It is a speculation perhaps equally interesting to the philosophic as to
the untutored mind, and dwelt on with as much placidity by the one as by
the other, to reflect on the various and extraordinary modes by which
the hand of Providence has through all ages withdrawn the dark mantle of
concealment from the murderer’s form, and stamped condemnation on his
brow--sometimes before the marks of the bloody deed were yet dried, and
sometimes after long years of security had seemed to insure final escape,
whether the detection arose from some peculiar circumstance awaking
remorse so powerfully as to compel the murderer to self-accusation
through an ungovernable impulse; from the hauntings of guilty terror;
from over-anxiety to avoid suspicion; or from some utterly slight and
unforeseen casualty.
The popular belief has always been, that of all criminals the shedder of
blood _never_ escapes detection and punishment even in this life; and
though a very limited experience may show the fallacy of such belief as
regards the vengeance man can inflict, who may conceive that inflicted by
the tortured conscience?--that hell which even the unbeliever does not
mock, which permits neither hope nor rest, invests the summer sunshine
with a deeper blackness than that of midnight, peoples the air with
moving and threatening spectres, embodies the darkness into terrible
shapes, and haunts even slumber with visionary terrors more hideous than
the worst realities.
The records of crime in our own and other countries contain numerous
striking examples of the detection of murder by singular and sometimes
apparently trivial means. These have appeared in a variety of published
forms, and are of course generally known; but we shall select a few
unpublished instances which have come within our own cognizance, and seem
to us to possess peculiar and striking features of their own, in the hope
that they may be found to possess some interest for the readers of the
Irish Penny Journal.
The case we shall first select, not so much for the manner of the
murderer’s detection as for the singular plan he struck out to escape
suspicion, and the strange circumstances connected with the crime and its
punishment altogether, is that of a man named M’Gennis, for the murder of
his wife.
M’Gennis, when we saw him on his trial, was a peculiarly powerful-looking
man, standing upwards of six feet, strongly proportioned, and evidently
of great muscular strength. His countenance, however, was by no means
good, his face being colourless, his brow heavy, and the whole cast of
his features stern and forbidding. From his appearance altogether he
struck us at once as one eminently fitted and likely to have played a
conspicuous part in the faction fights so common during his youth at
our fairs and markets. But though we made several inquiries both then
and since, we could not learn that he had ever been prominent in such
scenes, or remarkable for a quarrelsome disposition. He was a small
farmer, residing at a village nearly in a line between the little town of
Claremorris, and the still smaller but more ancient one of Ballyhaunis,
near the borders of Mayo. With him lived his mother and wife, a very
comely young woman, it is said, to whom he had not been long married at
the time of the perpetration of the murder, and with whom he had never
had any previous altercation such as to attract the observation or
interference of the neighbours.
It was on a market evening of Claremorris, in the year 1830, that the
mother of M’Gennis, a withered hag, almost doubled with age, and who on
our first seeing her strongly reminded us of the witches that used, in
description at least, to frighten and fascinate our boyhood, hobbled with
great apparent terror into the cabin nearest her own, and alarmed the
occupants by stating that she had heard a noise in the potato room, and
that she feared her daughter-in-law was doing some harm to herself. Two
or three of them accordingly returned speedily with her, and, entering
the room, saw the lifeless body of the unfortunate young woman lying on
the potatoes in a state of complete nudity. There was no blood or mark of
violence on any part of the body, except the face and throat, round the
latter of which a slight handkerchief was suffocatingly tied, by which
she had evidently been strangled, as both face and neck were blackened
and swollen.
Who then had perpetrated the deed? was the question whispered by all the
neighbours as they came and went. M’Gennis, according to his mother’s
account, had not yet returned from the market; the hag herself would not
have had strength to accomplish the murder even if bloody-minded enough
to attempt it, and it was next to an impossibility that the young woman
herself could have committed self-destruction in _that_ manner.
While the callous hag was so skilfully supporting her part in the
murderous drama, the chief performer, who had not been seen to return
from the market, immediately after the commission of the horrid deed,
through whatever motive he had done it, crossed a neighboring river to
Bricken, where it intersects the high-road by means of stepping-stones,
as bridge it had none,[2] though it is occasionally in winter a furious
torrent. On the opposite side he chanced to meet a country tailor (we
forget his name), who was proceeding from one village to another, to
exercise his craft in making and mending; and the devil suggesting a plan
on the spur of the moment, which was to recoil with destruction on his
guilty head, he forced the tailor to take on his knees the most fearful
oaths that he would never divulge what should then be revealed to him,
and that he would act in strict conformity with the directions he should
receive, threatening, if he refused compliance, to beat out his brains
with a stone, and then fling him into the river.
The affrighted tailor having of course readily taken the required oaths,
M’Gennis confessed to him the murder of his wife, using at the same time
horrible imprecations, that if ever a word on the subject escaped the
tailor’s lips, he would, _dead or alive_, take the most deadly vengeance
on him. He then proceeded to cut and dinge his hat in several places, and
inflict various scratches on his hands and face, directing the tailor
to assert that he had found _him_ attacked by four men on the road, on
his return from Claremorris; after which, to give the more appearance
of probability to the tale, he obliged his involuntary accessory after
the fact (as the law has it) to bear him on his back to a cabin at some
distance, as if the murderer were too weak to proceed himself after the
violent assault committed on him. And here, if we could venture to raise
a smile in the course of so revolting a detail, we would observe, that it
must have been a ludicrous sight to see the tailor, who was but a meagre
specimen of humanity, trailing along the all but giant frame of the
murderer. The poor tailor’s own feelings were, however, at the time much
more akin to mortal terror than to mirth or humour, as he found at the
same time his mind burdened with an unwished-for, terrible, and dangerous
secret, and himself in company with the murderer, who might at any moment
change his mind, repent his confession, and take _his_ life too.
On reaching the cabin, the tailor told the story of the pretended
attack, as he had been directed, while M’Gennis himself, showing his
scratches, and detailing in a weak voice the assault on him by men he
did not know, affected such faintness as to fall from the chair on which
he had been placed. A farrier was then procured at his request; and to
such lengths did he proceed with the plan he had struck out, that he got
himself blooded, though the farrier shrewdly perceived at the same time
(according to his after evidence) that there seemed to be no weakness
whatever about him, except in his voice, and that his pulse was strong
and regular.
It may seem strange at first that M’Gennis should have divulged to the
tailor, an entire stranger, the secret of his guilt, then unknown to any
being on earth but his mother; an instant’s reflection will show us that
when once the thought occurred to make use of the tailor’s assistance
in the manner described to aid him in avoiding detection, he might just
as well confess the whole terrible secret, which, coming from _him_,
would strike additional terror--the only engine on which he could rely
for procuring the secrecy and assistance he required. Accordingly, so
strongly was the terror impressed, that on the following day the tailor
disappeared from that part of the country, and reappeared not, though
M’Gennis and his mother were at once committed on suspicion, till the
approach of the ensuing assizes, when he came forward, probably as much
induced by the large reward offered for the murderer’s conviction, as
for the purpose of disburdening himself of his fearful secret in aiding
justice.
There was much interest excited at those assizes, we recollect, by the
trial of M’Gennis and his mother, who were arraigned together, and of a
grey-haired man named Cuffe, for a murder committed twenty-four years
previously, of which more anon; and with respect to the former parties,
there was unmixed abhorrence expressed by the numerous auditors. It
was indeed a revolting sight, and one not readily to be forgotten, the
towering and powerfully proportioned son in the prime of life, and
apparently with the most hardened callousness, standing side by side
to be tried for the same heinous offence with his withered parent,
whose age-bowed head scarce reached his shoulder, while her rheumed and
still rat-like eye wandered with an eager and restless gaze round the
court, as if she was only alive to the novelty of the scene, and utterly
unconcerned for the fearful position she stood in. It was absolutely
heart-sickening to see how repeatedly the wretched hag pulled her guilty
son towards her during the trial, to whisper remarks and inquiries,
frequently altogether unconnected with the evidence, and the crime she
was accused of and believed to have instigated and aided in.
Even in the strongly guarded court, it was on the side of the dock
remotest from where M’Gennis stood that the tailor ventured forward to
give his evidence, though the murderer’s reckless hardihood of bearing
altered not for a moment, either in consequence of his appearance, or
during the course of his evidence; in fact, he seemed to be principally
occupied in answering his mother’s queries, and quieting her.
The testimony of the tailor, bearing strongly the impress of truth,
singular as it was, was strengthened by that of the brother of the
deceased, who seemed greatly affected while deposing that he had
met M’Gennis in Claremorris on the day of the murder, and that the
handkerchief afterwards found round his sister’s neck had been worn by
the murderer on that occasion. There was not an iota of evidence for the
prisoners, and accordingly a verdict against the son was instantly handed
in, though the vile hag was acquitted for want of substantiating evidence
against her, to the regret of a crowded court.
After condemnation, M’Gennis was placed in the same cell with Cuffe,
the other murderer, who had been also convicted; and nothing could be
more dissimilar than their demeanour while together. Cuffe was calm,
communicative, and apparently penitent, while M’Gennis was sullen and
silent; nor could all the exertions of the clergymen who attended him
induce him to acknowledge either guilt or repentance. On the morning
after conviction, an alarm was given in the cell by Cuffe, and on
entering, the turnkeys found that M’Gennis had anticipated the hangman’s
office, by rather strangling than hanging himself. He had effected the
suicide by means of a slight kerchief appended to the latch of the door,
which was scarcely three feet from the floor, and on a level with which
he had brought his neck, by shooting the lower portion of his body along
the cell-flags from the door; and perhaps not the least remarkable fact
connected with this extraordinary suicide is, that the handkerchief was
the very one with which he had effected the murder of his wife, and
which had been produced on the trial. It is very unusual for any article
produced in evidence to find its way to the dock, but in this case it
appears the handkerchief must by some strange casualty have come into the
hands of the murderer again; and having soaped it highly (he was allowed
soap even in the condemned cell), he consummated his fearful deeds with
it.
Shortly after the discovery of the suicide, we among others visited the
cell to see the body, when, in a conversation with the acute and highly
intelligent physician to the prison, he observed what iron nerves the
murderer must have possessed to effect such a suicide, as from his own
height, and the lowness of the latch, he must, in order to complete the
strangulation, have persevered for several minutes in keeping his neck
strained, during any one of which, up to the last few, he might have
readily recovered himself. The body was still stretched on the flags, and
exhibited the appearance of a very powerful frame; and when we considered
the desperate and utterly fearless mind that had actuated it, it struck
us, and others who spoke on the same subject, with more surprise than
ever, that M’Gennis should not have been implicated in outrage and
bloodshed long before. Such, however, it would appear, was not the case.
On being examined at the inquest, the other occupant of that fearful
cell denied all knowledge of his brother convict’s intention to commit
suicide, or of his having committed it, until morning, stating that
he had slept soundly, and heard no noise whatever during the night--a
circumstance which seems rather curious, as the cell was but of small
dimensions, and M’Gennis must have certainly made some noise, from the
manner in which he had perpetrated the horrid deed. On the other hand, it
is well known that persons, no matter how restless or uneasy they may
have been previously, almost invariably sleep soundly on the night before
execution. All doubts and uncertainty are then over: the mental struggle
has ceased.
Rumours, indeed, were afloat that Cuffe had witnessed the commission
of the suicide, and that M’Gennis had urged him to do the like also,
in order not to give their enemies and the crowd the gratification of
witnessing their execution. But how could this circumstance be known,
as Cuffe himself did not admit it? Another rumour was, that M’Gennis’s
mother, at parting with him, had instigated him to the terrible act; and
this we would be more inclined to give credit to, from what we have heard
of her character, as well as from our own observation of her demeanour
throughout the trial.
The crime of murder is always that most revolting and abhorrent to our
nature; but when committed on our bosom partner, whom we have sworn
to defend and cherish, and who in her helplessness looks up to us as
her only stay and protection on earth, it assumes an utterly fiendish
character. That it was felt to be so in M’Gennis’s case, unfortunately
prone as we sometimes are to have sympathy for crime, we were ourselves
a witness, as, on the verdict against him being proclaimed, there was
an audible buzz of applause through the court; and when the account of
his suicide afterwards became public, men expressed the most heart-felt
gratification that the world was rid of such a fiend. Yet, singular
it is that never since has it transpired, at least as far as we could
learn, what motive M’Gennis could have had for the murder of his wife,
to whom, as was before stated, he had not been long married. Reports
there were, to be sure, that the wife and mother had led an uncomfortable
and bickering life since coming together--unfortunately a very frequent
case, and one which often produces much misery and crime in humble
life; and that it was in consequence of the division of some milk at
their homely evening meal, that an altercation arose, which, through
the hag’s instigation, led to the destruction of the daughter-in-law,
and eventually to that of the son. But as these rumours only became
current after the murder, it is not easy to attach much credit to them,
especially if we place any reliance on the statement that M’Gennis had
returned home from Claremorris through fields and bye-paths to avoid
being seen, as if he had been contemplating the crime. At all events,
whether he had contemplated it, or whether it emanated from a sudden
burst of wrath fanned by his parent’s wicked suggestions, it seems
clearly not to have arisen from jealousy, hatred, or revenge--those
passions so generally productive of such crime; and there is no one
now living to explain the mystery, as the hag died without a word in
explanation of it.
The space we have limited ourselves to, prevents us from saying more in
this number of Cuffe, whose crime was of a much more national character,
and occupied a good deal the attention of the government of the period;
and whose detection, after a lapse of twenty-four years--in fact, after
his having declined gradually from the prime of manhood to hoary-headed
age--seems to go farther in supporting the popular prejudice that
the murderer can never escape detection. But we shall take an early
opportunity to detail to the reader his case, and the state of society
that led to it.