To prevent James Harrison from bearing witness against Thomas Ellson, the prisoner’s mother, Ann Harris, and his stepfather, John Cox the elder, resolved to put him to death. Their first design had been to procure arsenic. When that failed, each furnished fifty shillings to Cox’s two sons and one James Pugh, that the three might murder the witness. Yet the dark transaction lay hidden for a year, until Ellson himself stood once more at the bar of justice.
In 1827, Ellson had been apprehended for the theft of potatoes. Whilst he lay in prison, a further charge of sheep-stealing was laid against him—an offence then carrying the forfeiture of life. The chief testimony came from Harrison, a man who had himself taken part in sundry depredations committed by a gang of thieves around Market Drayton, upon the borders of Shropshire and Staffordshire. To deliver Ellson from this fatal evidence, his kin first sought to poison the man.
John Cox repaired to an apothecary to purchase arsenic. The shop-lad, however, refused to serve him unless another person were present, and Cox departed empty-handed. Ann Harris then attempted another avenue. Inquiring of an acquaintance whether her husband was bound for Newcastle, she begged of her an ounce of arsenic wherewith to poison Harrison. The neighbour set before her the dreadful gravity of such speech, whereupon Ann promised to abandon the project. The chronicle records this attempt as an aborted design, and not as proof that poison had ever been obtained.
The conspirators therefore turned to a more brutal instrument. Ann and old Cox each provided fifty shillings to hire John and Robert Cox, the old man’s sons, together with Pugh, a young neighbour. Harrison was then lodging under the roof of Pugh’s father, sharing the son’s bed. On the appointed night, Pugh enticed him abroad on the pretext of stealing bacon. At the designated place, the two Coxes came upon them. Pugh seized Harrison by the throat; John Cox the younger grasped him by the legs and threw him down. Together they throttled him, whilst Robert was already digging the grave.
The body having been covered, no change was perceived in the parish. It was generally believed that Harrison had absconded to avoid testifying against Ellson. Even when the latter was acquitted, the man’s absence provoked no inquiry. The silence was broken only when the Coxes, Pugh, and Ann Harris separately and together related to Ellson the deed they had wrought to save him, as though claiming his gratitude. Shortly after his enlargement, one evening, old Cox, one of his sons, and Pugh openly boasted to him of the service that had restored him to liberty.
On the morrow, Robert Cox went to Ann Harris, Ellson’s mother, demanding more money, and threatening that if she refused he would dig up Harrison and set him against her door. The threat pointed directly to the corpse they had buried. Yet this disclosure did not at once bring the offenders into court. It was only in late June 1828, when Ellson was apprehended for stealing fowls, that he betrayed the confidences of his kin and of Pugh, seeking thereby to screen himself from the penalties of his latest felony.
The five prisoners were brought to trial at Shrewsbury on the second of August. The prosecution’s case rested predominantly upon Ellson: a felon, inured to prison, with every motive to speak. Harrison’s remains had been disinterred nearly a year after the crime; his father recognised the body by the garments and the colour of the hair, putrefaction having rendered any other identification impossible. Other witnesses lent corroboration, notably Pugh’s parents, who testified to the night Harrison had left their hearth. Ellson’s wife—daughter to old Cox and sister to the younger John and Robert—together with Ellson’s sister, were likewise called.
From the witness-box, Ellson recounted how each confederate had disclosed their part to him. Pugh, he swore, had been the most explicit, boasting that he had lured Harrison from the cottage and seized him by the neck. The Coxes, sometimes present during these relations, corroborated to Ellson the part they had borne. The prosecution’s proof thus consisted of repeated admissions made to the very man for whose preservation the murder had been wrought, sustained by the details Pugh had supplied and the testimony of Harrison’s relatives.
Charles Phillips subjected Ellson to a rigorous and searching cross-examination. He exposed the witness’s repeated imprisonments for diverse larcenies and brought him to hesitate, almost to falter, upon several collateral matters touching his own conduct; the chronicler notes that Ellson had to suppress his fury under this assault. Yet upon the particulars of the murder, his testimony remained unshaken. At counsel’s insistence, he repeated twice or thrice that his mother and old Cox had each given fifty shillings to have Harrison murdered. Ann Harris kept her eyes fixed upon her son as he spoke, whilst he delivered the words with the composure of one recounting a matter of utter indifference. She had, in the view of the Crown, compassed a murder to snatch her child from the gallows; and now his testimony brought her to the foot of the scaffold that he might escape a lesser punishment.
The jury returned a verdict of guilty against all five prisoners, and the judge pronounced sentence of death. The record observes that Ann Harris and old Cox were convicted as accessories before the fact. After the trial, Pugh declared that Harrison appeared ever at his side, and that he welcomed death as an end to his torment; John Cox the younger sought to hearten him, saying a man could die but once.
On the following day, Robert Cox received a reprieve, his sentence being subsequently commuted to transportation for life. Ann and old Cox were granted a week’s respite; their penalties were likewise commuted to transportation, though the chronicle does not specify the term. John the younger and Pugh alone remained appointed to die.
On the day of execution, shortly before noon, the condemned and Ellson were assembled in the inner yard of the gaol. Pugh and John Cox were pinioned; Ann, old Cox, and Robert were conducted within, whilst Ellson was placed where he might witness the final scene. Pelham observes that the indictment against Ellson had been dismissed, and casts doubt upon the legality of detaining him for such a purpose, surmising that the authorities wished to make an awful example of the spectacle—though he explicitly presents this explanation as mere conjecture. The two men were then led onto the scaffold, exceedingly agitated and imploring mercy for their sins. The murder committed to deliver Ellson had led five of his kindred to the dock; and he whom they had sought to shield had stood forth as their executioner.