For our murder case of today we are going to head back to the year 1867, when The Soulby’s Ulverston Advertiser and General Intelligencer, on Thursday the 8th of August, published derails of the case against Henry Roots, who was charged with the murder of an unknown woman.

The case was quite a bizarre one:-

EXTRAORDINARY MURDER

At the Maidstone assizes on Thursday, Henry Roots, a labourer, about 40 years of age, was indicted for the wilful murder of a woman whose name was unknown, at a place called Trotterscliffe, on the night of the 23rd of May last.

On the 14th of June last, the body of the woman was discovered in a wood, not far from Melling, in a state of most advanced decomposition.

The state and position in which she was found left no doubt that she had been murdered.

The shawl was tied tightly round the neck and tied in two knots, and the ends tucked in under the neck, so as to prevent them from being easily untied.

EVIDENCE OF A STRUGGLE

The medical evidence was to the effect that this would probably at once produce suffocation, and would cause death in ten minutes.

The knots could not have been tied and fastened as they were by the woman herself, added to which all the circumstances of the position in which the body was found showed that violence had been used.

There were traces of a struggle: one of the arms was stretched out and the hand clenched, and a handful of a man’s hair, pulled from the whiskers, was found not far from the spot.

A WITNESS SAW HIM

Another head of evidence traced the woman from a public house, where she had been on the evening in question, towards the fatal spot.

At the public house the prisoner was drinking, and not long after she left he also went out.

The witness who saw the prisoner at that time – a woman who knew him well – told him that she was sure he was going after her into the wood, which he did not deny, nor did he, as usual, stop to speak to her, but went on, walking very fast after the deceased.

MRS. COLLINS’S EVIDENCE

A married woman, named Collins, said she left the house of the woman already mentioned a little past seven o’clock, and her evidence was confirmed by her thus far – that she followed the deceased shortly afterwards, and saw her and the prisoner.

The witness said that she walked with the deceased some little distance, and left her sitting on a bank about six rods or so from the spot where the body was found.

As the witness went away, she said, she looked back and saw the prisoner, not far from the woman, standing still.

Having reached her house, the witness remained at home, she stated, until about half-past nine o’clock, and then she went out to meet a man named Brooker, at a place not far from the spot which was the scene of the murder.

SHE HEARD CRIES

She did not meet him, and a little before twelve o’clock, on her return home, she said she heard the cry of a woman:- “Oh, dear! oh, dear!” and heard a man say, “I will before I leave you;” and she was not more than two yards off.

She went to the man and took him by the collar, and she declared the man was the prisoner, and that the woman was the same she had seen in the evening.

SHE COULD SEE HIS FACE

She said she could “see his face as clear as day.”

It should be here stated that another witness had stated that it was a moonlight night.

She said the man had one arm round the woman and the other under her bonnet.

The woman again cried, “Oh, dear! oh, dear!”

CRIES OF MURDER

The witness stated that in a few minutes she left them, and went a little way, and then stopped a quarter of an hour.

She then heard a woman say, “Murder! murder!” twice, in a very low tone of voice, as if she was exhausted.

She went back to the spot and there saw, she said, the prisoner holding the woman down.

She said that she could not see the woman’s head, and could not do anything, as she was frightened.

At that, time she heard no cry , and this , it was suggested, was the moment of the murder.

CROSS EXAMINED

In cross-examination she said that she stood looking at them for a quarter of an hour, and heard no sound after the two faint cries of “murder!”

She was asked why she did not cry out, and she said that she was afraid for her own life.

She admitted that on her first examination she did not mention that she had seen the prisoner and the woman at midnight. She said she was not asked about it, but that the real reason she did not mention it was her reluctance to disclose that she had been out so late at night; but she said that she had told her husband of it, not mentioning whom she had gone to meet, or where she was, and she declared with much earnestness that she desired not to tell him the whole truth, or she would have broken up her home, and added that she now had broken it up, as she had told all about it.

It was elicited that before she gave her second account the prisoner’s friends threatened her life because she had mentioned the midnight scene.

THE HAIR WAS THE PRISONER’S

A witness proved the finding of the tuft or cluster of hair which was found near the spot, and appeared to have been part of a man’s whiskers or beard, and corresponded in colour with that of the prisoner’s.

ROOT APRREHENDED

It was proved that the prisoner, when apprehended, and when he declared his innocence, and asked if he was guilty, said, “should he go that very night and day as he did?”

He went on to say that he was at Bower’s at half-past eight, and remained there until three o’clock in the morning.

THE NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOUR CALLED

A woman who is next door neighbour to the Bowers’s, was called to falsify this statement, and to show that she was in and out of the house until half-past nine in the evening of the night in question, and saw or heard nothing of the prisoner and that at two o’clock in the morning she heard a noise as of some one knocking at the dour of Mrs. Bowers’s house, and then heard some one going in, and also heard the prisoner’s voice.

This witness stated that Mr. Bowers, the prisoner’s friend, had been to ask her to state that the prisoner was at her house from half-past eight in the evening, but declined to do so, as she had not seen him at the house; and the witness’s husband was called to confirm her evidence on that point, and also as to hearing the prisoner come in at two o’clock in the morning.

He swore positively to hearing the prisoners voice speaking to the Bowers at that time.

THE DEFENCE

The prisoner’s counsel addressed the Jury at considerable length on his behalf, the main defence being rested on the evidence of the Bowers, in contradiction of the testimony of Collins, and also to prove an alibi.

The case was then adjourned.

THE TRIAL RESUMED

The trial was resumed on Friday. Mrs. Bowers, the woman referred to in the evidence on Thursday, to whom the prisoner was about to be married, was called as a witness for him, and she continued the testimony of her daughter as to the fact of the prisoner having been at her house on the night of the murder, from eight o’clock in the everting until three on the following morning.

Some other witnesses were also called on behalf of the prisoner, who contradicted many of the statements made by the woman Collins.

THE JUDGE’S SUMMING UP

Mr. Hayman having summed up the evidence for the defence, and Mr. P. J. Smith having replied on the whole case, Mr. Justice Blackburn summed up at considerable length, calling the attention of the jury to all the material points of the case, particularly reminding them that the charge rested almost entirely on the evidence of the woman Anne Collins, who swore to having seen he act committed.

He then proceeded to say that evince of this description from such a witness clearly required considerable confirmation before it ought to he acted upon, and it was for the jury to consider Whether the was sufficient corroboration in this case to justify them in convicting the prisoner.

THE VERDICT

The jury retired, but in about ten minutes they returned into court and gave a verdict of not guilty.