In November 1831, a young woman named Baton presented herself at the Lambeth Street police office. She feared that her grandmother, Elizabeth Walsh, had met with foul play. The inquiries of Officer Lea revealed that the elderly woman had vanished after taking lodgings with Elizabeth Ross, whom the chronicler also refers to as Cook. A few days later, at the Worship Street station, it was neither a neighbour nor an adult confederate who accused Ross: it was her own son, a lad of about eleven years.
Walsh was aged, infirm, and destitute. She earned a few pence by hawking tape, corset laces, and sundry small wares through the streets. Ross had known her previously and urged her to lodge at her dwelling. Walsh had been warned to beware of this woman, who dealt in cat and hare skins and lived with a man named Cook, whom the chronicler describes as a resurrectionist. Yet the old woman allowed herself to be persuaded. On 19 August 1831, she entered the single chamber in Goodman’s Yard, in the Minories quarter, where Ross, her companion Cook, and their son resided.
Following her arrival, Walsh was, according to the report, seen outside the house but once; she was never seen alive again. The police, however, possessed no body. The grand-daughter’s statement had aroused suspicion, whereupon Lea caused Cook, Ross, and their child to be apprehended. At the station, the boy appeared in such agitation that the master and mistress of the Aldgate parochial school, which he had attended for two or three years, were sent for. To them he recounted what he claimed to know of Walsh’s disappearance, subsequently repeating his tale before the magistrates.
On 2 November, Cook and Ross were placed in the dock whilst their son prepared to testify against them. Their astonishment was palpable. The magistrate inquired whether he was willing to speak freely concerning the disappearance of Walsh; the child answered in the affirmative and was duly sworn. According to his deposition, Mrs Walsh had arrived on a Friday morning about ten o'clock with bread in a basket, giving him a portion for his breakfast. She departed, then returned at tea-time. His mother, she, and the lad drank coffee; Cook was not present on that occasion, though he had seen Walsh arrive in the morning.
Towards half-past nine, they took more coffee with their supper. The boy stated that the cup had made him drowsy without making him ill. Walsh likewise grew heavy with sleep; she lay down upon his parents’ bed, her hand beneath her head, without complaining and, to his eyes, in good health. Later, he saw his mother approach the bed, place her right hand over Mrs Walsh’s mouth and the other upon her body. At this point in his testimony, he burst into tears, lamenting that he was compelled to speak against his own mother. He maintained that she had held this position for at least half an hour. Walsh had offered little resistance, though her eyes had opened and moved restlessly.
The lad recounted that Cook was in the room at the time, standing with his face to the window. According to the boy, Cook never turned round and did not touch Walsh. There had been no quarrel: the three adults, he said, were upon good terms until then. About an hour after the scene upon the bed, his mother lifted Walsh and carried her downstairs. He knew not whither she went. He and his father went to bed; the following morning, as he crossed the cellar on his way to school, he perceived the body inside a sack placed beneath the stairs. The head protruded, the hair a mingled grey and black. He recognised the sack as belonging to a man named Jones, with whom Cook worked.
The child declared he had spoken to no one of what he had seen. At noon, returning from school, he found his father beating his mother. The lad supposed the altercation arose because she had gone out drinking with Walsh’s grand-daughter, who had come inquiring after the old woman. He thought he heard his mother call Cook a murderer, yet could not recall her threatening to peach upon him. The following evening, after his parents had supped, his mother quitted the room about ten o'clock. Half an hour later, the boy saw her pass beneath the window, bearing the sack tied across her shoulder. On Sunday, she told him she had carried the body to the London Hospital.
Repeatedly, the boy insisted that his father had done nothing. He had not seen Cook lay a hand upon Mrs Walsh, nor heard him speak of the murder with Ross. Yet witnesses contradicted several portions of this narrative. Barry deposed to having seen the child assisting his mother to carry the sack; another witness doubted that a lone woman could have carried in her arms a person of Walsh’s tall stature. The boy, moreover, had spoken of the body carried in arms after the scene upon the bed, then of the sack discovered in the cellar, and of that which he subsequently saw carried past the window. The magistrates likewise questioned how the body could have remained an entire day beneath the stairs; the landlady answered that this dark, rat-infested cellar was seldom frequented by the tenants.
The investigation never brought to light Walsh’s corpse. It brought forth material objects: several persons swore they had purchased from Ross, in Rag Fair, wearing apparel identified as belonging to the missing woman. Others testified that she had sold the small stock of sundries by which Walsh had earned her livelihood. After several examinations, Cook and Ross were committed for trial on the capital charge on 24 December. The public agitation stirred by the instances of “burking” that had recently preceded their arraignment inflamed the prevailing alarm; the chronicler considers that this atmosphere fostered a strong prejudice against both prisoners.
The trial took place at the Old Bailey on 6 January 1832. Ross was indicted for the murder of Walsh; Cook, for aiding and abetting his companion. The defence contended that the lad had lied and that the old woman might yet be living, as no person had found her body. The jury found Ross guilty, but acquitted Cook. Thus, the son’s testimony, contested in numerous particulars and fatal to his mother, did not suffice to convict his father.
Ross was sentenced to death, her body ordered to be delivered to the surgeons for dissection. She nevertheless persisted in denying her guilt. Her version was that she had left Walsh with Cook on the evening of the supposed murder, that she had gone out, and that upon her return she was informed the old woman had quitted the house. On the following Monday, she mounted the scaffold alone. Unto the very last, she protested her innocence, lamenting that she had ever left Ireland to meet such an end. Walsh was never found.