The real name of the accused in this case is
Wheeler, and she is unmarried. She was called Pearcey from the name of a man she lived with, and after parting with him, she appears to have lived by receiving " visitors," one of whom gave evidence in Court, while another was the husband of the murdered woman He was suspected by the public of some share in the crime, but proved that he could not have been in Priory Street during the time within which the murder must have been committed. He had previously been cen- sured by his wife's family for half-starving her while she was ill; but the latter, again, had received letters which she declined to show, and though jealous of her husband, kept up a kind of acquaintance with Mrs. Pearcey, whom she sus- pected, as a relative testifies, of some murderous design against herself. The whole of the squalid tragedy is, in fact, more Continental than English, and derives its interest chiefly from the character of the accused, who, if guilty—and it should not be forgotten that no word of Mrs. Pearcey's defence has yet been heard—is one of the most audacious and ingenious of modern criminals.
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