Broadside entitled 'Dempsters Apprehension and Confession'

Transcription

DEMPSTER'S

APPREHENSION

AND

CONFESSION.

A Full and particular Account the Apprehension of
Robert Dempster, junior, Slater in Cupar of Fife,
accused of the Murder of M'DONALD, a Flax-
Dresser, with his slate-hammer, on the High Road
between Craigrothie and Wemyss Hall Gate, a few
weeks ago, and who is now lodged in Cupar Jail,
having been Apprehended at Doune, on Monday
Evening the 25th October 1830.

We understand that ROBERT DEMPSTER, junior, slater Cupar
Fife, accused of murdering M'Donald, flax-dresser, was apprehended
at Doune on Monday night. The circumstances which led to his
apprehension are as follow:?As two Highland drovers (one un-
derstanding English and the other not) were, on Monday about
one o'clock, passing the turnpike gate at Causeway Head, near Stir-
ling, they perceived a man resting by the way side, with whom the
one that had English entered into conversation. The man, then
arose and accompanied them to Doune, and appeared to be in a
very melancholy and disconsolate state; asked the road to Ayr;
and began to narrate, that about a month ago he was drinking in
Fife, and being intoxicated, he struck another man with a slate
hammer, who, in consequence, died on Saturday week last; that he
intended to go to America. On approaching the Bridge of Allan,
he asked one of their plaids, and seemed anxious to conceal him-
self. After arriving at Doune, the drover reflecting upon the in-
telligence he had received, thought it a duty incumbent upon him
to give information to the Civil Authorities in that place. Mr
Christie, one of the Perth Sheriff-officers, immediately apprehended
the man, and carried him before an intelligent Justice of the Peace
in the neighbourhood, who, on exrmining the talkative drover, con-
veyed him to Dunblane.

On Tuesday morning he underwent a judicial examination be-
fore the Sheriff-Substitute and Procurator Fiscal. He acknowledged
having fallen in with M'Donald in one Cooper's, a publican, about
three miles from Craigrothie, with whom he drank three gills ;
that he left the house along with M'Donald, and being urged, and
promised a gill on arriving at Ceres, by M'Donald, he accompanied
him on the road leading to that place, until they arrived at or
about Wemyss Hall gate, where he was irritated by M'Donald
telling him he ought to be hung by the neck like Henderson the
Murderer, and striking him twice across the shoulder and back
with a stick; that he thereon struck M'Donald one blow on the
head with his slate hammer, which felled him to the ground, and
then threw the hammer at him, which also struck him on the
head ; that he immeditely took an indirect road threugh the fields
to Cupar, an offered himself up to the Jailor: that on being re-
fused admittance, he skulked about Cupar and its immediate vi-
cinity, until he heard that M'Donald had died, when he decamped
with the intention of going to America. Dempster farther stated,
that both parties were in a state of inebriation at the time, and they
had no conversation whatever as to money. He was sent off to
Cupar Jail on Wednesday.

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