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“The two McCarthys were seen after the time when William Crowder, the
game-keeper, lost sight of them. The Boscombe Pool is thickly wooded round, with
just a fringe of grass and of reeds round the edge. A girl of fourteen, Patience
Moran, who is the daughter of the lodge-keeper of the Boscombe Valley estate,
was in one of the woods picking flowers. She states that while she was there she
saw, at the border of the wood and close by the lake, Mr. McCarthy and his son,
and that they appeared to be having a violent quarrel. She heard Mr. McCarthy
the elder using very strong language to his son, and she saw the latter raise up
his hand as if to strike his father. She was so frightened by their violence
that she ran away and told her mother when she reached home that she had left
the two McCarthys quarrelling near Boscombe Pool, and that she was afraid that
they were going to fight. She had hardly said the words when young Mr. McCarthy
came running up to the lodge to say that he had found his father dead in the
wood, and to ask for the help of the lodge-keeper. He was much excited, without
either his gun or his hat, and his right hand and sleeve were observed to be
stained with fresh blood. On following him they found the dead body stretched
out upon the grass beside the pool. The head had been beaten in by repeated
blows of some heavy and blunt weapon. The injuries were such as might very well
have been inflicted by the butt-end of his son’s gun, which was found lying on
the grass within a few paces of the body. Under these circumstances the young
man was instantly arrested, and a verdict of ‘wilful murder’ having been
returned at the inquest on Tuesday, he was on Wednesday brought before the
magistrates at Ross, who have referred the case to the next Assizes. Those are
the main facts of the case as they came out before the coroner and the
police-court.”