One of the many problems that he police faced during their investigation into the Jack the Ripper crimes was the sheer number of people who seemed to feel the need to confess to having committed the atrocities.
But, as the following article, which appeared in The Devizes and Wilts Advertiser on Thursday the 12th of April 1888 demonstrates, it wasn’t just the Whitechapel murders that people were confessing to:-
CONFESSION OF MURDER
At Stratford (Essex) Petty Sessions, on Monday afternoon, William Clifford (36), described as a labourer, of no home, was charged on his own confession with having feloniously killed and murdered one Mary Taylor, about April, sixteen years ago, on a cinder bank at Deepfields, near Wolverhampton.
Inspector J. Walsh said that at midnight on Saturday he was on duty at Leytonstone Police Station, when the prisoner entered and said that he wanted to see the inspector on duty.
The witness said that he was on duty, and the prisoner then said he wanted to speak to him privately – he wanted to give himself up for murder.
The witness then cautioned the prisoner as to the gravity of what he was about to do, and told him that he would take the statement down in writing, and that it would be used as evidence against him.
WILLIAM CLIFFORD’S STATEMENT
The prisoner answered “Very well,” and he proceeded to make the following statement:-
“I, William Clifford, murdered Mary Taylor, between the hours of four and six in the morning, on a cinder bank, at Deepfields, near Wolverhampton, in Staffordshire, about this time 16 years ago.
My sister, Sarah Knight, who resides at Burslem, in the Potteries, North Staffordshire, knows all about it.
Though it should break my mother’s heart, I want to have it cleared up, so that I can have a clear mind.
I lived at the time with my mother and sisters at 6, Stafford Street, Wolverhampton.”
A FALSE ADDRESS
The witness, continuing his evidence, said that the prisoner gave an address in Hackney, but enquiry had been made, and that address was found to be false.
“I MUST HAVE BEEN MAD DRUNK”
Acting on his statement, the prisoner was then charged, and in reply he made another statement, in the course of which he said:-
“I must have been mad to have accused myself of murder. I have been six weeks in London out of work, and have been living in casual wards.”
The prisoner, when asked if he had anything to say as to why he should not be remanded for enquiries, said that if he made the statement accusing himself of murder he must have done so under the influence of drink.
Inspector Walsh said that he was perfectly sober at the time.
QUESTIONS AND THEN REMAND
Captain Kindersley (chairman):- “How long was it after he made the first statement before the charge was made?”
Inspector Walsh:- “Several hours; some enquiries were first made.”
The prisoner was then remanded, and it was directed that the state of his mind should be enquired into at the House of Detention.
A HORRIBLE MURDER
A Wolverhampton correspondent writes that though present enquiries fail to corroborate the prisoner’s statement concerning his residence in Stafford Street, Wolverhampton, sixteen years ago, yet it is remembered that such a murder as the prisoner refers to did occur about 1870 or 1871.
The actual neighbourhood, however, was Mud Lane, Yoxley, near Wednesbury, not Deepfields – but about two miles from Deepfields – and if any relevance is to be placed on the confession, the prisoner was concerned with some four others in the tragedy, which was surrounded with details of particular horror and fiendishness.
A married woman, named Baggot, was murdered on a cinder bank by five men, who left her in a terrible condition.
Three men were arrested, and were committed for trial by the magistrates on the capital charge at the Stafford Assizes, but the grand jury threw out the bill.