The Travellers' Rest Inn at Guntawang... was a good two-storied brick house, the property of the Rouses, of Biriganbil, and Mrs. Martin was the licensee.
NEWS ITEMS1875 - [CHRISTMAS DAY MURDER]
At Christmas, 1875, John Merrin was a senior-constable stationed at Gulgong, and on Christmas Day word reached him that Mrs. Martin, of the Travellers' Rest Inn at Guntawang, had been murdered. He mounted his horse, and rode to the scene of the slaughter. The Travellers' Rest was a good two-storied brick house, the property of the Rouses, of Biriganbil, and Mrs. Martin was the licensee. When Merrin arrived on the scene, he found, among other persons congregated there, George Pitt, a highly-respectable-looking young man, a teamster, aged about [] years. Merrin, from something he had heard, said to Pitt, 'You were there; what do you know about it?' Pitt replied: 'Mrs. Martin came into my room with a lighted candle about 11 o'clock and said, 'George, are you going to bed?' I said, 'Yes, I might as well. I have been up these two nights. I am going on the road in the morning.' She said, 'Don't go to bed; I will come out as soon as I get, Katey in.' She called Katey in, and then came out again, put her arms round my neck and kissed me. She then went into her room, came out again, and again kissed me. She asked how long I was to be away. Katey came out, and Mrs. Martin returned to the room. After a few minutes she again came out, put her arms round me, and again kissed me. I then felt something touch my throat like a scratch, which I thought she was doing with her nails. I said, 'What are you doing?' She said. 'Nothing, dear.' I then felt something sharp across my throat, and I drew away. She then put her hands up over her face and pulled one gently down towards her threat. She then cut her throat, ran up along the passage towards the door—the parlor door— and sang out, 'Boldly.' She then fell. I said to her: 'That will do. Come into the house.' Pitt showed Merrin a mark on his face, and said that Mrs. Martin had done it. Merrin then went into the house through the passage. Then Pitt said: 'This is the knife she did it with, and this is the corner I picked up the knife in coming out.' Merrin asked him if the knife were his but he denied, saying that he borrowed it from old Tuckerman to cut his corns with. Merrin asked him if he could not have prevented Mrs. Martin cutting her throat. He replied that she had done it too quickly. Merrin noticed that there were some bloodstains on Pitt's clothes, and asked him how they came there. The reply was that he had dropped his hat in the passage where the blood was. Pitt was then taken into the bar, where the body of Mrs. Martin was lying in a pool of blood. Merrin then said : 'I arrest you for the murder of that woman.'
As a matter of fact, there had been 'something' between Pitt and Mrs. Martin, and on the Christmas Eve she had caused him to be jealous, and, calling her out of her bedroom, in the presence of Kate LeStrange, he cut the unfortunate woman's throat. He was hanged in Mudgee Gaol.
[FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT.]
The business before the Circuit Court was continued and concluded since my last. George Pitt, was found guilty of the murder of Ann Mary Martin, at Guntawang, on the 25th of December last, and sentenced to death—Judge Faucett holding out but little hope of any extenuation of the sentence. The case occupied the greater portion of Tuesday, the 18th instant, and a great deal of evidence was taken, which may be briefly summed up as follows:—The deceased kept the Travellers' Rest Inn, at Guntawang, and the prisoner had been lodging there for some time.
A certain degree of intimacy seemed to have existed between them, and the prisoner had been heard, on one occasion at least, asking the deceased to marry him, which the latter refused to do, stating (deceased was a widow) she would never marry again. The deceased had also been heard telling the prisoner, on the very day on which the murder was committed, that he would have to get work and clear out of the place. On last Christmas, as the deceased was retiring for the night, in company with her niece, Kate L'Estrange, the prisoner came to the bedroom door and asked her to come out into the passage as he wished to speak to her. The deceased refused to go at first, but on prisoner repeating the request ultimately consented. The niece heard her aunt call her shortly afterwards, and on going to the bedroom door saw the prisoner at it with a knife in his hand, both the knife and the prisoner's hands being covered with blood. Prisoner said to the niece, "I've cut --- mother Martin's throat, and if you don't look out I'll cut yours too."
On hearing this the niece retreated into the bedroom got out at a window, rushed round to the front of the house, where several lodgers were sleeping, and made known what she had seen and what Pitt had told her. On these lodgers, who were just retiring for the night, going into the passage, Mrs. Martin was found with her throat cut, and died almost immediately afterwards. The prisoner afterwards made a very mild attempt to cut his own throat. On the police arriving on the spot, prisoner told them the deceased had first attempted to cut his throat, and then cut her own: but that very little credence was placed in this statement may be gleaned from the fact that, the counsel for the defence never referred to it, confining his address to urging the jury to acquit the prisoner of murder, and convict of manslaughter, on the plea that the act was committed during a frenzy of jealousy.
