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- Grahamstown Journal transcribed by Sue Mackay.
Friday 23 February 1883
BRUTAL MURDER – SOMERSET EAST
From a Correspondent
On Tuesday morning last the inhabitants of Somerset were shocked by the dreadful intelligence that Mrs. LEPPAN, wife of Wm. Oliver LEPPAN, attorney, residing in this place, had been brutally flogged to death by her husband. From subsequent investigation the leading facts are substantially as follows:- LEPPAN (the husband of the deceased lady, who was a daughter of Professor KIDD, formerly of Gill College) had gone to Zwager’s Hoek, during which time Mrs. LEPPAN had made arrangements to leave her husband, and had (so rumour states) taken her ticket on Monday to leave by passenger cart on Tuesday morning for Cookhouse. At present it would not be well to assume what the reasons were of her intended departure. On Monday evening LEPPAN returned from Zwager’s Hoek, and during the same night committed the dreadful deed for which he now lies in gaol, awaiting trial. At the preliminary examination held yesterday before the Resident Magistrate, the statement of Dr. MOOLMAN and BUDLER was taken, who declared that the deceased lady had died by reason of the extreme violence done to her body and shock caused to the whole system. The entire body was one mass of bruises, and the stripes too many and too close to be counted. More than 100 stripes, however, could be counted, distinct from the general mass of bruises. And this terrible flogging, which was inflicted with a huge horse sjambok (we shudder almost as we write) was inflicted apparently on the bare body of the unfortunate lady, the body being found in a state of nudity and rigid. At some time during the evening she must have been on the bed, as the blood from the lacerated body had soaked through two mattresses, while there was but little blood on the night-dress, the inference being that she had been divested even of that garment. At four am on Tuesday morning LEPPAN hastened to call a doctor, saying “come quickly, my wife is dying”. Dr. MOOLMAN was soon on the spot, and found life extinct, and this he concluded had been the case for half an hour or more. LEPPAN then stated that he had given her a whipping, and finding his wife dead, asked the Dr. “What would you advise?” It was suggested that he should report the matter at once. He then said “Will you do so for me?” This was done, and soon after LEPPAN was apprehended and committed to gaol. The prisoner cross-questioned the several witnesses yesterday and then made his statement, which was very lengthy, and entered into minute particulars respecting what transpired during the night, finally coming to the chief points, which may be thus summarised: “On my return I picked up an envelope in my wife’s handwriting to Mr. ___ ___, and marked ‘private’ in the corner (this envelope, however, is not forthcoming). I asked what it meant, and what I was to think about it? She said ‘You may think of it what you like’. I then got angry and said ‘Give me your keys, for I mean to get at the bottom of this’. She said she would not, and I became exasperated and struck her two or three times with the sjambok. She said ‘That is just what I want, now beat me’. She sat still on the bed and I beat her.” At the confession there was a great [reaction] in Court. “We afterwards made it up, and I dressed her wounds. This was because she asked me to forgive her this once, which I did. Later during the night she got up and went to get something for the baby, and I heard a heavy fall. Then after she had laid down I heard her groan, and asked what was the matter. She said she had fallen down the steps. After a time I heard her breathing heavily and [short]. I asked ‘What is the matter?’ She did not reply. I thought she had fainted and went for the doctor, and when he came she was dead.”
The prisoner’s remarkably composed manner in court, and more than all his attempt to account for his wife’s death by the fall (if true) and to prove that she had been unfaithful to him (a matter about which the least said by the prisoner the better) tended largely to alienate from the prisoner any pity which the public may have felt for him under the circumstances.
Further revelations will doubtless soon be made, throwing more light upon this awful case. Two men were under sentence of death here a few months ago, the one being executed a few weeks back, and now another murderer occupies our prison whose crime appears of yet deeper dye.
We may mention that prisoner requested to be tried at the Circuit Court to be held here on the 8th March.
The deceased lady was the eldest daughter of Mr. T. KYD of Murraysburg, late Professor in the Gill College here, and much sympathy is expressed for the family under the sad bereavement. She was barely 22 years of age, and leaves two little children.
Her brother, Mr. R. KYD, clerk to the Magistrate of Cradock, arrived on Tuesday evening, the other members of the family being too far distant to come.
The funeral took place on Wednesday at 11 o’clock, and was very numerously attended, considering that the preliminary examination of her husband was being conducted at the same time.
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