A shocking murder was committed on Saturday afternoon at Brackenfield Village, Derbyshire.
Mr. Thomas Limb, the tenant of the Lindsay-lane Farm, went to a local fair and left the homestead in charge of his housekeeper, Miss Lizzie Boot, aged twenty, who had for a companion her niece, seven years old. After the farm labourers had had dinner, Miss Boot went to the door to answer a knock from a young man named William Pugh, who according to the child, wanted to borrow something. Miss Boot walked towards the outbuildings across the yard, and Pugh followed, the little girl bring told by her aunt to wait at home, as she would not be long.
Subsequently the child went to the barn door, and on opening it found her aunt on the ground in a pool of blood. A tanner named Hitchcock drove into the yard tor some produce at this juncture, and both he and a farm servant named Bryan saw Pugh, who stated that the men were in the fields and afterwards left the premises.
Mr. Hitchcock and Bryan then entered the barn and discovered the body of Miss Boot, her head being frightfully cut. Her fingers were also injure
d evidently in protecting herself. One of the brothers of the deceased traced Pugh to the house of a neighbour and found him with his sweetheart. Being asked whether he had been to Lindsay Farm that day, Pugh gave a negative reply ; but Mr. Boot, seeing blood on both wrists, called attention to it, and the man then admitted he had, but stated that he found Miss Boot dead and helped Bryan to remove the body. Pugh, who is collier, aged twenty-one, was arrested by the Wingfield police, but denies the charge. The police have taken possession of a billhook with which the fatal injuries were inflicted, the weapon being found in the barn covered with blood.
BNA copywrite – St James’s Gazette – Monday 11 May 1896
