ABSTRACT
Richard Coates, who is lying in the county gaol at Springfield, awaiting his execution, to take place on Monday next, for the murder of the little girl, Alice Boughen, at Purfleet garrison, has made a full confession of the crime for which he was sentenced to death at the recent Essex assizes. On Saturday the culprit received a letter from his mother, urging him, if he were really guilty of the crime, to clear his conscience by a confession before dying. After reading the letter Coates appears to have become somewhat depressed, and asked the warder who was then in charge of him if he could have some paper and pen and ink. He exclaimed, “I did the murder, and I will write out my confession.” Some paper was given him, and he wrote out a long detailed account, describing how he committed the brutal murder. The culprit commenced by stating that he attacked the girl in the closet, and there subsequently murdered her. After the death he concealed the body under his great coat and carried it down to the palings at the end of the magazine yard, where he made several desperate attempts to throw the body over into the river, but the paling being very high he could not manage to throw the body over, and it kept falling back inside the fence. Ultimately, he states, he was compelled to leave the body inside the fence, and returned to the school-room. He admits that the crime was a most brutal one, and at the end of his written confession he says:—"I had been drinking somewhat freely during the earlier part of the day I committed the murder, and was thereby excited to commit the foul deed for which I have been sentenced to death.”
