'Maria Marten, aged twenty-five, daughter of a mole-catcher at Polstead, Suffolk, formed an imprudent connection with William Corder, son of a neighbouring farmer; he frequently visited her at her father's, and at last persuaded her to leave home with him on the l9th May, 1827, to go to Ipswich to be married. To deceive the neighbours she put on a man's dress, intend-ing to resume her own at a place called the Red Barn, on the farm belonging to Corder's mother. It was about twelve o'clock at noon when they left her father's, Maria going out at one door and Corder by another, to avoid attracting attention; and having met some distance off, they proceeded together towards the barn. Corder had a gun with him, and before leaving the cottage, Maria asked him in the hearing of her mother, "Is this gun loaded, William?" to which he replied, "Yes." Some days after, Corder came to Polstead, alone, and, when questioned by the girl's parents, he said the marriage had not yet taken place, because he could not bring her home without displeasing his relations, but that he had left her in a place of safety, and hoped to make an arrangement for the wedding, and to bring her home in six weeks; he added that Maria's sister might wear her clothes, for she would not want them again. On the mother's inquiry, some time after, why her daughter never wrote, he made the excuse, that she was unaccustomed to use the pen, and delayed a task that was irksome. To the neighbours who asked him what he had done with his partner, he answered that she was in a place where he could go to her whenever he liked. In a short time Corder's health became impaired, and, in accordance with real or pretended medical advice, he expressed an intention of going abroad. Accordingly, he left home in September, having previously showed great anxiety to have the Red Barn well filled, and himself assisted to store grain into it. Subsequently to this, letters from him were received both by his own relations and the Martens. In one to the girl's father, he said she was now his wife, and complained, as if by her desire, that a letter of hers had not been answered; in another letter he gave an account of having made at the post-office an investigation concerning the miscarriage of Maria's letter. These letters of Corder's showed that in place of going to the Continent he had remained in London. In the meantime, suspicions began to be entertained by the young woman's parents. Corder's conduct was so variable, and he made so many pretexts without substantiating them. Strange surmises also ran among the neighbours. Thomas Marten, Maria's brother, recollected, as an unaccountable circumstance, that about three o'clock in the afternoon of the day when his sister went off, he had seen Corder walking across a field in the direction of the Red Barn, with a pickaxe over his shoulder, when it was reasonable to suppose he should have been at a distance from that neighbourhood. All these things concurred to disturb the family, and the alarm was brought to its height by the mother dreaming, three successive nights, that her daughter had been murdered, and buried in the Red Barn. Upon this, she insisted that the floor should be taken up and search made. This was done by the father and others on the 19th of April, 1828, and a sack was discovered containing a female corpse, not so much decayed but that marks of violence were perceptible. The body was identified as that of Maria Marten, by the want of two teeth - one on the left side of the upper jaw, and the other on the right side of the lower jaw. Corder had married in the interval, and lived, apparently, happy. He was apprehended at Ealing, in Essex; condemned upon circumstantial evidence; confessed the murder while in prison under sentence, and was executed in August, 1828.' - Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, vol. i. October 13, 1832.

* "Black Calendar of Aberdeen," p. 61.