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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Date of publication:
1830 shelfmark: Ry.III.a.2(103)
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