A Haunted House.
In March last [sic] an old man named Churchill was murdered in a cottage near Chard. For some time after the execution the building remained uninhabited, but at length it was let to a labourer and his family, but the in-comers soon found they could obtain no rest. They state that the murderess, “Kitty,” has been frequently seen to glide about the premises in ghostly attire, and that old Churchill has been distinctly observed to look in at the window with hideous countenance. This, added to the appearance of blood on the floor of the room in which the tragedy was enacted, supernatural movements amongst the furniture and other articles, and unearthly noises in the immediate vicinity of the cottage, so unsettled the occupants that they at last abandoned the dwelling, which is now regarded as “haunted.”
Southampton Observer and Hampshire News, 6th December 1879.
Execution of a woman.
On Monday morning, at eight o’clock, Catherine Churchill, aged 54 years, was executed within the precincts of Taunton Gaol, for murdering her husband, Samuel Churchill, at Knowle St Giles, near Chard, on the 4th of March last. The prisoner, it will be remembered, killed the old man with a bill-hook, in order to prevent him altering a will he had made in favour of her son, by the deceased, born before wedlock, and she afterwards so burned the body that scarcely a trace of violence could be found about it.
The prisoner’s guilt was brought home to her very clearly, though she protested her innocence all along. Marwood was the executioner, and representatives of the press were excluded, the completionof the execution being announced by a notice posted on the outer gate of the prison.
Pudsey and Stanningley News, 30th May 1878.