| This morning (Thursday) hundreds of individuals who had
been disappointed of getting a view of John Ahern, the supposed murderer, on his arrival by the
steamer from Maitland on Tuesday evening, in consequence of his being removed therefrom to
Goat Island, by the order of the Chief Commissioner of Police, crowded the police office yard and
its vicinity at an early, hour, the adjourned inquest on the body of the unfortunate girl, Mary Ann Clarke,
having been appointed to be held in the western court of the building, this day.
At twenty minutes to eleven a.m. the jury assembled, and the prisoner, who had been conducted under a
strong escort of police, to protect him from anticipated violence from the mob, was placed before them. His
appearance was anything but prepossessing, being a man of cadaverous countenance, deeply pockpitted,
and strongly marked with an expression of determined hardihood, apparently callous to all outward
impressions. He is a native of Fermoy, in the county of Cork, Ireland, of 41 years of age, 5 feet 5 inches
in height, and square built. It appeared, from a certificate of freedom, found on his person, that he was
tried at Waterford, in the year 1828, for shoplifting, and transported for seven years to this colony.
Mr. Rhodius, the artist, was in attendance, and took a sketch of the prisoner as he stood at the bar.
The coroner, in charging the jury, stated that the inquest had been adjourned from the 1st to the 7th
instant, and from that until this day, to afford an opportunity of connecting the chain of circumstantial
evidence that would be laid before the jury, and in obtaining which, within the time, neither zeal, vigilance,
nor activity had been spared on the part of the police, whose enquiries extended to the districts of Cassilis,
Windsor, Parramatta, and Maitland, for the purpose of effectively procuring evidence. No less than twenty
witnesses were examined, whose testimony went to prove and corroborate the following facts:—That
twelve months ago the prisoner, his elder sister (Johanna Ahern, who is missing), and the deceased, who
was the daughter of another sister of the prisoner's, named Margaret Collins, aged between thirteen and
fourteen years, were living together at a Mrs. Henry's, at Maitland, the prisoner and his elder sister having
persuaded the girl's mother to consent to their keeping her, under promises of taking the best possible care
of her. When the mother went to them to bring her home, the prisoner beat her ; he prevented the mother
and daughter from sleeping together when they lived in the service of Mr. Taylor, of Maitland, and always
kept the latter away from her mother as much as possible.
Ultimately they quitted Maitland, without apprising
the mother of their intention, who never saw either her sister Johanna or her daughter (until she saw her
dead body, after being buried, since she came to Sydney), or the prisoner, until he visited her at Maitland,
after the horrid deed. In answer to her repeated and anxious enquiries after her daughter and sister, the
prisoner said they had left him in the bush, but he did not say where. He gave her 2s. 6d. to buy him a new
shirt, and on taking off the old one rolled it up and burnt it. She attempted to save it from the fire, saying it
would be useful for patches, but he would not allow her to touch it. A person named John Connolly, to
whom the deceased, Mary Ann Clarke, had been put to service by the mother, on reading the account
of her murder in a Sydney paper, happened to see the prisoner, who avoided him, and meeting Constable
Kerr, of the Maitland police, shortly afterwards, pointed out the direction he had taken, and had him
apprehended. On his way to the lockup he complained of faintness, and begged to be allowed to take a
glass of beer at a public-house; while there he said, "if he was found guilty he wished they might twist his
neck the next minute;" and afterwards he exclaimed, "I wish I could drop down dead on the spot I stand."
When brought before the police magistrate, he said he had thrown his old shirt away upon the mountains.
His coat he had left at his sister Margaret's, and on searching the pockets, a paper of sugar of lead was
found, which he said he had to apply to a swelling produced by a rupture, but which, there is strong reason
to suspect, he attempted to poison his sister with, as, previous to leaving the house, he caused her to
drink some cold tea out of a pannakin, after she was in bed at night, under a threat of breaking the cups
and saucers unless she did so ; after which she was severely attacked with vomiting and purging during the
remainder of the night, and in the morning he affected not to have heard her, but tried to dissuade her from
going out to work, as, he said, she appeared to be unwell.
When in a cell with Serjeant Adson, of the Sydney
police, who was sent up to Maitland in quest of him, he enquired when the next Criminal Court would be
held, and on Adson answering "in about a month's time" he paused, and then exclaimed, "God bless me!
alive to-day, and dead this day month ! for I suppose they will hang me for this as innocently as they
transported me."
The remaining portion of the evidence went to prove the taking of the houses in Sussex-street and
Hancock's Buildings, Parramatta-street, by the prisoner ; his brutality and tyranny over the deceased ;
the finding of the murdered and mutilated body at the latter place ; and the sudden disappearance of
the prisoner from Sydney, who, it appears, walked overland to Maitland, after the perpetration of the
horrid deed. The prisoner cross-examined the several witnesses with unblushing effrontery, but all his
questions went to criminate himself. He told the jury a long, rambling, and improbable tale of unheard
of depravity relative to the deceased, which excited the disgust and indignation of the bystanders so
much, that they repeatedly interrupted him with a storm of hisses and groans.
The coroner summed up very briefly, and a verdict of "Guilty of wilful murder" was returned by the jury,
without a moment's hesitation. The prisoner was committed forthwith on the coronets warrant. He had,
however, to be detained until the crowd dispersed, and then to be conducted to gaol by a strong military
escort, to prevent him being torn to pieces by an enraged populace. |
