Through this advertisement Corder became acquainted with a lady who kept the Grove House Academy at Ealing, near London. They were married, and he went to reside with his wife at Grove House, where he was arrested one morning in the spring of 1828. Various circumstances pointed to him as the murderer of Maria Marten, and he was tried for the crime at Bury St. Edmunds on Aug. 6, 1828. The crowd was so great that the counsel and officers of the court had to fight their way to their places. Corder appeared at the bar dressed in a new suit of black, and with his hair combed over his forehead. He wore a pair of blue French spectacles, through which he eyed the witnesses smilingly. Being called on for his defence, he read a statement which amounted to charging Maria Marten with having committed suicide. He said that in consequence of a quarrel they had in the Red Barn she shot herself with one of two pistols which he had with him:--'The instant the mischief happened, I thought to have made it public; but this would have added to the suspicion, and I then resolved to conceal her death. I then buried her in the best way I could. I tried to conceal the fact as well as I could, giving sometimes one reason for her absence, and sometimes another.' He was found guilty and sentenced to death, and the night before his execution he made the following confession:--'I acknowledge being guilty of the death of poor Maria Marten, by shooting her with a pistol. The particulars are as follows: When we left her father's house, we began quarrelling about the burial of the child, she apprehending that the place wherein it was deposited would be found out. The quarrel continued for about three quarters of an hour upon this and about other subjects. A scuffle ensued, and during the scuffle, and at the time I think that she had hold of me, I took the pistol from the side pocket of my shooting-coat.... I have been guilty of great idleness, and at times led a dissolute life, but I hope through the mercy of God to be forgiven.--W. CORDER.' This murder excited great and marked interest, not only in Suffolk, but through the whole country. On Aug. 10, 1828, the day before the execution, the _Observer_ published a portrait of Corder and a view of the Red Barn, which are here copied. The excitement showed itself in the streets, where puppet shows represented the scene of the crime, and Methodist preachers held forth in the fields near the barn to thousands of attentive listeners. The Red Barn itself was nearly pulled to pieces by curiosity seekers. [Illustration: THE RED BARN. FROM THE 'OBSERVER,' AUG. 10, 1828.]