Murder By Lunatic – The Illustrated Police News – Thursday 11th July 1918
MURDER BY A LUNATIC
EXTRAORDINABY FATALITY IN AN ASYLUM.
At Bishop’s Lydeard, Somerset, Ellen Nichols, inmate of Somerset Lunatic Asylumat Cotford, was charged with having murdered another Inmate named Emily Fleming.
It was stated that prisoner had been in the asylum for six years, and during the whole the time there was constant record of violence by her against nurses and patients. During paroxysms she was isolated in a single room, and when so isolated Emily Fleming, a restless patient, wandered along the corridor and into the room, where she was attacked by the prisoner, who, holding her by the hair, banged her head the floor until she became unconscious, and inflicted a contused wound, 2½ in. long, on the back of the skull.
The injured woman never recovered consciousness, and died on May 6.
Prisoner was remanded to prison in order that she might be certified under the Criminal Lunatic Acts prior to removal to Broadmoor.
The Illustrated Police News – Thursday 11th July 1918