A LATE MURDER AT PETERSFIELD
The following statement is published in The Observer, as from a respectable correspondent, who vouches for its correctness:— ‘A little more than two months ago (in the hay harvest) as Mr. Munday, a respectable farmer, within a short distance of Petersfield, was walking about ten o’clock in the morning over one of his hay fields, he found one of the hay cocks very much tumbled; he got a fork, and was putting it in its original form as he left it on the preceding night, when the prongs of the fork came in contact with a hard substance. Mr. Munday removed the hay, and, to his great surprise and terror, found the mangled corpse of a man, partly naked. The body presented a most shocking spectacle, being neatly covered with deep cuts, one of them very large on the right side; another, which appeared to have been done with a long knife, pierced below the right eye to the back of the head: and the right hand was nearly cut off. The hat and the breeches were missing. Mr. Munday immediately gave information of the circumstances to the officers of the town (Petersfield), and the body was immediately removed to the Jolly Sailors public-house at Petersfield, and most of the inhabitants went to see it, for the purpose of discovering who he was.
‘The landlord of a public-house at Petersfield recollected the deceased being at his house on the day before he was found murdered. A sailor and several other persons were in his company, and at times in conversation with him. He then had two bundles with him, and left the house as it was getting towards evening, with the bundles in his possession. The sailor and the other men left the public-house first, and were followed shortly after by the deceased. From the statements of different persons who saw the deceased and the sailor in conversation together, he was suspected to be the murderer; and it was found that a man answering the sailor’s description had gone on board the Vengeur on the morning the murder was discovered, and wished to enter, but the ship having sufficient men, he was landed on the Gosport shore on the same day at his own particular request. The Magistrates were very active in dispatching persons to trace his steps, and he and several others have been apprehended; but they gave such satisfactory accounts of where they were on the night the murder was committed, that they were discharged. The agitation of Petersfield was very great, every one seemed eager to ferret out the murderers, but days and weeks rolled on, and nothing transpired to fix suspicion on any one of the residents of Petersfield. The evidence of Mr. Munday was taken before the Coroner’s Jury, and also that of others who had seen the deceased in the town of Petersfield on the day prior to his being found so barbarously butchered. The surgeon who examined the corpse discovered 21 wounds about the body. It was apparent that the deceased had made great resistance, and being a very strong powerful man, it was conjectured that there were more than one person concerned in the foul transaction. On the shirt of the deceased the name of “Z. Searson, Nov. 7, 1811”—The body was kept unburied that it might be owned, until it became so putrid that it was found necessary to put it under ground, without his relatives being discovered, or it being ascertained what way of life the deceased was in, though it was conjectured that he was in the crockery-ware business. The clothes that were left on the body were a velveteen jacket and waistcoat, and a cloth frock. From the circumstances of every suspected person in Petersfield being satisfactorily cleared of having had any hand in the murder, it became the general opinion that the murderers must have been persons who had come from some other place for the purpose of committing depredations on the highway, and from the deceased making great resistance, they had dispatched him.
‘The murder and supposed parricide which was committed at Godalming, which place is about 14 miles from Petersfield, brought to mind the mysterious murder of the unknown man in Munday’s hay field; and when it was learnt that young Chennell and Chalcroft were in custody on suspicion of having murdered old Mr. Chennell and his housekeeper, some of the inhabitants recollected seeing young Chennell and Chalcroft in Petersfield on the night the murder was supposed to have been perpetrated. The circumstance was communicated to the proper authority; every information that could be gathered to criminate or clear the suspected parties was solicited; and the following are the chief grounds of suspicion which caused young Chennell and Chalcroft to be the suspected murderers of the unknown man:—Chennell and Chalcroft were in the habit of travelling with two horses from Godalming through the villages and towns to Portsmouth. The horses carried hampers, loaded sometimes with goods which were intrusted to them to carry from one town or village to the next. It was ascertained that they left Petersfield on the night the murder was committed, on their way to Godalming. The day the man was found murdered at Petersfield, a hat was found within a mile and a half of Godalming, which there is every reason to believe was the hat worn by the murdered man, and that the perpetrators must have gone from Petersfield towards Godalming. Since the apprehension of young Chennell and Chalcroft, some other circumstances have transpired to further elucidate that which was but suspicion of a very remote nature. In the lodgings of Chalcroft and young Chennell, articles have been found which they cannot give an account of, and which it is supposed were the property of the murdered man.
‘On the 26th ult. The constables of Guildford were ordered by the Magistrates to search a warehouse in which the deceased Mr. Chennell kept the horses’ corn, the key of which was in the possession of Chalcroft on the morning when the violent deaths of Mr. Chennell and his housekeeper were discovered. Under an old chest was found a pair of smallclothes stained with gore, of which no account could be given; they could not have been old Chennell’s, because those he wore were found in his bed-room; and the blood which was upon the former not having a new appearance, it was presumed that they must have been the property of some other victim. The property found in the prisoners’ lodgings was a shirt and other linen articles, which the person who has washed for the prisoners for a long time has stated her belief that they do not belong to the prisoners. This property is supposed to be part of what was contained in the poor fellow’s bundles; but from his not being owned, and none of his relatives being then discovered, no one could be brought forward to identify the property. Subsequent to the above, facts more decisive against the prisoners have transpired. From the exertions of the officers of Petersfield and Guildford, the father of the unfortunate man has been discovered; he is of respectable character, and is clerk of the Three Cups Waggon-office, Aldersgate-street. He was formerly a carrier in partnership with his son, and failed in business. They resided in Lincolnshire, and sent goods by their own boats on the canal to different parts of the kingdom. Since their failure, the father, from his excellent character, got the situation in which he now is; the deceased, who had got a little property, resolved to husband it, and endeavour to acquire more by going to sea. He had a dozen shirts made, such as are usually worn by seamen, and his father gave him one of his, marked with writing ink, “Z. Searson, Nov. 7, 1811,” which the deceased put on to travel to the seaport town. The deceased left London to go to Portsmouth on the 12th August, and when he got to Petersfield, he went to a public-house, a rendezvous for sailors, to obtain information where he could enter on board a vessel. He was advised to go to Portsmouth, and left the public-house on the night of the 13th of August, and it is supposed was met on the other side of Petersfield by Chennell and Chalcroft, and there murdered and robbed.
Mrs Searson has been down, and was examined before Lord Middleton on the 27th ult. The linen found in one of the prisoners’ lodgings were shewn to her, and, after inspecting it, she swore positively that a shirt produced was the property of her son. There was no mark upon it, but she knew it by its work, for she had made it herself, and it was of the same cloth as the eleven others which he had when he was robbed. She stated also, that the deceased had some money in his possession, perhaps 2l. or 3l. when he left town; and a day or two before he left London he made a pocket in the inside of his waistcoat to keep his money in, that it might be safe. When deceased was found, the pocket was turned inside out, and the money gone. Young Chennell and Chalcroft are also committed upon suspicion of the murder of this man, whose name is William Searson.’
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On the 27th ult. George Chalcroft, the brother of William Chalcroft, now in prison, charged with the murder of Chennell, senior was examined before Lord Middleton, charged with robbing his employer, Mr. Smith, of Eashing-mills, near Godalming, and was committed to Horsemonger-lane gaol. A few days ago a shirt stained with gore was found upon the wheel of the mill. The mill-pool was dragged, and several articles of wearing apparel were discovered. G. Chalcroft, since his commitment to the same prison where his brother is confined, has been suspected of being concerned in the murder at Petersfield. It has been ascertained that he was there on the night when the murder was perpetrated. Mrs. Searson, mother of the unfortunate man who was murdered, was examined before Lord Middleton; she identified some of the property which has been found in Chalcroft’s lodgings and in the mill-dam, to be that which her son had in his possession when he left London.