Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 December 1878 — Circumstantial Evidence. [ARTICLE]

Circumstantial Evidence.

In the year 1660 two men named Perry and their mother were hanged for the murder of a man who had never been murdered at all. Mr. Harrison, Lady Campden’s steward, having been collecting his rents, suddenly disappeared. John Perry accused his mother, himself, and his brother of having robbed Mr. Harrison in the previous year, and of having again robbed him and murdered, him on the night when he was missed. The mother and Richard Perry denied all knowledge of the matter; but, at length, pleaded guilty to the first indictment under some pressure of policy. The other indictment was not then proceeded with, on the ground that the body was not fonnd. But John persisted in his story, and at the next assize they were all tried for murder. John then retracted his confession, and said he must have been mad. Nevertheless, they were all condemned. Some years after Mr. Harrison appeared alive, and thus accounted for his mysterious absence: After receiving his rents he had been set upon by a gang of ruffians, carried to the seaside, put on ship-board, and sold as a slave to the Turks. After his master's death he escaped, and, with great difficulty, working his way, first to Lisbon, and thence to Dover, he arrived in England, as our law-book coolly says, “to the surprise of all the country.”—Good Words.