Crime & punishment > Whinny Park murder

MURDER OF MR MILLIE.
Whinny Park, from its secluded situation, presented
too many facilities for the perpetration and concealment
of the deed by which it will be now remembered. Mr
Millie’s sister had, as we have already mentioned, left
him some time before he took Henderson into his service :
this man and Mr Millie were therefore residing alone in
the tenement. The nearest house, besides being at some
distance, is separated by a high wall from Whinny Park ;
and is tenanted by Lord Leven’s gamekeeper who is sel¬
dom’within doors; and by his sister, a young woman not
likely to make any inquiry into the affairs of a house
where there were no female inmates. The villages of
Collessie and Monimail are, the former about half, and
the latter a quarter of a mile distant.
The murder is supposed to have been committed about
10 o’clock on Saturday morning, the 26th June. The
night before, Henderson had been in Auchtermuchty,
and had been “ drinking and driving o’er” as the country
people express behaviour like his, with some associates
he had found there. He spent on that day a great deal
more money than he could have honestly gained as
wages; ordered it is said a suit of clothes; and shewed
besides some household keys evidently not his own.
Jt is therefore conjectured with much reason that he had
begun his course of depredation even before the murder;
and that he was instigated to commit that crime by the
hopes of securing the effects he had seen in Mr Millie’s
repositories.* However this may be, Mr Millie was seen
on Saturday morning about 9 o’clock by a little girl who
used to bring milk from a cottage at some distance : and
after that time he was never again met by any person.
About eleven o’clock Henderson passed through the
village of Monimail; in his way he saw Mrs Balfour
(wife of the blacksmith there) and told her that his mas¬
ter was going on Monday to Edinburgh after some busi¬
ness ; and that he himself was to have leave at the same
time to go to visit his friends in Dunfermline; he went
* It will be seen that this differs from the account given by Hen¬
derson himself in his confession.