A shocking murder has this week attracted the attention of
all London. On Friday se'nnight, the body of a woman, aged thirty, was found in Crossfield Road, South Hamp- stead, with the head crushed in and nearly cut off, the knife having almost severed the spine. The corpse was identified at the station as that of Mrs. Phcebe Hogg, wife of a furniture-remover in Kentish Town. It was visited by her sister-in-law, Miss Hogg, and a Mrs. Pearcey, living on the ground-floor of a house in Priory Street, Kentish Town ; and Inspector Bannister was so struck with the latter's demeanour that he searched her rooms. He found, while she sat whistling, a poker with blood and hair on it, and other evidences of murder ; while her petticoat, on being examined, was found to have been saturated with blood. He therefore charged her with the crime, and the evidence taken before the Coroner establishes a strong primci-facie case against the accused. It was shown that Mrs. Hogg had visited her on Friday, with her baby of eighteen months, carried in a perambulator ; that the perambulator was found all bloody in Hamilton Terrace, St. John's Wood, and the child dead, either from exposure or suffocation, in a lane off Finchley Road ; and that Mrs. Pearcey had been seen wheeling the perambulator, with some heavy load in it, in the direction of Crossfield Road. The motive suggested is jealousy of Mrs. Hogg, whose husband confessed in the Coroner's Court that he was too intimate with Mrs. Pearcey ; and delibera- tion is assumed, because the latter had invited Mrs. Hogg to call on her on Friday, " with our darling child." The existence of an accomplice has been suspected, owing chiefly to the difficulty that must have been experienced in packing the body in the perambulator, but no further arrest has been made. The jury found a verdict of " Wilful murder " against Mrs. Pearcey, as regards both Mrs. Hogg and the baby.
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