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
A murder which reproduced many of the features of that committed by
Greenacre soon followed, and excited the public mind even more than
that of Courvoisier's. Daniel Good's crime might have remained long
undiscovered but for his own careless stupidity. He was coachman to
a gentleman at Roehampton. One day he went into a pawnbroker's at
Wandsworth, and bought a pair of breeches on credit. At the same time
he was seen to steal and secrete a pair of trousers. The shop-boy gave
information. Good was followed to his stables by a policeman, but
obstinately denied the theft. The policeman insisted on searching the
premises, at which Good displayed some uneasiness. This increased when
the officer, accompanied by two others, a neighbour and a bailiff,
entered one of the stables. Good now offered to go to Wandsworth and
satisfy the pawnbroker. Just at this moment, however, the searchers
found concealed under two trusses of hay a woman's headless and
dismembered trunk. At the constable's cry of alarm Good rushed from
the stable and locked the door behind him. Some time elapsed before
the imprisoned party could force open the doors, and by then the
fugitive had escaped. Medical assistance having been summoned, it was
ascertained how the dismemberment had been effected. At the same time
an overpowering odour attracted them to the adjoining harness-room,
where the missing remains were raked out half consumed in the ashes of
a wood fire. In the same room a large axe and saw were found covered
with blood.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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