When we went into the kitchen, we found William Graham’s mother standing over the fire with a poker in her hand; she was pushing a gun stock into the fire, and braying it under an oven which stands to the left of the fire place. Without us saying anything, she said, “You shall not have it”. She continued pushing it in, but the other officer got hold of her and pulled her away. I then got hold of the gun stock, and pulled it out of the fire. The butt end of the gun was lying on the fire and the smaller end was under the oven and was on fire. The stock had been broken off immediately in front of the locks, and the locks were still on. (The fragments of the gun stock were here produced. The stock had been broken in two close to the lock, which remained upon the grooved part of the wood. The thin end of the butt, next to the lock, was partly charred, but the thick end was still bright, having escaped burning). The other part of the stock in which the barrel lies was not found, nor was the ramrod. The barrel was found but not by me. I could not tell from the appearance of the stock whether it had been recently broken or not; the wood is so much charred. I made a further search, and found a pair of moleskin trowsers up stairs, lying on a bed. I now produce them. They were rather damp at the time and are still so. Both legs and marked with blood, but there are most about the right knee. On the right leg the blood is not merely as if it had been rubbed in, but there are also spirts of blood. There is a patch of blood in the inside of the same leg. The left leg and thigh and also marked with blood in several places in a similar manner. Some of the marks seem as though it had been tried to wash them out, and others not. The trowsers are the trowsers of Henry Graham
How do you know them to be Henry’s? – Because his mother told me so. In fact he told me so himself; he said they were trowsers he had on while he was hedging.
Witness – when we first went to the house we found Henry standing in the kitchen, about the middle of the floor, his father and his mother. His father was sitting close to the door. The little girl Nanny was also there, standing against a table at the far side of the kitchen. The mother went upstairs with me when I went to search. I found the trowsers lying on the bed. There was nothing said at the time by either of us. I brought the trowsers downstairs with a deal more of old clothes. When I held up the trowsers and observed the blood, I said, “What are these spots here?” Henry answered, “Those are my trowsers and what I had on when I was hedging.” He said the blood was blood that had come on while he was hedging, from thorns pricking his fingers, and him wiping his hands on his trowsers. When we had got all the things gathered up we told William and Henry Graham that they would have to go with us, on suspicion of murdering Thomas Simpson. They said, “Very well, we are innocent, and we will go.” They went with us. On the way we talked of the murder. William said he did not know anything about it, for he was drunk on Saturday night, and that they would be witness that he was drunk. He said he never heard till Sunday afternoon that Simpson was lost; that he went in search after he heard that he was lost, with others out of Longdales, but he could not find him. He said he had never seen deceased but once, and had never spoken to him. He pointed out the place where he had seen him, and said it was on Friday week. He said Henry and he were coming up from Armathwaite on the road we were then walking on, near the beck at Crow House, and they saw deceased going up the fence across the field, but he did not think deceased saw them. He said they were walking out with a young horse, and when they turned up the road leading to Ruckcroft, they did not see him any more.