Dover Chronicles 4 September 1847.

Deptford.

Mysterious Case of Poisoning. Verdict of Wilful Murder.

On Friday week, an inquisition, which lasted 5 hours, was gone into before C. J. Carttar, at the "Garrick's Head, Lower Road, Deptford, touching the death of Mary Hutchings, the wife of a cooper, aged 48 years, who met her death by poison on Sunday evening last.

It was proved by four medical gentlemen, after a post-mortem examination of the body, that a large portion of arsenic had been taken in something she had been induced to drink. A bottle containing enough of this deadly poison to kill 100 persons was admitted by witnesses to have been in a drawer in the prisoners house, but which was during Sunday afternoon removed and the contents of a bottle containing it thrown into the fire, and the bottle being then broken thrown down the water closet. The prisoner, a powerful man of dissipated habits, had long been in the habit of ill-using the deceased, a delicate little woman.

A verdict of "Wilful murder" was returned.