October 5th: court hearing resumed

Star (Guernsey) October 5^th, 1893. 

The Bath Murder. 

Magisterial Proceedings.

At Weston Court-house, near Bath on Tuesday, the hearing of the charge against Arthur Stevenson Coombs, aged 20, coach builder’s apprentice, of having murdered Elsie Luke, alias Wilkie, on or about August 1891, on Hampden Down, near Bath, was resumed. The court was again crowded , and hundreds of persons were unable to obtain admission. Mr Cannings Collins prosecuted on behalf of the Crown, and read a letter from the woman Sheppard to Coombs, in which the former accused him of being a coward in his dealings and underhanded. The next letter showed that a reconciliation ahd been effected.  Mr Collins said he thought it might be that the position of the accused between these two women was such as to work upon his mind and cause him to commit the crime of which he was accused. Evidence will be called to show that a small broken brooch found in prisoner’s room was similar to one formerly worn by Luke, and a doctor would prove that on August 7^th, 1891, prisoner was treated for what appeared to be a human bite.

The prisoner was remanded.