PC Winder asked him why there were so many stones near the dead man’s head, and Millett told him that he had thrown them at his attacker once he went down onto the road. Millett also told Mr James that once he had got the man down on the floor, he had run back to the public house where he wanted to stay for the night, but the landlord wouldn’t let him have a bed. Millett said he had then gone into a shed, where he stayed for the night, and the next morning had sent his wife to find the missing horse and cart.
After taking his statement, Mr James then took Millett to the stable of the Barley Mow and showed him Winder’s body. He asked him if that was the man who had attacked him and he identified him positively. He also identified the blue cap which had been found at the side of the body as being his.
The medical evidence caused great astonishment to the coroner when the surgeon, Mr T.P Teale, gave evidence that he had examined the body of Christopher Winder on the morning of Saturday 6 June. He noted that the deceased had a large wound on his chin and that his head and hands were bloody. When he opened up the body for a post-mortem, he had found contusions on the upper part of his shoulders and thighs. The head and scalp had taken a terrific beating, but Mr Teale offered the view that he did not think they had been inflicted by falling down onto the stones. In his opinion, the death had been caused by the fractured skull and the accompanying injury to the brain. The surgeon stated that in his estimation, the injuries were more consistent with a cart wheel going over the head. Having examined the road where the body had been found, Mr Teale suggested that the road was not wide enough for a cart to pass around the body, and the injuries were consistent with one wheel going over the head, and another wheel causing the injuries to the lower part of the body.
The prisoner was then asked if he had anything to say, and he stated simply that after being robbed, he had returned back to the Rose and Crown. Millett claimed to have told the landlord that he had been robbed when he had asked for a bed for the night. As was customary, all the evidence during the inquest was written down, but when Millett was given it to sign, he hesitated and said that he didn’t know what they were talking about. He spoke to one of the policemen who stood near to him to ask if he could have the statement read out again. This was done, and when it was handed to him a second time, he hesitated once more. Turning to the coroner he said, ‘What do you say, I have been killing this man?’ The coroner replied that he had said no such thing. The prisoner, after hesitating, put a cross on the document and said that was all the statement he wanted to make. As it was 9.30 p.m. by this time, the coroner adjourned the inquest to the following evening at 5 p.m. The prisoner was then transported back to Leeds under a strong entourage of policemen.
There was a great crowd of people outside the Barley Mow Inn when the inquest was resumed the next day. They were all anxious to see the prisoner as he was brought back from Leeds police station, where he had spent the night. The coroner summed up for the jury, stating that he did not agree with the surgeon on all the points he had made. He told them that if a person attacks another to such an extent that he is left insensible in the road and unable to move, in the event of a cart wheel going over him, the attacker was still guilty of murder. He used an example of a man hitting another man with his fist, telling them, ‘You wouldn’t say the intention was murder in this case, but if he hit a man with a large stone or a piece of wood or iron, the intent would be clear’. He went on to say that Millett had been seen, clearly wearing the hat of the deceased, and his own cap had been found near the body, implicating him very deeply in the crime. It took the jury two hours before they returned with a verdict of guilty of wilful murder, and the prisoner was ordered to York Castle to take his trial. When Millett left the Barley Mow Inn, it was reported that a large group of people had assembled before it to see him leave. As Millet appeared, he was booed and hissed at before being bundled into the police coach.
On Saturday, 17 July 1841, Millett was brought to the Assizes at York before the judge, Mr Justice Wightman. The judge heard all of the evidence and, once again, the surgeon Mr Teale took the stand and repeated his evidence. To the jury’s amazement, the judge then stopped the case and, turning to the jury, instructed them to find Millett not guilty. Millett, looking much relieved, left the dock.
Had Millett committed the murder? He certainly acted rashly and suspiciously. The evidence of the surgeon meant that the judge believed that Winder had been killed by a cart wheel going over the body, but could that have been done by Grayshon and Gaunt who had found the body? They only saw it from behind, although it is doubtful that they would have felt it if the wheel had, indeed, gone over the body of a man lying in the road. It is something that, from this distance in time, we will never know.
Case Five
An Evil Ménage à Trois
The Curious Poisoning of Sarah Scholes, 1842
This case was judged not so much on justice, but on the morality of the people concerned. At one point, while revelations were being made, the coroner openly showed his disgust and wanted to bring the hearing to a close. In the end, the verdict was inconclusive but this is still a good example of how morals were judged in the nineteenth century.
Sarah Scholes was a woman possessed. Her husband was Joseph Scholes, who had worked for the Leeds Water Works company. There had been several incidents of domestic violence and stories about his immorality and, as a consequence, he had been ‘released’ from his occupation. Fortunately, he had managed to get other employment at Kirkstall Grange, near to Kirkstall Abbey, the house of William Beckett MP. The main cause for Sarah’s unhappiness was when her husband brought another woman, a prostitute named Margaret Dowie, to live with them at their house on Meadow Lane, Leeds. At that time there was only one marital bed, so Mrs Scholes was thrown out and she was forced to sleep at a neighbour’s house. Two years later – probably the worst humiliation for her – he was sleeping in the small, box bedroom and she was forced to share a bed with Dowie.
On 14 December 1842, the dead body of Sarah Scholes was found at the house and it was thought that she had been poisoned by her husband and his paramour. An inquiry was held at the Leeds Courthouse, in front of coroner John Blackburn Esq. and a respectable jury.
The first to give evidence was a neighbour called Moses Long, who explained to the jury that he was the manager of Smith’s Mill and had known Mrs Scholes for some weeks. He said that at almost midnight on Tuesday 13 December, he was called to come to the house, where Dowie told him that Sarah had drank some poison out of a brown bottle. In an upstairs bedroom he saw Mrs Scholes, who was laid out on the bed. She did not speak, although her mouth was moving, and she appeared to be insensible. Dowie, who was also in the room, appeared to be much agitated and alarmed. A surgeon, Mr Robert Craven, was sent for but shortly after he arrived, Mrs Scholes died. The surgeon at the inquest told the coroner that he had been called in to see the deceased woman at 12.15 a.m. Her husband had come to his house and told him that his wife had taken poison. When he asked Scholes how he knew, he stated that she had drunk it out of a bottle in front of him and then thrown the bottle down, telling him that she had just taken some prussic acid. When asked why she had done it, he told the surgeon that it was down to jealousy.
Craven told the jury that when he arrived at the house, he found Mrs Scholes lying on the bed, fully clothed, and it was obvious that she was very close to death. Her clothing showed no sign of being disarrayed; her eyes were very bright and not moving, and, from the smell of her breath, he could tell that she had taken prussic acid. He examined the bottle and found it was a phial, which would contain about an ounce of liquid. He tasted what was left and agreed that it was indeed prussic acid. Craven told Scholes that he would show him where the night watchmen would be on his rounds, in order to alert the police to the death of his wife. The surgeon told the coroner that since the death, he had performed a post-mortem and made tests on the stomach and its contents. He had no doubt that the ingestion of prussic acid was the cau
se of her death.
The wife of Moses Long, Jane, was next to give evidence. She told the court how she had known Mr and Mrs Scholes and Dowie for a few weeks prior to the death. Although she had been in the dead woman’s house on many occasions when her husband and Dowie had been present, she had not witnessed any quarrelling between them. They all seemed to live amicably in this strange ménage à trois. On the night of the death, she looked at Scholes and asked him what he had done. He replied that he had done nothing and that Sarah had done it to herself. Apparently, she had refused to accompany Dowie to bed and had quarrelled with her husband before going into the little box room. Sarah refused to sleep, saying she would sit up all night. Dowie had taken a candle and gone to bed, but woke up a while later and realised that Sarah was still in the other room. Dowie then got up, threatening that she would make Sarah come to bed.
It was then, according to Mrs Long’s summary, that Dowie noticed something about Sarah’s posture that made her suspicious, and demanded to know what she had in her pockets. Mrs Scholes told her to ‘never mind her pockets’ as she had ‘nothing in them to do with her’. Meanwhile, hearing the commotion, Scholes woke up and said that they would all stay up all night, but as he rose from the bed, Sarah dashed out of the room. Almost immediately she came back into the bedroom and, producing a small bottle, she drank the contents, stating, ‘I am poisoned. May the Lord receive my poor soul.’ Dowie then told Sarah that she would not let her sleep with her husband.
PC Thomas Spiers gave evidence next. He described being called to the house at about 12.30 a.m., where he viewed the body of the dead woman. He asked for the pockets of the deceased to be searched, but all she had in them was a key. Scholes told the constable that one of the keys was to a workbox, which his wife had kept in the sitting room. Spiers opened the box and found two packets labelled ‘poison’. These, he told the jury, contained prussic acid. He was asked about the behaviour of Scholes and Dowie, and stated that Scholes appeared calm, but Dowie seemed to be ‘fretting’.
Silence fell over the court when Margaret Dowie took the stand. She began by telling the coroner she had known Scholes for over two years. He had ‘kept her’ before that in a house on Union Street, which had been described as ‘a house of ill-fame’. He presented himself as unmarried, but before long he admitted that he had a wife. He told her that he had confessed to his wife about the affair and, to her surprise, Mrs Scholes appeared at her door on Union Street, requesting that she come and live with them both. She told Dowie that her husband was ill and promised that the couple would find her a situation and look after her. She went for a short while, but then left and went to live with a couple named Cookson, who had a house near Roundhay Park, where she learned dressmaking and posed as their niece. However, she was taken ill and Scholes went to fetch her one day and took her into lodgings. But only a few weeks later, he once again took her to live at home with him and his wife. Once more, she left and spent four months in Scotland, before receiving a letter from him asking her to return back to Leeds, saying that he and his wife had separated on her account. However, when he was not in the house, Mrs Scholes would turn up on the doorstep. Dowie asked her to come back, saying, ‘Let us all live comfortably together again.’
Mrs Scholes did return to live at the house, but, shortly afterwards, Dowie left to go to live with Scholes at Halifax, where he was working. At this point, the coroner exploded with rage, stating, ‘Really gentlemen, this is a most disgraceful statement; I have scarcely patience to listen to it.’ Nevertheless, Dowie was asked to continue with her statement. She told the jury that she had returned to Leeds and had gone to live at a lodging house owned by a woman named Robinson, where Scholes continued to visit her.
Again, Scholes claimed that he and his wife had separated and that he had agreed to pay her maintenance each week. Dowie also told the jury that she knew Scholes had not slept with his wife in the last two months, as he had slept in a ‘turn-down bed in a room where his tools [were]’. The coroner interjected: ‘Well, I think the jury perfectly understand the terms on which this man, his wife and you have been living for the last two or three years, and a more disgraceful exhibition I have never heard. You will now tell us as to the proceedings on Tuesday night.’
Dowie reported that on Tuesday morning, the three of them had taken breakfast together before Scholes went out at around 10 a.m. She and Mrs Scholes had also gone out together but separated, in which time Dowie went to find a milliner’s shop at Hunslet. She then met up with a friend and did not see Mrs Scholes again until she got home later that night at approximately 7.30 p.m. She stayed at home with Mrs Scholes while the husband went out again; she claimed that there was no quarrel between any of them. Scholes returned home and went to sleep in the box bedroom, where Dowie and Mrs Scholes went to find him. According to Dowie, she could see that Mrs Scholes was not ready to go to bed so, taking the candle, she left the pair together. She fell asleep but at some point woke up and realised that Mrs Scholes had still not come to their shared bed. She went into the box room, where she found Mrs Scholes still sitting in the room as she had left her. Dowie asked twice, ‘Why don’t you come to bed tonight like other nights.’
When questioned by the coroner, Dowie told him that she had not threatened Mrs Scholes to make her go to bed. Mr Scholes had woken up and told his wife to go to bed, but she replied that she wouldn’t go for either of them. Scholes had made a motion to rise out of his bed and his wife ran out of the room.
It was then that Mrs Scholes took the poison, after which Dowie ran for help from the neighbours whilst Mr Scholes removed his wife into the double bed. When Dowie returned, she found him holding his wife and giving her a drink of water. He said to her, ‘Oh Sarah, what have you taken?’ Dowie denied seeing her drinking from a bottle, but said that Scholes had seen her take the poison. She told the jury, ‘The deceased and myself had our suppers together and were just as comfortable as usual.’
One of the jurors asked Dowie whether she had threatened to poison Sarah Scholes if she did not leave the house. Dowie denied this. The coroner questioned whether or not she was aware of the prussic acid in the house, and she told him that she did not know of it. Dowie was also interrogated about Sarah Scholes’ state of mind, but she claimed there was no sign that Mrs Scholes was in any way low spirited. Another juror asked her if it was true that Scholes had killed a dog using the same poison, and Dowie admitted that it was true. She then categorically denied that Scholes had told her he would marry her if anything happened to his wife. Laconically, she told the courtroom, ‘I tried to go away several times but could not, I could not forget him.’
Another witness, Samuel Healey, claimed he had known Dowie for about twelve months and that she expected to marry Scholes once his wife was no longer around. Dowie was brought back to the stand, where she denied ever saying such a thing to Healey. Once again, Healey took the stand, asserting that the relationship between the three in question was under such pressure that there were frequent quarrels, which had been heard throughout the neighbourhood.
Once more, the courtroom became silent when the husband of the deceased woman gave his evidence. He confirmed that she was his wife, saying that they had been married about fourteen years and she was aged 43. He told the coroner that he had known Dowie for about two years and had kept her for six months, before his wife suggested that she come to live with them. He confirmed that Dowie had gone to Scotland and that he had made an agreement to separate from his wife. The maintenance arrangements had been agreed by an attorney. Dowie came back to live with him in the marital home during May and, at that time, he was separated from his wife. His wife then returned and since that time, they had all lived together quite amicably. When questioned by the coroner, Scholes explained, ‘My wife seemed right enough and though I have no doubt that it would hurt her feelings, she consented to it.’
On the night his wife died, he claimed to have been out from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. He then went out again at 7 p.
m. and returned at 10 p.m., going to bed about half an hour later. Scholes told the incredulous jury that nothing unpleasant had occurred. He said that he had gone to bed and his wife had come into his room. He had simply fallen asleep. At around 12 o’clock, he awoke to the sound of Dowie and his wife talking, and he asked her why she was not in bed. She told him that she wanted to sit up and refused to go into the bed she shared with Dowie. His wife had then ran out the room and returned with a bottle. He was, apparently, unaware that there was prussic acid in the house, although he knew he had used some when he poisoned a dog with it the previous May. On that occasion, he had bought two pennyworth (about half a teaspoon). According to Scholes, there was no label on the bottle and he told the inquiry he had broken the empty bottle after giving the prussic acid to the dog.
When asked by the coroner about the emotional condition of his wife, he said that she had been in good spirits, that about seven or eight years before he met Dowie she had spoken of suicide, but that was in the past. A juror asked him how his wife felt about sharing the house with Dowie. Scholes spoke of how his wife had returned to him two months ago, asking him to ‘turn Margaret out’, but he had replied that he would turn neither of them out. The coroner rebuked him, saying that if he had acted as he ought to have done, he would have turned Dowie away: ‘Your wife had the only moral claim on you.’ Scholes told the court that from the moment Dowie had come to the house, his wife had ceased to sleep with him. He claimed not to remember saying to Dowie that he would marry her if anything happened to his wife.
Murder & Crime Leeds Page 4