Trial of William Palmer

ELIZABETH MILLS, examined by Mr. JAMES--I was chambermaid at the Talbot Arms at Rugeley in November last. I had been there about two years. I knew the prisoner. He was in the ha...

WILLIAM VERNON STEVENS, examined by the ATTORNEY-GENERAL--I am a retired merchant living in the city. I am the step-father of John Parsons Cook, having married his father’s wido...

Next I shall call your attention to the evidence of Charles Newton; he is a person who has sworn before you that he saw Palmer at Mr. Salt’s surgery at nine o’clock on the Monda...

Then the next thing that is said is that the heart in this case was empty. In the animals Mr. Nunneley and Dr. Letheby have operated upon I think the heart has been found full....

Now, do you believe that if Dr. Taylor had read that before he went to the inquest he would have dared to say that this man died of strychnia poison? Is there one single symptom...

After the post-mortem examination on the body of Mr. Cook some portion was sent up to me. I experimented to ascertain if there were any poison present. We sought for prussic aci...

I do not find that meets the case?--It leaves the question open; it takes place through an influence on the heart sometimes, and through an influence on the respiration; it is n...

I have mentioned all that I intend to say about his bodily infirmities--let us now see what has been the state of his mind. He went to the Shrewsbury races in imminent peril of...

Gentlemen, there are other facts to be adverted to before I sit down to which it is necessary your attention should be drawn. There was a great stir at the hotel at Rugeley afte...

Mr. JOHN BROWN ROSS, examined by Mr. GROVE--I am house surgeon to the London Hospital. On 22nd March a labourer, aged thirty-seven, was brought to the hospital about half-past s...

The next witness is Dr. Taylor. Now, gentlemen, here is something most important for your consideration. You see it is very properly relied on, on the part of the prisoner, that...

Re-examined by Mr. GRAY--I think you told my friend that, with regard to the convulsions which end in death, you thought they arose from some irritation set up in the spinal cor...

JOHN SARGENT, examined by Mr. SERJEANT SHEE--I frequently attend race meetings, and knew Mr. Cook intimately. I was with him at Liverpool on the week previous to the Shrewsbury...

If the wilful suppression of evidence by the prosecution had ended with Taylor the case would have been infamous enough; the Crown would have showed that it prosecuted for victo...

Cross-examination resumed--I heard the description of the shriek with the convulsion; but it was the shriek that called the medical man into the room. That was at the height of...

When the convulsions are so violent that opisthotonos is produced, have you ever known patients conscious?--Partly conscious. If they were asked subsequently they would recollec...

You will say you said that?--Yes. I do not know whether I mentioned the word “jerking.” I said the whole of the body was in a jumping, snatching way. I believe I mentioned it wa...

Mr. WILLIAM HEREPATH, examined by Mr. GROVE--I am Professor of Chemistry and Toxicologist at the Bristol Medical School. I have been occupied in chemistry forty years and in tox...

But suppose for a single moment that excitement of this kind could produce any such effect or influence, where is the excitement manifested by Cook as leading to this supposed d...

With what regret I have written this letter I need not say. My own avocations are mercy, peace, and charity, but there is a time when duty compels a man to lay aside his garb of...

My lord, in one week--in some short days from this--William Palmer, my brother, will stand before his God; he will have to answer for his life, and for the sins of his life; he...

The Attorney-General opened the case in that way distinctly, that that was the theory for the Crown; “that Palmer had ordered some coffee for Cook on the Saturday morning; it wa...

But let us see, before I make any further observations upon that point, how the matter stands upon the proof which is before us. I told you that Mr. Palmer was a man in circumst...

Yet, my lord, there is something still more dreadful, and it is this, that the time-renowned prestige of British trial by jury should be abrogated, as abrogated it will be, if y...

My dear Sir,--I am sorry to tell you that I am still confined to my bed. I do not think it was mentioned at the inquest yesterday that Cook was taken ill on Sunday and Monday ni...

Mr. SERJEANT SHEE--And another bill of £500, which my friend stated and gave proof was not his mother’s signature. So that there was a bill for £500 not in her handwriting to wh...

Nevertheless, I pass on from that, and go to Rugeley. From the Saturday morning until the Monday morning I find this poor man suffering under the influence of constant vomiting;...

When the races were over Palmer and Cook returned together to Rugeley--a curious fact, seeing that Cook had accused Palmer of putting something into his glass. Cook stayed at th...

Examination resumed--Have you studied the question sufficiently to be able to state reasons for thinking the minimum dose, after having done its work, continues in the system?--...

The next witness of any consequence was Newton; and here I should have thought your lordship’s feelings as a man, if they had not entirely perished, would have exhibited some tr...

But he is not satisfied with that--it is clear that he meditated another fraud of a different description. On the Friday, almost as soon as the breath is out of the man’s body,...

One intrigue of illicit gallantry, which began probably in the lifetime of Mrs. Palmer, and was certainly going on at the time of Walter Palmer’s death, has a sinister connectio...

It is a remarkable fact, which has not escaped your attention, I dare say, that my learned friend did not open a single word of the testimony that he was going to call. He said...

Having said so much I will now apply myself to what, in my judgment, is an equally important, if not more important, question in this case, one which I approach with no diffiden...

I was ill on the Monday when I received the letter, and did not arrive at the Talbot Arms, Rugeley, till half-past three on Tuesday afternoon. I saw Cook there, and he expressed...

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL--I can only say I think it would have been better if my learned friend had abstained from so strange a declaration. What would he think of me if, imitating...

His body was opened; the soreness of his tongue was manifest; I rather collect that it was not actually sore at the time of his death--yet that there were what they call follicl...

Now, there is a letter to which I will call your attention, of the 19th November, 1855, from Palmer to Pratt--“Dear Sir,--You will place the £50 I have just paid you, and the £4...

The next witness is Dr. Robinson. Now, gentlemen, you have this respectable physician, who gives an account from which you are called to infer that Cook’s case was a case of epi...

WHO BEARS THE NAME, AND HAS CONTINUED THE REPUTATION, OF ONE OF THE DISTINGUISHED COUNSEL IN THE TRIAL HEREIN CONTAINED, AND WHO ALSO FOR MANY YEARS WAS THE REPRESENTATIVE FIGUR...

EDWARD VAUGHAN HYDE KENEALY was the junior counsel for Palmer, and was thirty-seven years old. He was a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, in 1840, the year of his call to the...