DR. LAMSON[A]--A CASE OF MISTAKEN IDENTITY--A WILL CASE.
[Footnote A: In this and one or two other cases I am pleased to
acknowledge my thanks to my esteemed friend Mr. Charles W. Mathews,
the distinguished advocate, for refreshing my memory with the
incidents.]
One of the most diabolical cases which came before me while a Judge
was one which, although it occupied several days, can be told in
the course of a few minutes. I mention it, moreover, not so much on
account of its inhuman features as the fact that, in my opinion, Dr.
Lamson led the prosecutors--that is, the Government solicitors--into a
theory which was calculated by that cunning murderer to save him from
a conviction, and it nearly did so.
The story is this:--There was in the year 1873 a family of five
children, one of whom died that year and another in 1879, leaving
two daughters and a poor cripple boy of eighteen. He was partially
paralyzed, and had a malformation of the spine, so that he was
an object of great commiseration. He was of a kind and cheerful
disposition, and, excepting his spinal affliction, in good health. He
seems to have been loved by everybody. His playmates wheeled him about
in his chair so that he might enjoy their pastimes, and even carried
him up and down stairs. One of this boy's sisters married a Mr.
Chapman; the other married a man who was a doctor, or passed as one,
of the name of Lamson. He was a man of idle habits, luxurious tastes,
and a wicked heart. He was in debt, had fraudulently drawn cheques
when he had nothing at the bank to meet them, and was so reduced
to poverty that he had pawned his watch and his case of surgical
instruments.
By the death of the brother in 1879, the two sisters received each
a sum of £800. This boy, Percy, received the like amount, and if he
should live to come of age would have a further sum of £3,000; but if
he died before that period, one-half would go to Mrs. Chapman and the
other half to Mrs. Lamson, the doctor's wife.
Lamson had bought a medical practice at Bournemouth in 1880, but very
soon after writs and executions were issued against him.
For three years before Percy's death he had been at school at Blenheim
House, Wimbledon.
It appeared from his statement while dying that he felt just "the same
as I did once before, when I was at Shanklin with my brother-in-law,"
the doctor, "after he had given me a quinine pill." "My throat is
burning, and my skin feels all drawn up." This pill, however, did not
kill him, but it showed, as subsequent events proved, the murderous
design of Dr. Lamson.
On December 3 the boy, being still at school and in good health, was
amusing himself with his schoolfellows when his brother-in-law, the
prisoner, called. Percy was taken into the room to see him. "Well,
Percy, old boy," said the doctor, "how fat you are looking!" The
doctor sat down, and Percy was seated near him. The visitor then took
out of a little bag a Dundee cake and some sweets, and cut a small
slice of the cake with his penknife. About fifteen minutes afterwards
he said to Mr. Bedbury, the master, "I did not forget you and your
boys: these capsules will be nice for them to take nauseous medicines
in;" and he took several boxes of capsules from the bag and placed
them on the table. One box he pushed towards Mr. Bedbury, asking him
to try them.
No one had seen Lamson take a capsule out of the box, but he was seen
to fill one with sugar and give it to the boy, saying, "Here, Percy,
you are a swell pill-taker." Within five minutes after that the doctor
excused himself for going so soon, saying if he did not he would lose
his train.
Not long after his departure--that is, between eight and nine--the boy
was taken ill and put into bed with all the violent symptoms which
are invariably produced by that most deadly of vegetable poisons,
aconitine, and he died at twenty minutes past eleven the same night.
Aconitine was found in the stomach; aconitine had been purchased by
the doctor before the boy's death, and being well and having been
well, the brother-in-law gave him the last thing he swallowed before
the dreadful symptoms of the poison betrayed its presence. At that
time no chemical test could be applied to aconitine, any more than it
could to strychnine in the time of Palmer. But its symptoms were, in
the one case as well as in the other, unmistakable, and such as no
other cause of illness would produce.
Two pills were found in the boy's play-box, one of which was said to
contain aconitine.
Such was the simple case which occupied six days to try. The jury were
not long in coming to a conclusion, and returned into court with a
verdict of "Guilty."
My awful duty was soon concluded. I told the prisoner the law
compelled me to pass upon him the sentence of death; but gave him,
both by voice and manner, to understand that in this world there could
be no hope for such a criminal. I said, as I thought it right to say,
that it was no part of my duty to admonish him as to how he was to
meet the dread doom that awaited him, but nevertheless I entreated
him to seek for pardon of his great sin from the Almighty. It was my
opinion, and I believe that of the counsel for the defence, that,
although so much stress was laid upon the _capsule_ and the
administration of the poison by that means, it was not so
administered, but that the capsule was an artifice, designed to
hoodwink the doctors and Treasury solicitors.
To have poisoned the boy in such a manner would have been a clumsy
device for so keen and artful a criminal as Lamson; and I knew it
was conveyed in another manner. It should be stated that in Lamson's
pocket-book were found memoranda as to the symptoms and effect of
aconitine, and as to there being no test for its discovery. Lamson
therefore had made the poisoning of this boy a careful and particular
study. He was not such a clumsy operator as to administer it in the
way suggested. The openness of that proceeding was to blind the eyes
of detectives and lawyers alike; the aconitine was conveyed to the
lad's stomach _by means of a raisin in the piece of Dundee cake which
Lamson cut with his penknife and handed to him_. He knew, of course,
the part of the cake where it was.
My attention was directed to the artifice employed by Lamson, by the
shallowness of the stratagem, and by the one circumstance that almost
escaped notice--namely, the Dundee cake and the curious desire of the
man to offer the boy a piece in so unusual a manner. So eager was he
to give him a taste that he must needs cut it with his _penknife_.
I was sure, and am sure now, although there is no evidence but that
which common sense, acting on circumstances, suggested, that the
aconitine was conveyed to the deceased by means of the piece of cake
which Lamson gave him, and being carefully placed in the interior of
the raisin, would not operate until the skin had had time to digest,
and he the opportunity of getting on his journey to Paris, whither
he was bound that night, to await, no doubt, the news of the boy's
illness and death.
If the poison had been conveyed in the capsule, its operation would
have been almost immediate, and so would the detection of the
aconitine. As I have said, the contrivance would have been too clumsy
for so crafty a mind. A detective would not expect to find the secret
design so foolishly exposed any more than a spectator would expect to
see the actual trick of a conjurer in the manner of its performance.
I was not able to bring the artifice before the jury; the Crown
had not discovered it, and Lamson's deep-laid scheme was nearly
successful. His plan, of course, was to lead the prosecution to
maintain that he gave the poison in the capsule, and then to compel
them to show that there was no evidence of it. The jury were satisfied
that the boy was poisoned by Lamson, and little troubled themselves
about the way in which it was done.
A singular case of mistaken identity came under my notice during the
trial of a serious charge of wounding with intent to do grievous
bodily harm. _Five_ men were charged, and the evidence showed that a
most brutal mutilation of a gamekeeper's hand had been inflicted. The
men were notorious poachers, and were engaged in a poaching expedition
when the crime was committed. One of the accused was a young man,
scarcely more than a youth, but I had no doubt that he was the
cleverest of the gang. The men were convicted, but this young man
vehemently protested his innocence, and declared that he was not with
the gang that night. His manner impressed me so much that I began to
doubt whether some mistake had not been made. The injured keeper,
however, whose honesty I had no reason to doubt, declared that this
youth was really the man who knelt on his breast and inflicted the
grievous injury to his hand by nearly severing the thumb. He swore
that he had every opportunity of seeing him while he was committing
the deed, as his face was close to his own, and _their eyes met_.
Moreover, the young man's cap was found _close by the spot where the
assault took place_. About this there was no dispute and could be no
mistake, for the prisoner confessed that the cap was his, adding,
however, that he _had lent it on that night to one of the other
prisoners_. The youth vehemently protested his innocence after the
verdict was given.
So far as he was concerned I was _not_ satisfied with the conviction.
"Is it possible," I asked myself, "that there can have been a
mistake?" I did not think that in the excitement of such a moment, and
during so fearful a struggle with his antagonist, with their faces _so
close together_ that they stared into each other's eyes, there was
such an opportunity of seeing the youth's face as to make it clear
beyond any doubt that he was the man who committed the crime. The
jury, I thought, had judged too hastily from appearances--a mistake
always to be guarded against.
I invited the prosecuting counsel to come to my room, and asked him,
"Are you satisfied with that verdict so far as the _youngest prisoner_
is concerned?"
"Yes," he said; "the jury found him 'Guilty,' and I think the evidence
was enough to justify the verdict."
"I _do not_," I said, "and shall try him again on another indictment."
There was another involving the same evidence.
I considered the matter very carefully during the night, and weighed
every particle of evidence with every probability, and the more I
thought of it the more convinced I was that injustice had been done.
First of all, to prevent the men who I was convinced were rightly
convicted from entertaining any doubt about the result of their
conviction, I sentenced them to penal servitude.
I then undertook to watch the case on behalf of the young man myself,
and did not, as I might have done, assign him counsel.
The prisoner was put up for trial, and the second inquiry commenced.
It had struck me during the night that there was a point in the case
which had been taken for granted by the _counsel on both sides_, and
that that point was _the_ one on which the verdict had gone wrong. As
I have said, I did not doubt the honest belief of the keeper, but I
doubted, and, in fact, disbelieved altogether in, the power of any man
to identify the face of another when their eyes were close together,
as he had no ordinary but a distorted view of the features. In order
to test my theory on this matter, I took the real point in the case,
as it afterwards turned out to be. It was this: _Five men_ were taken
_for granted_ to have been in the gang and in the field on that
occasion. The difficulty was to prove that there were only _four_, and
then to show that the young man was not one of the four. These two
difficulties lay before me, but I resolved to test them to the utmost
of my ability. The Crown was against me and the Treasury counsel.
I knew pretty well where to begin--which is a great point, I think,
in advocacy--and began in the right place. I must repeat that the
prisoner boldly asserted, when the evidence was given as to the
finding of his cap close to the spot where the outrage was committed,
that it _was_ his cap, but that he had not worn it on that night,
having lent it to one of the other men, whom he then named. This was,
to my mind, a very important point in this second trial, and I made
a note of it to assist me at a later period of the case. If this was
true, the strong corroboration of the keeper's evidence of identity
was gone. Indeed, it went a good deal further in its value than that,
for it may have been the finding of the prisoner's cap that induced
the belief that the man whose face he saw was the prisoner's!
I asked the accused if he would like the other men called to prove
his statements, warning him at the same time that it was upon his own
evidence that they had been arrested, and pointing out the risk he ran
from their ill-will.
"My lord," said he, "they will owe me no ill-will, and they will not
deny what I say. It's true; I'm one of 'em, and I know they won't deny
it."
Without discarding this evidence I let the case proceed. I asked the
policeman when he came into the witness-box if he examined carefully
the footprints at the gate where the men entered. He said he had,
and was _quite positive_ that there were the footprints of _four men
only_, and further, that these prints corresponded with the shoes
of the four men who had been sentenced, and _not_ with those of the
prisoner.
It shows how fatal it may be in Judge, counsel, or jury to take
anything for granted in a criminal charge. It had been taken for
granted at the former trial that _five_ men had entered the field, and
how the counsel for the defence could have done so I am at a loss to
conceive. It was further ascertained that the same number and the
_same footprints_ marked the steps of those coming _out_ of the field.
It went even further, for it was proved that _no footprints of a fifth
man were anywhere visible on any other part of the field_, although
the most careful search had been made.
If this was established, as I think it was beyond all controversy,
it clearly proved that only _four men_ were in the field when the
injuries were inflicted. But it might, nevertheless, be that the young
man identified was one of the four. Whether he was or not was now the
question at issue; it was reduced to that one point. To disprove this
the prisoner said he would like the men to be called. I cautioned him
again as to the danger of the course he proposed, feeling that he was
pretty safe as it was in the hands of the jury. They could hardly
convict under my ruling in the circumstances.
"No, my lord," he said; "I am _sure they will speak the truth about
it_. They will not swear falsely against me to save themselves."
The man who was alleged to have borrowed the cap was then brought up,
and I asked him if it was true that he wore the prisoner's cap on the
night of the outrage. He said, "It is true, my lord; I borrowed it."
"Then are you the man who inflicted the injury on the keeper?"
His answer was, "Unhappily, my lord, I am, and I am heartily sorry for
it."
When asked, "Was this young man with you that night?"
"No, my lord," was the answer.
The jury at once said they would not trouble me to sum up the case;
they were perfectly satisfied that the prisoner was not guilty, and
that what he said was true--that he was not in the field that night.
They accordingly acquitted him, to my perfect satisfaction.
Of course, I instantly wrote to the Home Secretary, Mr. H. Matthews
(now Viscount Llandaff), who at once procured a free pardon on the
former conviction, and the prisoner was restored to liberty.
This case strikingly points to the imperative demand of justice that
every case shall be investigated in its minutest detail. The broad
features are not by any means sufficient to fix guilt on any one
accused, and it is in such cases that circumstantial evidence is often
brought in question, while, indeed, the _real_ circumstances are too
often not brought to light. Circumstantial evidence can seldom fail if
the real circumstances are brought out. Nobody had thought of raising
a doubt as to there being _five_ persons in the field.
Upon such small points the great issue of a case often depends.
Another curious case came before me on the Western Circuit. A
solicitor was charged with forging the will of a lady, which devised
to him a considerable amount of her property; but as the case
proceeded it became clear to me that the will was signed after
the lady's death, and then with a dry pen held in the hand of the
deceased, by the accused himself whilst he guided it over a signature
which he had craftily forged. A woman was present when this was done,
and as she had attested the execution of the will, she was a necessary
witness for the prisoner, and in examination-in-chief she was very
clear indeed that it was by the _hand of the deceased_ that the will
was signed, and that she herself had seen the deceased sign it.
Suspicion only existed as to what the real facts were until this woman
went into the box, and then a scene, highly dramatic, occurred in the
course of her cross-examination by Mr. Charles Mathews, who held the
brief for the prosecution.
The woman positively swore that she saw the testatrix sign the will
_with her own hand_, and no amount of the rough-and-ready, inartistic,
and disingenuous "Will you swear this?" and "Are you prepared to swear
that?" would have been of any avail. She _had_ sworn it, and was
prepared to swear it, in her own way, any number of times that any
counsel might desire.
The only mode of dealing with her was adopted. She was asked,--
"Where was the will signed?"
"On the bed."
"Was any one near?"
"Yes, the prisoner."
"How near?"
"Quite close."
"So that he could hand the ink if necessary?"
"Oh yes."
"And the pen?"
"Oh yes."
"_Did he hand the pen_?"
"He did."
"_And the ink_?"
"Yes."
"There was no one else to do so except you?"
"No."
"Did he put the pen into her hand?"
"Yes."
"And assist her while she signed the will?"
"Yes."
"How did he assist her?"
"_By raising her in the bed and supporting her when he had raised
her_."
"Did he guide her hand?"
"No."
"Did he touch her hand at all?"
"_I think he did just touch her hand_."
"When he did touch her hand _was she dead_?"
At this last question the woman turned terribly pale, was seen to
falter, and fell in a swoon on the ground, and so _revealed the truth_
which she had come to _deny_.