Chronicles of Newgate, Vol. 2: From the eighteenth century to its demolitionGriffiths, Arthur
History
Chronicles of Newgate, Vol. 2: From the eighteenth century to its demolition
Griffiths, Arthur
Criminals -- Great Britain; Newgate (Prison : London, England); Prisons -- England; Punishment -- Great Britain
The murdered individual was thus identified. The next step was to
ascertain where and with whom she had last been seen. This brought
suspicion on to a certain James Greenacre, whom she was to have
married, and in whose company she had left her own lodgings to visit
his in Camberwell. The police wished to refer to Greenacre, but as
he was not forthcoming, a warrant was issued for his apprehension,
which was effected at Kennington on the 24th March. A woman named
Gale, who lived with him, was arrested at the same time. The prisoners
were examined at the Marylebone police court. Greenacre, a stout,
middle-aged man, wrapped in a brown greatcoat, assumed an air of
insolent bravado; but his despair must have been great, as was evident
from his attempt to strangle himself in the station-house. Suspicion
grew almost to a certainty as the evidence was unfolded. Mrs. Brown was
a washerwoman, supposed to be worth some money; hence Greenacre's offer
of marriage. She had realized all her effects, and brought them with
her furniture to Greenacre's lodgings. The two when married were to
emigrate to Hudson's Bay. Whether it was greed or a quarrel that drove
Greenacre to the desperate deed remains obscure. They were apparently
good friends when last seen together at a neighbour's, where they
seemed "perfectly happy and sociable, and eager for the wedding day."
But Greenacre in his confession pretended that he and his intended had
quarrelled over her property or the want of it, and that in a moment
of anger he knocked her down. He thought he had killed her, and in his
terror began at once to consider how he might dispose of the body and
escape arrest. While she was senseless, but really still alive, he cut
off her head, and dismembered the body in the manner already described.
It is scarcely probable that he would have gone to this extremity if he
had had no previous evil intention, and the most probable inference is
that he inveigled Mrs. Brown to his lodgings with the set purpose of
taking her life.
His measures for the disposal of the _corpus delicti_ remind us of
those taken by Mrs. Hayes and her associates, or of Gardelle's frantic
efforts to conceal his crime. The most ghastly part of the story is
that which deals with his disposal of the head. This, wrapped up in
a silk handkerchief, he carried under his coat-flaps through the
streets, and afterwards on his cap in a crowded city omnibus. It was
not until he left the 'bus, and walked up by the Regent's Canal, that
he conceived the idea of throwing the head into the water. Another
day elapsed before he got rid of the rest of the body, all of which,
according to his own confession, made with the idea of exonerating Mrs.
Gale, he accomplished without her assistance. On the other hand, it was
adduced in evidence that Mrs. Gale had been at his lodgings the very
day after the murder, and was seen to be busily engaged in washing down
the house with bucket and mop.
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