MARIA THERESA PHIPOE, alias MARY BENSON EXECUTED FOR MURDER.

WE do not recollect ever to have seen the case of any woman who has exhibited so much masculine determination as Mrs. Phipoe. She was twice tried at the Old Bailey upon charges equally atrocious, and each equally exhibiting the ferocity of her disposition.

In the first case, the indictment charged that she had feloniously assaulted Mr. John Cortois, with intent to kill and murder him. Her trial came on at the Old Bailey in the month of January 1795, when it was proved in evidence that the prisoner was a person of abandoned character, and that she kept a house, where she was in the habit of receiving visits of a certain character from gentlemen. Among her other patrons was Mr. John Cortois, a gentleman of considerable property; and it appears that Mr. Cortois having called upon her one evening, he was alarmed at finding himself suddenly seized from behind by his paramour, and her servant, a woman almost as powerful as herself, by whom he was speedily overpowered, and bound to his chair with strong cords. His person being thus secured, Mrs. Phipoe immediately, with horrid imprecations, demanded that he should sign a note or bill in her favour for 2000l., threatening that, in the event of his refusal, she would instantly cut his throat; and even enforcing her demands by holding a knife at his throat in such a position as that on the smallest movement on his part would have procured the infliction of a wound. In a state of the utmost terror and alarm, he consented to attach his name to the instrument which was produced, ready drawn by Mrs. Phipoe, and then he imagined, as a matter of course, that he should be at liberty. But Mrs. Phipoe by this time had begun to consider the possibility of his preventing the negotiation of the note, and determining that “Dead men tell no tales,” she had made up her mind that he should have no opportunity of disclosing the means by which it had been obtained. For this diabolical purpose, she now made a violent attack upon him with a knife, and wounded him in many places; but Mr. Cortois, becoming desperate in his turn, burst the bonds by which he was confined with a violent effort, and attacked his assailant. A struggle took place, in which Mr. Cortois was again mastered by the united efforts of Mrs. Phipoe and her servant; and then a choice was tendered to him whether he would die by poison, by being shot, or by the knife which Mrs. Phipoe brandished in a threatening manner over his head. The unfortunate gentleman was now much weakened by loss of blood, and was almost prevented from opposing the further violence of his demoniac assailants, when, luckily, the cries which he had raised brought him assistance in the shape of a watchman, through whose instrumentality Mrs. Phipoe was secured.

Upon this testimony a verdict of guilty was returned; but a point of law being subsequently raised in favour of the prisoner, it was declared that the judgment must be arrested.

Mrs. Phipoe was, however, subsequently, on the 23rd of May, indicted for the common assault upon Mr. Cortois, and a verdict of guilty having been a second time returned, she was subjected to twelve months’ imprisonment in Newgate.

A year had scarcely elapsed after the termination of the period of her incarceration, before Mrs. Phipoe, or Mrs. Benson, as she was now called, was again in custody on a charge of murder.

She was indicted on the 8th of December 1797, for the wilful murder of Mary Cox; and it appeared that at the time of the commission of this offence, the prisoner lived in lodgings in Garden-street, St. George’s in the East. On the night of the murder, Mrs. Cox called upon her; but within a short time after she had entered her room, a scuffle was heard, followed by loud groans. The mistress of the house demanded to know the cause of the disturbance, but the prisoner declared that it was only Mrs. Cox in a fit. The door being opened, however, Mrs. Benson was observed to be covered with blood, and Mrs. Cox was found lying on the ground desperately wounded. Two persons immediately went for a doctor, while a constable was also sent for, by whom the prisoner was taken into custody. Mrs. Cox, on being examined, was found to have sustained some severe wounds, from which there was no prospect of her recovering; and she pointed out Mrs. Benson as the person by whom they had been inflicted. A large clasp-knife, covered with blood, was found on the table in the room; and by its side lay a part of a finger; and on Mrs. Benson being questioned, she admitted that that was the knife with which “she had done the woman’s business;” and said that her own finger had been cut off in the scuffle. Mrs. Cox subsequently died in the hospital, from the effects of the stabs she had received, having previously made a declaration before a magistrate as to the circumstances attending her murder. She said that having purchased a gold watch of the prisoner for 11l., she asked that a coffee-cup, which she pointed out, might be given to her into the bargain. The prisoner bade her take it; but on her raising her hand to remove it from the shelf, she received a stab in the neck, which was followed by many others in the same place and on different parts of her body. The prisoner subsequently got her on the bed, and swore that she would murder her outright, that she should not tell her own tale; but she was interrupted by the entrance of the landlady.

The prisoner in her defence declared that Mrs. Cox had abused her, and had violently wounded her, so as to cut off part of her finger before she offered any violence to her; but that then, being maddened with pain and rage, she admitted she had attacked her. She knew nothing of what subsequently occurred, until she was found by her landlady in her own room covered with blood.

The jury having returned a verdict that the prisoner was guilty, she behaved with great hardihood, frequently interrupting the learned judge (Mr. Baron Perryn) in his observations, while condemning her to death.

Sentence having been passed, however, that she should be hanged and subsequently dissected, she was removed from the bar, and then she appeared to be fully sensible of her guilt, and of the nature of her present position.

She was executed before Newgate, December the 11th, 1797; and after hanging an hour in the view of a great number of spectators, one-third of whom were females, the body was cut down, and delivered to the surgeons for dissection.

In her last moments she confessed the justice of her sentence, but denied having cut off her own finger, saying it was done in the scuffle with the woman she murdered. She owned to have been guilty of many enormities, and attributed her frequent gusts of passion to the use of laudanum.

Her body was publicly exhibited in a place built for the purpose in the Old Bailey.