AtoZ Challenge – O: Old Woman Murdered at Haverfordwest #atozchallenge

The Blogging from A to Z April Challenge is for bloggers who wish to participate, by publishing a blog post every day in April except for Sundays. Each blog post will focus on a letter of the alphabet. For example April 1 will be A, April 2 will be B, April 3 will be C, and on it goes. By the end of April, a blog post for every letter of the alphabet will have been published.   Blog posts are usually on a theme, or you can choose to post each day with no theme at all. My theme for 2024 is “Haverfordwest in the News”. Haverfordwest is a town in the county of Pembrokeshire, Wales



from: York Herald, Saturday, 26 October, 1850, page 6

SHOCKING MURDER OF AN OLD WOMAN NEAR HAVERFORDWEST
South Wales has been the scene of another shocking murder, the circumstances connected with which are involved in much mystery, the perpetrator of the offence, having up to this time managed to successfully elude the vigilance of the police and magistracy. The deceased person was an aged woman named Elizabeth Barnard, and she was found lying in a ditch under a wall nearly opposite the Wesleyan chapel. When found she was in a very prostrate state, and her person bore marks of considerable violence. She was removed to a neighbouring tavern, where it soon became evident that she had received severe injury of the spine and other parts of her person, and notwithstanding she received the best attentions of Mr. Brown, a surgeon of the town, she continued to grow worse, and died.

Information of the occurrence being communicated to the coroner, that functionary issued his warrant for the holding of an inquest, and Mr. T. Lloyd, the superintendent of the Fishguard district police, apprehended a woman named Jane Evans on suspicion of having been concerned in the old woman’s death, but although she made use of one or two expressions while in custody, which made it highly probable that if not actually taking part in it, she was not ignorant of the mode in which the homicide was perpetrated, sufficient could not be elicited to fix any charge upon her.

A great deal of evidence was taken before the coroner’s jury, but it was of a very contradictory and unsatisfactory kind, and calculated to perplex rather than assist the jury in their efforts to discover upon whom the crime might be charged. From the results of a post mortem examination of the body made by Mr. Brown and Mr. Millard, surgeons, it was found that death had been caused by violence inflicted with some blunt instrument, but the mode in which that violence and injury were inflicted could not be discovered, and the jury were driven to the alternative of returning an open verdict, “That the deceased, Elizabeth Barnard,” died from the effects of violence, inflicted on her by some person or persons unknown.”
It now remains for the police and magistracy to endeavour to use their efforts for the discovery and apprehension of the perpetrator or perpetrators of the dreadful and cowardly murder.

**Please note: Punctuation and paragraphs have been added to the above transcription for ease and speed of reading. 

1850, SHOCKING MURDER OF AN OLD WOMAN NEAR HAVERFORDWEST, York Herald, Saturday 26 October 1850 retrieved on 30 October 2023 from britishnewspapearchive.co.uk

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