On 13th January 1862, about 1pm, Anne Hannah was found lying in a pool of blood by a neighbour who was passing her door. She had lived with her two brothers in a ‘but and ben’ cottage at Carsfad, 3 miles north of Dalry. She was described as a quiet, decent, rather stout woman, aged about forty. On finding her and getting no response from her, the neighbour, Agnes McLellan, hurried the quarter mile to Knocknalling Lodge, the home of Mr and Mrs Coates, for help. They, together with John Macadam ran back to the cottage, and Robert Coates turned her over to see if her throat had been cut, It had not, so they lifted her onto the bed. All she said was “Oh dear!” twice. There was a bloody butcher’s knife and pools of blood on the floor and a little blood was running down her face. The doctor, Andrew Jackson, was sent for from Dalry and arrived about 2.30pm. He found her senseless and dying, but he dressed her wounds – seven on her head and three on her face, and stayed with her until she died at 9.30 pm.

The nearest neighbour Mary Timney (nee Reid) arrived at the cottage shortly after Anne had been lifted in to bed and seemed very surprised as to what had happened. When asked why she had not noticed anything, she replied that she had been poorly. She stayed for some time until she was sent home by the Anne’s brother. She had had a disagreement with the Hannah’s over some wood and had frequently asked to borrow things from them. They were getting fed up with it and had refused to lend her anything else. That morning William Hannah had lent Mr Timney 2s 6d as he was going away to work until the end of the week and had no cash to leave with his wife. He said that when he returned after he got the message about his sister, and checked to make sure that nothing of his was missing, though he thought his sister had some money which he could not find. H e later discovered later that some tea and sugar, and sugar basin had disappeared.

Lockhart Paterson Hannah went off to New Galloway to fetch the policeman and they did not return until about 6pm when it was dark. John Robson, the police constable, accompanied by two other men, went over to Mrs Timney’s cottage shortly after arriving at Carsfad. They found her there with her four children; she was in bed with all her clothes on. Robson asked her for the clothes she was wearing which she gave him and he found some blood staining on them. He also searched the house and found more clothes rolled in a bundle in the loft above the joists. The dress had been washed and there was what appeared to be spots of blood on the rest including a petticoat and a nightgown which had much more blood on them. He also found a beetle (a kind of wooden mallet) behind the meal barrel which had just been washed, but he left it there at that time, but removed it two days later when it was noticed it still had blood on it.. He arrested Mary that night and took her to New Galloway from where she was taken to Kirkcudbright the next day. The clothes were sent to Edinburgh for analysis together with the beetle and the butcher’s knife.

The trial was held in Dumfries and began on 18th April 1862. The accused claimed that her daughter had purchased the tea and sugar in Dalry on the previous Saturday, but this was proved not to be the case. She also claimed that the beetle didn’t belong to her and that she had never seen it before and that her mother, who lived in Dalry, had been there and committed the murder, but it was proved that her mother had not left her house at all on the fatal day. The jury unanimously found Mary Timney guilty after only 20 minutes and she was sentenced to death. The hanging carried out on the 28th of April 1862 in front of some 3000 spectators despite the exertions of some philanthropic people who tried to have the sentence commuted. A local newspaper article covering the trial stated “it has been a dreadful end to a degraded life, and forms another illustration of the truth of the Divine Word, the wages of sin is – death.”