She did not watch him go away… he had evidently not turned up to his own home; for he had turned to the right and gone up to the house of Stewart. Stewart had got into bed and put the candle out, when he heard some body open the door. It appeared that they did not lock the doors in those parts. He cried out “Mat, is that thee?” – meaning Mat Hogarth; and he was answered by the prisoner, whose voice he knew perfectly well, and who said, “No, it is me, Ned”. The prisoner came forward and tried to open the door where Stewart was sleeping. Stewart said “Shall I get up and open the door for you.” The prisoner said “No you need not; I am as drunk as blazes, and am going home.” He immediately went away. The jury would recollect that when the prisoner was taken into custody, he said he was quite drunk, and could call a witness to prove it. He (Mr Overend) had no doubt that he alluded to Stewart, and it would be for the jury to say what importance they would attach to his call at that house. He had no reason to call, except to proclaim his drunkenness. At that time he was on the direct road to Eden Banks, at which place, shortly afterwards, the catastrophe occurred. The prisoner and his brothers were taken into custody… The prisoner had always been a strong man, but from some cause or other, while in custody, he became seriously ill, and was attended by Dr Jackson. On the 21st of Dec., Dr Jackson was so apprehensive of danger that he went to Henry Graham and told him; on which Henry Graham expressed great anxiety to see his brother. He was naturally allowed to do so, and was left with him for some time alone. After he had been with his brother for some time, Henry made a demand for the superintendent; he said he wanted to make a statement. The superintendent and a person of the name of Robinson went to him, and a statement was made by the prisoner. He (Mr Overend) would not offer it to the jury if he thought there was the slightest inducement held out to the prisoner, but he believed there was not the slightest in the world. (The learned counsel here read the prisoner’s confession, in which he said that he was shooting on Eden’s banks when he saw a man who told him to stand; that he (the prisoner) ran away, and while he was running the man fired a pistol at him; that he fell and the man then came up, and after a scuffle got his gun, which he fired off; that he then knocked the man down with his gun, and brayed him until he was dead, and afterwards threw the body into the river). They had here the prisoner’s own contradiction to the statement he made to the police officer. The prisoner and his brother Henry were brought before the magistrates, and Henry having been exonerated by his brother, and there being no evidence against him, he was liberated. After his liberation, he came forward as a witness for the prosecution. He volunteered to give evidence against his brother, and accordingly made a statement which would be repeated today. (Mr Overend here gave an outline of Henry Graham’s evidence before the magistrates, in which he said the prisoner came home between seven and eight o’clock, and went out with his father’s gun; that on the following day William had confessed to him that he had committed the murder and that he (Henry) had helped him to conceal the broken gun, the barrel being hidden in the thatch and the stock thrown into a swamp in Tom Moses’s field. This evidence will be found fully reported in its proper place).
In bringing that statement before them, he (the learned counsel) could not help saying that this man was an accomplice of his brother. He had never said a word while in prison, and it would be for the jury to say what weight was to be attached to this statement. They would see that it was more particularly a narrative of acts done by him at the suggestion of his brother. The constables, before this statement, had never been able to discover the gun with which the murder had been committed. The gun the mother was burning bore no indications of having been used. After this statement they searched the thatch of the house and there found the barrel. It bore marks of violence; it had been twisted and had on it marks of blood. In the swamp in Moses’s field they found the stock, and on that there were also marks of blood; and which was a very material fact, the two pieces of wood discovered near the blood marks at Eden Brows fitted it exactly. The fact that it was the father’s gun (the gun which the prisoner took out on Saturday night) would be proved by the man who had mended it, therefore there could be very little doubt that was the gun the prisoner had used on that occasion. There were really all the circumstances of evidence which he would lay before them, but before he sat down he wished to call their attention to one or two facts, and to ask what inference they would draw from them.