Infant murder

In April 1885, Ann Preston was charged with wilful murder of her infant child.

History
The body of a new born infant was found in an abandoned mine shaft in Redan in March 1885: "Inspector Parkinson, in company with Constables Brennan and Taylor, to-day arrested a young woman named Annie Preston, aged twenty-two years, on the charge of child murder. It will be remembered that a few days ago the body of a newly born child, with its head smashed in, was found at the bottom of an old shaft at Redan. Dr. Woinarski, who made the post mortem examination of the body gave it as his opinion that, the infant was born healthy, was fully developed, and that its head had either been beaten against or had fallen on some hard substance. The black trackers were subsequently brought to Ballarat, and they succeeded in tracking footprints from the old shaft up to the vicinity of Miss Preston's dwelling. This morning the police informed the unfortunate girl of their mission, and she in reply said that the child was hers, but it was dead when she placed it in the hole. Dr. Jordan, who examined the girl, stated that she had recently been confined. The police conveyed the prisoner to the city lockup, but as she was in a very weak state, she had afterwards to be placed in the gaol hospital. It is understood that the girl will be brought before the police court on Friday next. Much sympathy is felt for the prisoner's family, who are hard working, highly respectable people."

The charges were reported in April 1885: Alleged Child Murder. The young woman Ann Preston, charged with the wilful murder of her infant child at Redan, on or about the 16th March, was brought up at the Ballarat police-court on Tuesday. She was undefended, and Superintendent Ryall conducted the prosecution. Dr. Woinarski deposed that the child had lived, and that death had resulted from fracture of the skull, caused by a fall or a blow. Evidence was given by Mary Ann O'Brien, a fellow-prisoner of accused in the Ballaarat Gaol, to the effect that Preston had told her that she was delivered of the child on a Wednesday night, and that it had lived for half an hour, and had bled to death. She kept it in her own room, under her bed, till the following Saturday, when she gave the body to a woman, named Corbett, to dispose of. After hearing all the evidence, the Bench committed the accused to take her trial at the next assizes on the capital charge.