October 8th: Elsie's family

Lloyd’s Illustrated Newspaper, October 8^th, 1893.

[excerpt]

Mrs Kerry, recalled, said she was certain Wilkie left her service on Saturday July 25, 1891. Wilkie was paid one sovereign.

The Clerk: According to this there is a week unaccounted for between the date Mrs Kerry gave and the Saturday preceding the Bank holiday, when Wilkie went to lodge in Kingsmead-terrace.

[….]

Ex-inspector Beaton, of the Bath police force, proved an entry made in the police book of a woman’s hat having been found on Hampton down on August 7^th, 1891. The hat had been lost after remaining in the police station for a long period.

[…]

The coroner, in addressing the jury, said his reason for calling them together earlier than the 25^th, to which date he had originally adjourned the inquiry, was that, contrary to expectation, matters in connection with the death of the deceased woman had developed more rapidly than they were led to expect, more particularly with reference to the identification of the deceased, as well as in other particulars. They were aware, probably, that since they last met a certain man had been taken before the magistrates on suspicion of being connected with the death of the deceased. He impressed upon the jury the necessity of not considering that circumstance at all. Let it be, as it were, banished from their mind, that anyone had been apprehended on suspicion. He wished them to enter into the case in a perfectly unbiased manner, not only with reference to this man, but also with reference to all the evidence. The two courts were totally different, and although the evidence taken before both was very similar, he had to impress upon them that they were absolutely independent, and they must arrive at a conclusion upon the evidence adduced before them.

[…]

Elsie Marguerite Kerry, daughter of Mrs Kerry, in whose service Wilkie was just before her disappearance, deposed that she had addressed two or three letters for the deceased to Arthur Stevenson Coombs, to a house in Kingsmead terrace, Bath, but she could not remember the number. Wilkie gave no reason for asking her to address the letters.

[…]

It has been ascertained that the former home of the girl, Elsie Wilkie, whose disappearance from Bath forms a part of the mystery connected with the Bath tragedy, was at Tidal Basin, Canning-town, where her parents and her sister are still living. The girl is said to have become somewhat gay in her conduct, and it is said that when she returned to her parents, after a prolonged absence, her reception was not a pleasant one. She left home again shortly afterwards, and has not since been seen. Mr. and Mrs. Wilkie kept a coffee-shop near the Tidal Basin railway station, and were well-known in the neighbourhood.