Advertiser (Adelaide, SA : 1889 - 1931), Wednesday 5 August 1891, page 5


CABLE NEWS. THE LEEDS MURDER.

Mrs. Turner as an Accomplice. LONDON, August 4.

There has been a further development in connection with the murder of Barbara Waterhouse, the infant daughter of a quarryman residing at Horsforth,

hear Leeds, for which a yoang m;in i:?u;cd Walter Tmiser was convicted :i lew tl:?ys ago and sentenced to death. Ilie mother i:f the coiu'tci «-xs indict ej :i.sflii:(cce.s.soiyafter t!ie fact, and the shawl in which tlio brnl.y was enfolded having Iciii identities as her piMji.-tty, aud witr.eh.-.es having deposed that they saw Lev assisting her -s«n to carry :t tin box (sul-seijuently proved to liave contained the remains) from liorsfoith to Leeds, where at the railway -station the box was found, (lie body being removed to % small lane near the municipal buildings, the juiy returned a verdict of guilty. The woman admitted that she assisted in tl.c removal of the box, but pleaded ignorance of its contents, though confessing that during the journey her suspicions were aroused by the evasiveness ?>f her son and by the conduct of a terrier dog which followed them aud persistently snifled at the box. Mi-. Justice Grautham said that to his iniud the proof that the woman was a conscious agent in assisting at the disposal *-f the remains was conclusive, and sentenced her to penal servitude for life. The sentence occasioned the utmost astonishment, and was cliaracterised by seveial of the leading {tapers as " bar1-arous," the 77«<v> and the Daily Xeirs beirg specially scathing in their comments. iiVi.-Wi/.-i's Journal, the. well-known liadical weekly, contrasted the sentence j listed on a mother for shielding her son from deatli with the escape of the Prince of Wales from the slightest judicial censure for hit less excusable efforts to shield Jsir William Cumnsing. The sentence on the woman was subsequently altered to 12 mouths' imprisouiitent.