The Chronicles of Newgate, vol. 2/2Griffiths, Arthur
History
The Chronicles of Newgate, vol. 2/2
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
certainty as the evidence was unfolded. Mrs. Brown was a washer-woman,
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 getting rid 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 no doubt 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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