The Times 9th April 1852.

A farmer and his wife, named respectively John and Leah WATTS, occupy a small farm about two miles from Frome. On the morning of 24^th of September last these two persons started off for Frome market, leaving their daughter, a girl about 14 years of age, in charge. They were never destined to see her alive again. The house stands only about 100yards from the road, and adjoins some other houses. [Not quite true. John Watts himself says the nearest house is about 200 yards away – Lyndon] The farmer and his wife returned home about 4 o’clock in the afternoon.All was still, save the noise of a little dog lapping something in the dairy, which was next the kitchen. Some marks of blood on the floor caught the farmer’s attention. What could this mean? He opened the dairy door, when the first object that caught his sight was the body of his child lying on the floor. She was bruised and smeared with blood. Her clothes were torn. She was quite dead. A surgeon was instantly sent for , and the body of the unfortunate child subjected to a proper examination. The surgeon soon discovered that murder was not the only crime which had been perpetuated upon the unfortunate child. She had been ravished as well as murdered. There were marks on her neck and throat, and it became apparent that death had been caused by suffocation. The next thing was to examine the house. It was obvious that robbery was the primary motive of the crime. The rooms upstairs had been ransacked. There was no money in the house, but clothes and a watch had been taken. Some cheese and bread and butter had also disappeared. The only article left in the house, it must be presumed by the murderer, was a silk handkerchief, which had been left on the kitchen table. This, however, might only be a stratagem to call off suspicion from the right quarter. It is almost needless to say that the robbery, and rape, and murder, were effected in broad daylight, with people about in the other houses, and yet not a sound had been heard to proceed from the premises in which this bloody business was in progress. The last time the poor girl was seen alive was at 1 o’clock. At 4 o’clock the parents returned from market, so that the time can be fixed with tolerable precision. The particulars we have yet recounted are merely those rough details which struck upon the apprehension of persons unused to draw from the minutest indications of crime. Five days after the murder had been committed an experienced detective officer was despatched to the scene of the tragedy. His quicker eye detected blood upon the floor of the dairy, and that whey had been spilt out of the whey-tub. He caused the whey-tub to be emptied. There were marks of blood upon the bottom. On the left-hand side of the dairy door there was the blood stained mark of a person’s hand. There was a mark on the wall, which had evidently been made by the girl’s shoes. Finally, from the appearance of her clothes, it was evident that she had been put into the why-tub, that the body had then been withdrawn, and stretched out upon the floor. From this state of facts it would appear to follow that the ruffian, whoever he might be, had entered the house, and, finding the unfortunate child there, had, either by threats or by a blow which stunned her, reduced her to silence while he violated her person, then murdered her, ransacked the house, and made his escape. The rape certainly preceded the murder, and the murder the robbery. All this happened on Wednesday, the 24^th of September last.

Now, on Monday, the 29^th of September, there was a fair at a village called North Bradley, about seven miles from Frome. This fair was attended by, amongst others, a man named SPARROW. In reply to a question addressed to him by a woman who gave evidence at the trial, SPARROW said, “That he had seen the child since the murder; that he was there on the Thursday (the day after the murder), that she was lying near the whey-tub with her clothes over her head, and had blows on her head, that had been inflicted by a stick; that she had been put into the whey-tub, and it was covered with blood from her head, and that he did not think it would ever be found out, as only one man had done it, and he would never tell.” How did SPARROW come to know all this? He had not been at the house on Thursday – the day after the murder – the day he named. Had he been there he would have known that the body of the poor girl had been carried upstairs on the Wednesday. Even admitting that the fact of the original position of the corpse might have come to his knowledge from the gossip of the neighbourhood, how did he know that the bottom of the whey-tub was covered with blood? It was not until the Monday, the very day on which this conversation occurred at North Bradley, that the detective officer from London had found the marks of blood at the bottom of the whey-tub. Before that discovery, who but the perpetrator of the bloody deed could have known that they were there? Again, he was asked if he could explain how the murder was effected. “Yes,” said he, “I’ll tell you how it was done; she was knocked on the head with a stick, and then she was held in the whey-tub till she was dead!” All the indications would support this account of the case. Who but the murderer himself could have known all these minute particulars?

But this was not all. SPARROW was seen on the morning of the Wednesday on which the murder was committed in company with two other men, MAGGS and HURD, going in the direction of WATTS’s house. The three had been previously seen together about 12 o’clock, and were overheard making the appointment to meet again, HURD going first – SPARROW and MAGGS following together. About 3 o’clock a man was seen to run away from the direction of WATTS’s cottage. About 3 or 4 o’clock the prisoners were again seen, but they had changed their dresses. On Tuesday, the 30^th of September, SPARROW’s hand was examined. There was a wound upon it, such a wound as might have been inflicted by a girl’s teeth. On being questioned he said that the wound was a fresh one – “he had been in a row the previous night,” he said. But the wound was festering, and evidently many days old. We should add, that on the evening of the murder the prisoners were seen together in the market-place of Frome, and one was heard saying to the other, “A watch, but no tin.” It is but right to add that SPARROW was taken into custody on account of a watch which was in his possession, but this did not turn out to be the watch that had been stolen from WATTS’s house. SPARROW said he had bought it of HURD; but nothing cane to light as to the real ownership. HURD would give no further information. Thus we have endeavoured to condense as much as possible the report of the trial that appeared in The Times of yesterday. Are the fact related consistent with the hypothesis of the prisoner’s innocence? We speak of the man SPARROW alone. Certainly, about 2 o’clock he was in the neighbourhood of WATTS’s house with the two other men. We have positive evidence so far. We know, furthermore, that between the hours of 1 and 4 the crime was committed. Now, to suppose him innocent, we must presume that the handkerchief found on the kitchen table was not his, although it was positively sworn to as belonging to him. We must presume either that he had received an account of the murder from the murderer, or that he possessed the faculty of second sight. How was he, standing at Bradley seven miles off, to know the result of an investigation which was then taking place at Frome; if, indeed, it had taken place at the hour when he conversed with the woman in the market-place? Who told him there were marks of blood at the bottom of the whey-tub? To be sure, it may be said that there is a violent improbability that SPARROW should converse so freely upon the subject of the murder; if, indeed, he had perpetrated the crime. We do not, however, attach much importance to this consideration. The annals of crime teem with instances of criminals who appear impelled by some hidden power to court their own destruction. Nothing would serve the wretch MANNING, in his hiding place at Jersey, but to converse constantly and markedly about the fate of O’CONNOR. At any rate, a vague consideration of this kind cannot be admitted as sufficient to counterbalance the terrible weight and meaning of the explanation or confession made in the market-place of North Bradley. This, of course, would yet admit of the hypothesis that one of the other men – not SPARROW – or even that other persons in communication with them, had committed the crime; but there is the additional corroboration of the wounded hand; there is whatever additional presumptions may arise from the fact that the man MAGGS had stated distinctly that “SPARROW was the man who killed the girl, but he would not have killed her but she knew him.”

The verdict of “Not Guilty” sounds strangely in the face of such evidence. Stranger still is the remark of SPARROW after the verdict, - “It will all come out before a month is over; we want to see Mr SMITH, the officer!”