into consideration his childhood history of sleepwalking and reverie and the incident with the servant.’
Mr Craft: ‘Are you able to say whether walking in the sleep is indicative of a disordered mind?’
‘Yes, of a disordered state of the brain. I refer to Mr Robert MacNish on the point of sleepwalking states and of trance. There is a waking-dreamlike state which may afflict the habitual somnambulist. Mr MacNish calls it “Reverie” which fallen into continually can damage the whole fabric of understanding.’
Mr Craft: ‘I should be obliged, Doctor Winslow if you would now state your conclusions as to the state of mind of the prisoner.’
‘From my detailed examination of the prisoner and those of my colleague, Doctor Jessop, I am prepared to say that the prisoner demonstrates symptoms of hereditary insanity, erotomania — that is obsessive love for a particular object — monomania, a state of insanity aroused by one subject. From these latter two, his delusions originate. I do not believe he is of sound mind.’
Doctor Winslow made his bow to the judge. Mr Justice Rightman nodded, but his face was as still as a mask. Dickens looked at the jury. Were they as convinced as he was? Winslow’s account was lucid and so true, he thought. The man was mad. He had not a grain of a doubt. Mr Edmund Needle, however, was deep in discussion with his colleagues. Planning his rebuttal. He seemed to be laughing inwardly.
47: The Needle’s Point
Day four of the trial
Mr Needle adjusted his gown, put down his papers and stepped with a certain confident indolence into the limelight. He turned his inquisitor’s cold gaze upon the twelve true men. Dickens fancied that they shrank a little. He knew how they felt.
He began rhetorically: ‘What is the law respecting alleged crimes committed by persons with insane delusions in respect of one or more particular subjects?
‘In this case we are to consider the prisoner’s belief that the murdered woman is still alive and is not Jianna Rizzo but his first love, Caterina Vecelli? That this is a delusion has been convincingly demonstrated by Doctor Winslow and Doctor Jessop. I do not doubt that the prisoner now believes that his beloved is still alive. Medical evidence tells us that a profound shock may induce madness. We can imagine the shock the prisoner experienced when Superintendent Jones came into that darkened house to find him with the dead girl.
‘Doctor Winslow tells us that in this case the test of whether the accused knew what he had done cannot apply, but the law demands it. The law demands that the question to be answered by the wisdom of the jury is: at the time of the crime did the accused know that he was acting contrary to law?
‘The prisoner’s guilt is beyond reasonable doubt — he was found with the deceased young woman. No one else was at the house. There wa
s no evidence of any other person having lived in that house. He killed Jianna Rizzo, but the onus is his — he must, through the medium of his defence counsel, prove that he did not know that his act was wrong.
‘Mr Craft and his witnesses, Doctor Winslow and Doctor Jessop, have contended that the prisoner has suffered from delusions for a length of time. He pursued young women in the mistaken belief that they were his lost Caterina Vecelli. However, we must consider that when he discovered, by his reason — by his reason, I say — that these young women were not the woman he wanted, he set out to rid himself of them. He knew that they were not Caterina Vecelli — he was not deluded then.
‘Doctor Winslow’s view is that the prisoner’s belief that Jianna Rizzo was Miss Vecelli amounts to insanity. He talks of erotomania and monomania — his fine words may be true. But, as you have heard, the prisoner is a man who has been cunning enough to remove himself from the scene of his alleged crimes. He has lived in at least three places, and under false names. It is a sane man who knows that he is in danger and takes steps to escape that danger by changing his place of residence and assuming false identities.
‘Mr Jack Marchant tells us that Miss Rizzo disappeared from the lodgings where he kept her as his mistress. Mr Marchant understood that the man she went with was named “Polidori” — Polidori, you will remember, was the name of the celebrated author of The Vampyr — a most gruesome tale. A man with predation on his mind might well choose such a soubriquet. Miss Rizzo was never seen alive again.
‘She was found by Superintendent Jones and Mr Dickens in a remote, abandoned cottage deep in the woods. This is his habit and his craft — his craft, I say — the house in Amwell Street was abandoned by the tenants. The prisoner moved secretly into the top floor and inveigled Miss Pout and Miss Curd there. These two young women were found strangled. Mr Gilpin, the coalman, saw him only once. No other tradesmen ever saw him. Because, because, I say, he was in hiding. You have heard of Miss Susan Harvest, the clergyman’s innocent daughter whom the prisoner seduced. After the drowning of Miss Harvest, the prisoner fled to Italy. He was sane enough, no doubt, to buy a ticket, take a boat and several trains, and to return by the same means.