 Chapter 4 of Survivors' Tales of Famous Crimes. 2 Brothers and 2 Sisters were sentenced to death at the Old Bailey on September 26, 1877, by Mr. Justice Hawkins, who thence Ford became known undeservedly as the Hanging Judge. The prisoners, all young people, were Patrick Llewellyn Storton, artist, Elizabeth Ann, his wife, Louis Dolphys Edmund Storton, Octodiers Clark, and Alice Rhodes, a young woman, mistress of Lewis and sister of Mrs. Patrick Storton. After a trial lasting seven long days, the courthead were found guilty of the murder by starvation of a weak-minded woman named Harriet Storton, the wife of Lewis, and were condemned. In passing sentence, the judge referred to the murder as a crime so back and hideous that I believe in all records of crime it would be difficult to find its parallel. The death sentences, however, were not carried out. Alice Rhodes was speedily released, and the other sentences were commuted to penal servitude for life. Patrick Storton died in prison. His wife was released after a few years, and under another name, prospered in business. In 1897, Lewis Storton was released, married, had a family, and under a new name, did well. One of the witnesses called at the trial was Mr. J. T. Hilda, stationmaster at Pinge, now retired, and it is his story which is told. End of Editors' Comment On April 12, 1877, I was on duty at Pinge Station, where I was stationmaster. A train which was due at 8.36 p.m. came in, and two young men and a woman lighted. I particularly noticed these three because the men began to drag the woman along the platform, each holding an arm. It was quite clear that for some reason the woman could not walk, and I went up and made an examination. The woman did not speak, and she was in a terrible condition. I said to the men, this lady is not in a fit state to be dragged along the platform. Don't drag her, I'll send her a chair, so that she can be carried. My ticket collector, Marsh, was near, and I told him to get a chair. He fetched one from the waiting room, and the woman was put onto it. She was shaking violently, but did not make any remark. It was an ordinary chair, such as you saw in waiting rooms at railway stations nearly forty years ago. We had no invalid chairs in those days. While the lady was seated on a platform, a cab was sent for her. This took some time because we had to send up to the village for one. Peng was then a good class suburb, very different from the Peng of today. When the cab came I advised the two men to carry the lady to it on the chair, and they did so. They took the chair from the platform and put it as close as possible to the door of the cab. The lady was lifted from the seat into the vehicle, which then drove away. A stationmaster has a very busy life, and busy it was indeed in those days, though I loved the work, and I had no time to dwell on the subject of the two men and the helpless lady. The incident did not make any great impression on my mind, but I remember that the men did not say anything except to thank me. I heard nothing more about the matter until the next day, when our family doctor, Dr. Longrig, told me that the lady had died at No. 34 Forbes Road, and that she had been in the house only a very short time, a few hours. From what he said, I could not doubt that this was the lady who had been dragged along the platform at the station by the two men. But I did not suspect that anything was seriously wrong, until a police sergeant came and told me that I should be wanted to give evidence at an inquiry into the circumstances attending the death of the lady at No. 34. Time has dulled my memory, of course, regarding many details, but I remember saying, oh, bother it, all my arrangements will be upset, can't you get someone else? The sergeant did get someone else, but he got me also, and for more than three months I was closely connected with what became known as the Pang Mystery, a murder case which absorbed the attention of the whole country, and one concerning which there was an amazing divergence of opinion. Later on I will tell you what my own opinion was and what it still is. Meanwhile, I want to say that I had what I think is an unusual experience. I was to have been called as a juryman at the inquest, but I got out of that duty and instead I was compelled to appear as a witness at the inquest, the police court proceedings and the trial which ended in the two men I had seen on the platform at Pang, and the two women being sentenced to death for the murder of the lady who had been taken to the cab to No. 34. The case in itself was so horrible and extraordinary that at the time little else talked about. It proved an amazing sensation and I am going to say something which I believe has not been said by anyone so far, and it is this, that the bringing to trial and the judgment of these four people was very greatly due to the persistent enterprise of a penny aligner, a man of the real old school of newspaper correspondence. I do not remember his name, he is pretty certain to be dead now, for he was older than I, but I can quite clearly recall his appearance. He was a little short man and had a lot of whiskers, a persistent little fellow he was who gave me and others no rest and who did everything he could to force the matter onto the attention of the public and the police. I am sure that it was largely due to his efforts that the Pang mystery became so famous. Bit by bit the case was built up and it was an awful story that was unfolded when at the old Bailey the Stoughtons and Alice Rhodes were tried for the murder of Harriet, the wife of Lewis. It was a terrible thing to see the two brothers, young men and the two sisters, young women, in the dock together. The case of Alice Rhodes was particularly sad for while in prison awaiting trial she had given birth to a child and she was herself only a girl just out of her teens. The father of the child was Louis Stoughton with whom she had been living while Harriet was being slowly done to death. The old court at the old Bailey, what a horrible place it was, where Mr. Justice Hawkins presided, who was packed day after day many of the persons present being ladies who had gone to the court just as they would have gone to the theatre having plenty of spare time on their hands and finding amusement necessary. For my own part I greatly disliked being concerned in the business and I was always glad to get away and back to my work. There were some famous men connected to the case the Attorney General Sir John Holker and the Solicitor General Sir Hardinger Gifford as well as Mr. Poland, Q. C. Lewis Stoughton was defended by Mr. Montague Williams and Mr. Charles Matthews, Patrick Stoughton was defended by Mr. now Sir Edward Clark and Patrick's wife and Alice Rhodes were ably represented by other counsel. I have been reading Mr. Montague Williams' reminiscences lately and Sir Edward Clark's speeches and they have in many ways brought back this famous trial vividly into my memory. I remember Mr. Montague Williams quite well. He was at that time at the height of his fame. I was particularly struck by the extraordinary way in which his face worked when he addressed the jury or cross-examined the witnesses. This was the case which made the reputation of Sir Edward Clark. I have read in one of his speeches that as a result of it his income which had steadily increased to 3,000 pounds a year suddenly rose to 5,000. The story which was unfolded in that crowded foul court during those seven long drawn-out days was one of the most terrible and dramatic ever known, even in a criminal court. Harriet Stoughton was the daughter of a Mrs. Richardson who became Mrs. Butterfield by her second marriage with a clergyman of that name. Mother and daughter did not get on well together and in 1874 Harriet Richardson, as she then was, went to live with an aunt at Walworth. There she became acquainted with a mother of Miss Patrick Stoughton and Alice Rhodes and fatal thing for her as it proved with Louis Stoughton who visited the aunt's house. Louis was a young fellow of 24, not well off by any means and there is no doubt that he learned that Harriet had money of her own as well as expectations and determined to marry her, though she was ten years older than himself, feeble-minded and certainly not personally attractive. In all she was worth about 3,000 pounds. It was not long after their first meeting that Louis and Harriet became engaged despite the opposition of Miss Butterfield who unsuccessfully tried to get her daughter officially certified as a lunatic. A bitter feeling sprang up between Harriet's mother and Louis especially when the young man had married Harriet at Clapham. And there was reason for Miss Butterfield's dislike for Louis behaved insolently towards her and she knew that he had lost no time in laying hands on Harriet's ready money and getting her to make over to him all that she was entitled to receive. In this respect, matters reached such a state that Miss Butterfield was forbidden to call and see her daughter and her requests for information concerning Harriet were ignored. Later on, Miss Butterfield's resolute actions undoubtedly did much to put the police on the track of the Stoughtons and bring them to the fearful position in which they found themselves at the Central Criminal Court. I ought to explain that the trial in the Ordinary Course of Things should have taken place at the assizes at Maidstone but owing to the strong local feeling against the prisoners it was transferred to the Old Bailey. Very soon after the marriage, Louis and his wife and Patrick and his wife were living in the same street at Brixton where Harriet gave birth to a boy. By that time Alice Rhodes was living in the house and guilty relationship existed between her and Louis. Very well might Mr. Montague Williams describe the Pang Mystery as a terrible story of crime and debauchery. One of the saddest parts of the whole dreadful business is that Harriet knew what was going on but was not mentally capable of getting redressed. She seems to have been really attached to her worthless husband and the poor little child which was come to a sorry end. From Brixton, Louis and Harriet went to live at Gypsy Hill, Norwood. Then it came about that all the Stoughtons and a girl called Clara Brown were at the end of 1875 living at Cudham a lonely little village in Kent. Patrick and his wife occupied a five room house called the Woodlands and about a mile away Louis lived in a small farm which was known as Little Graves. It was at this stage that the measures were taken which ended in Harriet's pitiful death. Louis Staunton declared that Harriet was intemperate and that he would leave her. The post-mortem examination showed no trace of such indulgence and accordingly he arranged that Harriet and their child should live with his brother at the Woodlands and that he should pay one pound a week for their maintenance. As soon as he'd got rid of his wife and the child in this way Louis was living with Alice Rhodes as his wife and the pair were known as Mr. and Mrs. Staunton. During all this time Mrs. Butterfield, Harriet's mother had not let matters rest. She heard rumors of ill treatment and, meeting Alice Rhodes at the London Bridge Station, she demanded to know what was happening. It should be borne in mind that she had seen Louis and Harriet and both had forbidden her to go near the house at Cudham Harriet doubtless acting under her husband's influence. Alice declared that she did not know anything and Mrs. Butterfield noticed that she was wearing Harriet's favorite brooch. Patrick Staunton was as bad as his brother Louis or he threatened Mrs. Butterfield warning her not to go near Cudham as he had a gun. The evidence given at the trial showed that Patrick was a man with a violent temper which caused him frequently to resort to physical force. When, for the last time, Mrs. Butterfield went to Little Graze and inquired about Harriet she was told that her daughter was well but that she should not see her. Louis Staunton, who was present, took up a knife and threatened his mother-in-law but Miss Patrick interfered and pushed Mrs. Butterfield out the door. As a result of her experience at Little Graze Mrs. Butterfield communicated with the police but nothing definite was done in a matter for the time being. By this time Louis had secured everything that had been his wife's. He had gotten Harriet out of the way and he was set to work to get rid of the helpless little child. The poor might was already in a very bad way. The two brothers and Mrs. Patrick took it to Guy's hospital and there a lying story was told and a false name was given. On the day following its admission to the hospital the child died. No notice was taken of the affair though later on Mr. Justice Hawkins said he was satisfied that they had brought about its death. The child had been his mother's companion at the Woodlands where Harriet was kept a prisoner in one small and filthy room and where she was being slowly starved to death. She grew weaker and weaker, got dirtier and dirtier until at last she was in a state that can hardly be described. At first she took her meals with the family. Then the servant girl, Clara Brown, took to the squalid room such oddments of food that the Stoughtons felt disposed to give the wretched prisoner who was brutally beaten at times by Patrick Stoughton. Harriet's outdoor clothing was taken from her so that she could not leave the house and the two or three garments that were left to her got into a hopelessly venous and unclean condition. Purpose which Louis Stoughton had in mind was being surely carried out. That purpose was to get rid of Harriet and marry the girl Alice Rhodes and carrying it out Louis had the very great help of his brother and his sister-in-law to a lesser extent that of the betrayed girl also. The time came when it was seen that Harriet was dying and then it was that steps were taken out to get the poor soul into another district so that when the end came a certificate could be obtained without awkward questions being asked. The Stoughtons resolved to take Harriet into lodgings at Peng and in doing so they made one of those amazing blunders which have so often sent the most cunning murderers to the gallows. They thought that by going to Peng they would be in the county of Surrey and that the death would be registered at Croydon and they discovered as a matter of fact that the lodgings they had taken were not in Surrey but in Kent, though only a few yards from the boundary so that in this respect they had been completely baffled. The brothers and Patrick's wife had taken the lodgings at Peng saying that they were wanted for an invalid lady who could eat but would not and giving the impression that she was a relative was said as to Harriet being Lewis's wife. Having engaged the rooms the three returned to Cudham and made preparations for the last journey of the dying woman. They dressed her and in the evening carried her down and put her into a wagonette which Lewis had and in this they drove to Bromley Station where they took the train to Peng from which I saw them alight. When they reached the lodgings the brothers left Patrick and Alice Rhodes remaining in charge of the victim. Throughout that unspeakable night these three women one surely dying and the two watching her were in the room. Doubtless Harriet was past all consciousness but what must have been the feelings of the watchers knowing what they did know? It was about nine o'clock at night when Harriet Stanton was carried into the lodgings. That was on a Thursday shortly before two o'clock on the following afternoon she died. Immediately steps were taken to register the death and now it was that justice began to overtake the Stanton's. Lewis Stanton had obtained a certificate from Dr. Longrig that the death was due to a cerebral disease and a poplixy. But the doctor soon withdrew that certificate and communicated with the coroner. The suspicions had been aroused in an astonishing way. Lewis Stanton, not knowing where the death should be registered went into a shop which was a sub-post office to inquire. It happened that there was in the shop a man named Casabianca who heard Lewis ask questions and mentioned that the deceased woman came from Cudham. Casabianca was at once deeply interested and amazed as well he might be for he was the dead woman's brother-in-law. Lewis went away and Harriet's death was ultimately registered at Bromley by a nurse who had been called in at the lodgings. Casabianca promptly gave information to Dr. Longrig and to the police. Mrs. Butterfield heard of the death and hurried to the lodgings and saw her dead daughter in a coffin. On the coroner's warrant a post-mortem examination of the body of Harriet Stanton was made and it was found that the unfortunate woman was literally a skeleton weighing only a little over five stone. It was clear that the woman had been slowly starved to death. An inquest was held, the jury met several times and as the result of it the Stanton's and Alice Roads were arrested on a charge of willful murder. On that charge also was committed for a trial by the Bromley magistrates. The long and terrible trial at the Old Bailey was ended by the judges summing up which became famous. Powerful speeches had been made for the defense which took the line that the death was due to tubercular meningitis. The summing up was one of the most remarkable things of its kind on the record. It began at half past ten in the morning and such a spoke until twenty minutes to ten at night with only short intervals for refreshments. I was not present in court at the very end of the trial. I had gone away as soon as I knew that I should not be wanted again and it was not until the next morning that I heard that all the prisoners had been sentenced to death. I knew, however, that the last scene had been a terrible one as dreadful surely as any that was ever witnessed even at the Old Bailey where two brothers and two sisters had been sentenced to the gallows. It was not far short of midnight when the judge pronounced the words of doom. After an absence of about an hour and a half the jury returned to court and in tones that could be scarcely heard because of his deep emotion the foreman in answer to each of the four questions put forth by the clerk of a reign said, guilty. It happened that the streets outside the Old Bailey were packed with people but this trial had gripped the popular imagination in a most remarkable manner. By some means the verdict became known to the crowd almost as soon as it had been given and there entered into the densely packed foul gaslit court a roar of exultation and execration even as the judge's wick was covered by the black cap. When the verdict was given Alice Rhodes fainted in the dock the doomed brothers clasped hands. It was said of them that in spite of all their faults they were devoted to each other and the miserable mother of the gall-born babe moaned oh, give me a chair as the judge uttered the words which consigned her to the hangman. According to the sentence the execution was to take place at Maidstone Gall and the condemned prisoners were taken there but though the verdict was received with an almost unanimous approval yet there soon became a movement for the alteration of the punishment largely on the ground that the judge had ignored the evidence for the defense the object of which was to show that Harriet's death was due to natural causes. Alice Rhodes was speedily released and at last, though there seemed every probability of the brothers being hanged they were reprieved with Mrs. Patrick one of them going to spend twenty long years in a penal servitude and one to die in gall. End of Chapter 4 The Peng Mystery Recording by Luke V May 1, 2010 Chapter 5 of Survivors' Tales of Famous Crimes This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Anne Voulay Survivors' Tales of Famous Crimes edited by Walter Wood Chapter 5 Kate Webster's Revenge Early in 1879 a murder was committed at Richmond which for callousness and savagery has few parallels. The affair became known as the Barnes Mystery because of the discovery at Barnes of a box containing human remains. These proved to be portions of the body of a lady named Mrs. Julia Martha Thomas The story which follows tells how the mystery was solved Mr. George Henry Rudd whose narrative it is was one of the professional witnesses called in the celebrated case I knew nothing whatever about Kate Webster until I was concerned in the case through the action of the police I had treated as a patient Mrs. Julia Martha Thomas a lady who lived at Vine Cottages, Richmond She came to me in an ordinary way and I saw her in my surgery It was necessary that I should make a cast on her mouth and this I did At that time, February 22nd 1879 Mrs. Thomas was a total stranger to me but she saw me again four days later and for the last time on March 1st I never saw her again In the ordinary course of things a bill was forwarded and this brought me into communication with the police from whom I learned that Mrs. Thomas had been murdered in exceptionally atrocious circumstances Soon afterwards a woman named Kate Webster who had been Mrs. Thomas' servant for a few weeks was arrested and charged with the murder of her mistress and as I had to appear as a witness at the preliminary investigation by the magistrates I became as well acquainted with the appearance of the accused individual as I was without of my patient This circumstance is interesting because it happened that the servant passed herself off as the mistress Though it would be impossible to imagine two persons who were more unalike each other than these Mrs. Thomas was a small well-dressed lady while Webster was an uncommonly tall, powerful and ill-favored woman looking as if she belonged to the tramp class Mrs. Thomas was about 54 years of age at the time of her death and Webster was something under 30 This attempt of the servant to pass herself off as her mistress proved to be one of those deadly errors which are so often committed by murderers who in other respects have carried out their intentions with great cunning The story which was gradually unfolded showed that a crime of almost unparalleled ferocity had been committed The public at that time became well acquainted with the ghastly details of the affair but it is not necessary to recall or dwell on them now The chief interest of the crime centers in the method of its execution The strong probability there was at the outset that it would never be discovered and the subsequent slow building of the evidence which at last sent the tall, gaunt woman to the scaffold There was a good deal of delay in preparing the case for the crown but this was inevitable in view of the circumstantial nature of the testimony and the large number of witnesses who were called There were more than 50 of them It might easily have happened that on the mere casual visit to my surgery of a patient and the making of a model in the usual way would have depended the positive identification of the deceased lady but the identity was proved completely in other and many ways and the guilt of the accused woman was thoroughly established I had last seen Mrs. Thomas on March 1 which was a Saturday On the following day in the evening she was seen alive for the last time She vanished After her disappearance began the sensational case which became known first as the barn's mystery and then as the Richmond murder It attracted an amount of attention which will be readily recalled and understood by a very great number of persons who are still living and are not very old at that On that first Sunday in March Mrs. Thomas was seen at the Presbyterian service which was held in the lecture hall at Richmond Certainly between 7 and 8 in the evening she was known to be alive Towards the close of that Sunday Mrs. Thomas went home and about 9 o'clock a sound was heard by someone in the adjoining house Such a sound as that which would be made by a heavy chair falling but no particular attention was paid to it at the time Vine cottages were and are a pair of semi-detached small villas and are so built a wall only dividing them that sounds are readily heard between one and the other At that time the adjoining house was occupied by Mrs. Thomas' landlady an independent lady named Miss Ives Early on the following morning on Monday while it was still dark a light was noticed in one of the bedrooms at the back of Mrs. Thomas' house and from the back premises there came the sound of boiling in the copper These sounds were familiar and were associated with washing which so often begins early on Monday morning in many households A very unusual and unpleasant smell was also noticed by the neighbors but none of the incidents I have mentioned caused suspicion that there was anything wrong or that anything unusual had happened to Mrs. Thomas There was no sign of Mrs. Thomas throughout that Monday but Kate Webster was seen by several people who called for orders Webster was apparently going about her duties in the ordinary way as servant She seemed to be busy washing for the copper had been in use and she was hanging things out to dry To tradespeople she gave orders calmly and to one caller who saw her at the door she explained that she was very busy getting the house ready for visitors who were expected At that time her sleeves were rolled up and there was every appearance of her statement being correct During the whole of that Monday from before six o'clock in the morning when the boiling of the copper was plainly heard in the adjoining house Webster was busily engaged in doors and there was nothing to show that she was not performing her ordinary duties On Tuesday Webster much more smartly dressed than it was her custom to be and wearing jewelry went to Hammersmith and called on some people there named Porter She told them she was now a widow that her name was Mrs. Thomas and that she had come into some property at Richmond This was one of the many mistakes committed by Webster in her attempts to conceal the guilt which was finally established against her On Tuesday, utterly unlike the woman she was personating and in view of what she had done it is amazing that she made such an extraordinary statement After spending some time at the house at Hammersmith, Webster went out with Porter and his son a lad of about 16 years who afterwards proved a most important witness for the crown She was then carrying a common black bag which she had taken to Hammersmith with her the weight being estimated at about 25 pounds It was arranged that Webster and the man and his son should go out together and the three went towards Barnes where the porters entered a public house While they were inside Webster temporarily vanished and when she rejoined the porters she no longer carried the black bag No particular attention was paid to the fact that the bag was missing for it is the sort of article that she would be disposed of without exciting comment or notice After some talk Webster said she would like the lad to go back to Richmond with her as she wanted his help in carrying a box from Vine Cottages to the station and it was arranged that young Porter should assist but it was stipulated that he should get home in time to go to bed so that he should not be late for work on the following morning Webster and the lad proceeded together and while he remained below she went upstairs and brought down a corded wooden box about a foot square the kind of thing which is used by carpenters for holding tools As a matter of fact this particular box was used by Mrs. Thomas to hold a couple of bonnets which she wore It was for its size a very heavy box and this was the thing which she needed help to carry to the station to which she said she was going Webster committed a fatal error for it became an easy matter to prove that the box was the property of Mrs. Thomas and to associate its contents with the crime that had been so deliberately carried out Webster at this time seems to have been quite cheerful and self-possessed Before leaving the house she ran her fingers over the piano belonging to Mrs. Thomas who was I believe a good musician and remarked that it was a fine instrument The corded box was lifted up and Webster and the lad left the house but instead of going to the railway station they proceeded to Richmond Bridge and crossed it At the other side of the bridge the box was placed in the farthest recess the woman telling the lad to put it down and go away and that she would join him she told him to go towards the station and accordingly he began to recross the bridge The lad was walking towards the Richmond end when he heard a slight splash When he reached the end of the bridge Webster rejoined him but she had no box with her The lad however does not seem to have been suspicious and he afterwards said that Webster's conduct did not strike him as being peculiar She gave a satisfactory excuse and said that they would now get home As he had missed his last train to Hammersmith he went to Vine Cottages and spent the night there On the Wednesday morning on the lower side of Barns railway bridge a box was found just as the tide was ebbing This was at a quarter to seven o'clock and the man who saw it being suspicious communicated with the police with the result that the box was examined and found to contain human remains It was taken to Barns mortuary At about the same time other human remains were discovered on a refuse heap at Twickenham a foot and ankle and it was soon obvious that these and the contents of the box had belonged to the same person There was not however anything to connect these discoveries with the disappearance of Mrs. Thomas but that mystery was soon to be cleared up to a very great extent Meanwhile Webster had been very busy Through her friends the porters she had got into touch with a publican named church with a reputation that she had furniture at Vine Cottages which she wished to sell Unsuspecting church entered into negotiations with the result that he agreed to buy the things and got as far as having a van at Vine Cottages to take them away Now came the beginning of the developments that explained the non-appearance of Mrs. Thomas and the singular sounds which had been heard in her house The landlady, Miss Ives seeing the van and the preparations for removal naturally became curious to know what was being done by her tenant She asked Webster where Mrs. Thomas was and how it happened that she had not said anything of her intention to leave the house Webster became confused and made unsatisfactory answers the result being that the van men were paid a certain sum and went away taking a few small articles with them and Webster hurried to Hammersmith borrowed a sovereign, took her child a boy who had been staying there and fled to Ennis-Corthy in Ireland, her native place There was now every reason for the intervention of the police and accordingly they took charge of the matter and set to work methodically to find out what had taken place Very soon it was established that an exceptionally dreadful murder had been committed and that there was a close connection between the disappearance of Mrs. Thomas and the discovery of the human remains at Barnes Bridge and Twickenham Examination of the house showed that there were blood stains on various parts of the walls and the floors that there were cows and human bones in the kitchen fireplace and under the copper and that the outside of the copper had been newly whitewashed There were other signs of atrocity which it is not necessary to mention but the main inference was clear and it was this that a terrible murder had been committed and that uncommon pains had been taken to remove all evidence of the crime The next stage in the dreadful drama was the sending of police officers to Ennis-Corthy and the arrest of Kate Webster on the charge of murdering Mrs. Thomas Webster was taken into custody and brought back to Richmond by way of Holy Head On the journey, having been charged and cautioned, she made a statement which amounted to this that she knew that her mistress had been murdered and she endeavored to make out that the crime had been committed by other people On the strength of what she said Church, an entirely innocent man was arrested and placed in a position of terrible peril but it was soon obvious that there was not a shadow of ground for the accusation against him and he became an important witness for the crown Little by little the dreadful nature of the crime was revealed and by the time Webster appeared before the judge and jury at the Central Criminal Court the murder had been pretty well reconstructed And this was the story Mrs. Thomas had been slain and the body had been cut up and partly burned and partly boiled The kitchen fire and the copper having been used for these purposes In order to get rid of some portions of the remains, the wooden box had been thrown into the river at Richmond Bridge and had been discovered at Barnes Railway Bridge Other parts of the body doubtless including the head have been put in the black bag and disposed of, but no trace of that was ever found after it was seen in Webster's possession It will be seen how nearly Webster entirely escaped She had succeeded so well in the earlier stages of her crime that it is surprising she did not continue the success to the very end but murder will out in this case Apart from the fact that important parts of the remains were never found there were sufficient left to leave no question as to the identity of the murdered individual It might of course have happened that the chief point in the identification would have depended upon proving that the model which I had taken exactly corresponded with the mouth of the deceased But fortunately for justice there were other ways of establishing and when Webster was finally committed for trial there was a strong case against her There were the signs at the house The corded box was known to have been used by Mrs. Thomas as a bonded box and the furniture removal men had taken a few things away dresses in the pockets of which were comprising letters In her hasty flight too the prisoner had left her watch behind and this was found Though quite apart from that her association with the house and being in it when the murder must have been committed there was another thing proved which was of great importance A gold plate was produced which I examined and compared with the cast I had taken of the lower jaw of Mrs. Thomas I found that this plate corresponded with the cast and left no doubt that it had belonged to the deceased lady though she was not wearing it when she came to see me This plate was given by Webster to a man to sell and he disposed of it for six shillings Webster gave him a shilling for his trouble The murder was so uncommonly atrocious that it aroused an enormous amount of interest throughout the country and the interest was fully maintained in spite of the postponement of the trial from one session to another so that the prisoner might have time to prepare her defense Webster had been arrested towards the end of March but it was not until July that she was put on her trial at the central criminal court before the honorable Mr. Justice Denman The trial was a protracted business occupying six long days and it was conducted by the crown in the fairest possible manner The prisoner had every chance of proving her innocence but she was not in a position to do so and she must have known that there was practically no hope of an acquittal yet to the very end she was under the impression that she would be found not guilty certainly after her condemnation she believed to the last that she would be reprieved Though why she should have encouraged any such hope, it is hard to understand Day after day the court was packed with men and women and every point in the case was followed with acute interest and through it all the tall, gaunt, ill-favored woman who was in the peril of her life remained apparently unmoved even when the most ghastly of the details were gone into, as they are of necessity gone into on such occasions as this At the end of that long, and to me very weary some trial the prisoner, who had not made any defense and had not called any witnesses, was found guilty the jury being absent from court about an hour and a quarter There was some delay in passing sentence of death as Webster wished to consult her solicitor He went into the dock and had some earnest private talk with her but no one knew what the conversation was about The court was crowded and there was an intense and awful silence broken at last by the judge gently but firmly intimating that quite sufficient time had been given for any necessary question to be asked and answered Then the solicitor left the dock and the convicted woman was asked if she had anything to say why sentence of death should not be passed upon her Webster seemed to be calm and collected and she answered in clear firm tones that she was not guilty and made a short speech protesting her innocence but her very protest served only to confirm the justice of the verdict for she said and another thing I was led to this In uttering this she removed any possible doubt in one's mind I was in the crowded court when all this was taking place and I suppose that when the judge had assumed the black cap and passed sentence the dreadful proceedings were ended but there was still another sensation in a case which had offered many great surprises The condemned woman had been actually removed from the dock and people were beginning to leave the court when she was brought back and it was privately intimated to the court that she declared herself out to become a mother All who were in the court were utterly taken aback by this fresh development and as far as I recollect the judge himself said that in all his experience he had never known an instance like it His lordship did not hesitate to fall back on the wide criminal knowledge of the clerk of a size Mr. Avery and a jury of women was sworn to try this unexpected issue When such a plea was put forward by a condemned woman a jury of matrons has to be impaneled and upon their verdict it rests whether or no there shall be a stay of execution There were then as there had been throughout the trial a good many women in court and very soon a dozen had been sworn and were in the box which had been occupied by the men who had found the prisoner guilty A celebrated surgeon Mr. Bond was present and he and the jury of females and a few other persons in court including myself withdrew to the jury room to which the prisoner in the care of two women warders was taken It was soon found that she had lied in her statement and the jury of matrons returned to the court where after some legal argument the judge again summed up very briefly to the occupants of the box addressing them as ladies of the jury The matrons were only forgiving their verdict As soon as their finding had been delivered Webster was removed from the dock She was taken straight to Wandsworth prison where she had been previously confined for lesser offenses and there she was hanged Before being executed this strange and forbidding woman confessed that she alone did the murder that her mistress reproved her for being under the influence of drink and that she knocked her down the stairs and then strangled her It was very good reason to believe, however, that the crime was premeditated It was stated at the time that Webster, while in prison for the last time was very submissive and docile and was thankful to be in a jail which was familiar to her and where she was undoubtedly treated with the utmost kindness to the very end The house where the murder was committed is still standing We will go and see it but the name of the spot has been changed When we have looked at it we will go a little farther and I will point out to you a much more interesting place and that is the one which is associated with the last of Richmond Hill End of Chapter 5 Kate Webster's Revenge Chapter 6 Of Survivors' Tales of Famous Crimes This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Lucy Perry Survivors' Tales of Famous Crimes edited by Walter Wood Chapter 6 The Master Criminal If the question were asked who is the most notorious criminal of modern times the almost universal answer would be Charles Peace and the reply would be correct For Peace has a record which is unparalleled in recent generations He was a crafty hypocrite a skillful burglar and a murderer He was so merciless and callous that he actually saw an innocent man sentenced to death for a murder which he himself committed Peace was eventually caught while burgling and his chief crimes having been brought home to him he was hanged at Armley Jail leads The teller of this story Mr. Alfred Tate is an old sergeant of the Metropolitan Police and he it was who in company with a comrade arrested Peace while he was committing a burglary at Blackheath I joined the Metropolitan Police force when I was 25 years old I was in the force some 25 years and I have been out of it as long so that makes me about 75, doesn't it? Well, that's my age and yet in God's mercy I keep fit and well and in my little quiet way I enjoy life and all it offers I have been spared from many dangers cholera, attempted murder and riot amongst them I survived the great cholera visitation of 1849 in the course of doing my duties a policeman I was shot at twice by burglars one of whom got 10 years penal servitude and the other 5 years I have had other narrow-shaves too many of them but I suppose that really the narrowest of all was when I brought a hand in the arrest of Charles Peace though at the time of the capture I had no more idea than the man in the moon who he was I often think that the real reason of my salvation was the carrying out of the lesson that was taught to the old London policemen get the first hit in that is, of course, when desperate characters have to be dealt with you want to hear about Charles Peace? Very well then I will tell you what I remember very good, despite my growing years at the end of 1878 I was a policeman at Blackheath and was on duty with a comrade named Robinson at that period we were working in pairs because a good many burglars had been committed and there was no clue to the burglar and one of the two men was armed with a loaded revolver on this particular night it was Robinson who had the revolver I had my trencheon we were on Blackheath and it was getting very late midnight came and went and at about 12.15 we came across a respectable looking man who was sitting on one of the seats recent events had made us very suspicious and I eyed the man carefully then I said hello? what are you doing here? quite coolly the man replied I don't know what business it is of yours, Governor but if you want to know I'm looking at the lights of London I got rather angry partly because of the tone of the man and partly because I thought it was such a poor excuse to offer so I answered don't talk rubbish about the lights of London get up and go away the man rose mustering and walked off and Robinson and I resumed our beats carefully examining the houses especially those which were empty and were in charge of the police it was our custom to take particular measures to give us warning if any burglary had been committed and in one case that of a semi-detached house we had fastened cotton across the doors and windows a thin line which could not be seen in the darkness and would be easily broken when that line was not to be seen or felt we knew that someone was up to mischief it was pretty well after midnight when we examined the house and saw at once that the line was missing showing that something was wrong I felt excited all at once and the two of us stalked the house as carefully as we could for we never knew what might be in store we looked around the front of the house but there was nothing to be seen most fortunately we did not make a noise or show a lantern or neither of us would have been living I am sure of that we crept round to the back of the house where there was a long garden and I whispered to Robinson look there's a shadow on the blind and I do believe it's the man who said looking at the lights of London we held the short council of war to decide what should be done and who should do it the door was open and it was easy to enter the house but there was obviously a heavy risk to be run who's going in first? asked Robinson I don't care which of us it is I answered but you'd better go first as you've got the shooter alright he replied and we made our way noiselessly upstairs on the blind of which we had seen the shadow we stood in the open doorway for a few seconds and I took in a queer scene there was the burglar carefully and quietly examining jewellery and other articles by the light of his bull's eye lantern acting just as a respectful businessman would act who was valuing articles he meant to buy that was the look of the man and he was calculating too but he did not mean to pay anything for what he was getting there he was a littleish man absorbed in his task which was the merciful thing for us because on the dressing table near him and within easy reach was an ugly brute of a revolver Robinson had his revolver out and holding this in his right hand he rushed into the room calling on the burglar to surrender like a flash the man was on his guard and his hand made a snatch at the revolver on the dressing table I don't quite know how it all happened but I rushed past Robinson and flew at the burglar like a bird and struck him a blow with my trenchin telling him that it would be useless to resist as we had plenty of help outside how many more of you are there he asked and I told him to mind his own business and come out as he seemed likely to be troublesome I gave him another tap with the trenchin then we got the handcuffs on him and took him without any trouble to black he-throwed police station which is, I believe, still standing when we got our burglar to the station we carefully searched him and though we did not just then know who he was we knew that we had caught a very uncommon criminal for he had a belt round his body which was filled with cartridges and another belt which was entirely lined with skeleton keys so that he could open any door and he had the revolver which we saw lying on the dressing table to secure it was fully loaded so that the man was thoroughly well equipped for the risky game he was playing all the prison's belongings were taken from him and put aside and a list was made of them in the usual manner so that, in case nothing was proved against him he would get them back but the articles were never returned to him and they are now, I believe in the museum at Scotland Yard with many more criminal trophies relating to notorious men and women when the prisoner had been charged in the usual way he was asked for his name and he promptly answered that it was Reynolds I said you're the man I saw on a seat at 12.15 this morning and you told us you were looking at the lights of London oh no you didn't he answered quite quietly he had an amazingly assured way with him and looked so eminently respectable that you might easily have believed him but I knew that I was not mistaken so I said positively yes I did then the inspector turned to me and asked did you see him and I assured him that I had seen the man then the prisoner owned up and said that I was right he added my name is peace and that made me think we had caught big game what's your proper address the inspector asked and peace gave it Queen's Road Peckham it seems odd talking about the matter now that he was so open but I'm certain that he never imagined that he would be trapped for the hangman I'm not pretending to feel any sympathy for him he was an unmitigated monster and deserved far more than the death he got on the gallows it is no good wasting kindness on criminals like him when these preliminaries had been carried out peace was put in a cell and a search warrant having been issued the house in Queen's Road was forcibly entered and there was seen an astonishing collection of goods and articles all or most of which were proved to be the proceeds of clever and mysterious burglaries peace had kept dark for a long time but now there was a very brilliant light thrown on him and on his past a description of him was circulated in the ordinary way and by telegraph with the result that a large number of detectives and other police officers came and identified him as a man who was wanted for burglaries the net was closing in around him and was beginning to hold him very tight but peace did not seem much concerned when on the morning of his arrest he was brought up at Greenwich Police Court and charged with the burglar at the house where we had caught him formal evidence having been given he was remanded for a fortnight what was this man like when we arrested him? well, he was most respectable and he had an extraordinary knack of making a lie seem to be a truth he was thoroughly plausible and as deceitful in his speech as he was in his dress and he had quite a genius for discarding himself that was the reason why it was so hard to identify him in many cases as the perpetrator of crimes he was, as I have said a littleish man wearing a light overcoat a black suit and a bowler hat in those days we called the bowler Muller's cut down because of the way in which the hat of Mr. Briggs who was murdered by a German named Muller in a North London train had been cut down by the murderer peace had such an oily way with him that he could have talked a good many people into believing anything and he was as cunning as Old Nick himself he was, in a way fond of music and art and there was found at his house a violin on which he frequently played those who heard him and thought him a most respectable citizen little suspected that he was the actual murderer of a policeman for whose death another man had been condemned to the gallows and that this seemingly good and upright person was actually in the Ascii's court when the innocent man was convicted I will speak of that case later I never had the slightest pity for the Ruffian and I never knew anybody who had I don't think there was as much cheap sentiment about then as there is now while peace was under remand he was seen repeatedly and the inquiries about him were conducted ceaselessly when he was in the police court again there was no hesitation in sending him to take his trial on the charge of burglary and he was committed to the Old Bailey meanwhile it was being realised that he was guilty of more than one cold-blooded murder as well as of many crafty burglaries in particular it became obvious that he was concerned in the death of a Mr. Dyson at Banacross near Sheffield who, in 1877 was shot by a burglar a charge of murdering Mr. Dyson was preferred against him and this meant that peace had to be taken from London to Yorkshire to be tried at the Ascii's at Leeds the man did not want to die he was too big a coward for that but he must have known that his fate was by this time pretty well sealed and that he could not escape conviction by a jury little as he wished to die he desired still less to be hanged and so when he was being taken into Yorkshire by two warders he made a most desperate attempt to escape from the train by which he was travelling watching for his chance peace suddenly sprang at the open window with such force and so skillfully that she actually went out head first and would most likely have been killed on the spot if one of the warders had not grabbed him by the ankle and held on to him with all his might peace struggled furiously to get free head downward and hanging from the window of the compartment in that flying express but the warder did not let go for some time and that is all the more astonishing because he had to hold on alone the whole of the window space being taken up by himself so that his comrade could not get near to help to hold on for any length of time to such a desperate character under such conditions even for an experienced prison warder and as the train could not be stopped there was nothing for it but to let the prisoner go and so he crashed to the line and the train tore on some distance before it could be stopped then a rush was made for the spot at which peace had escaped and there he was found not dead as was fully expected but too badly hurt to get away he was taken on to his journey's end where he recovered and found that his desperate attempt to cheat the hangman had failed I do not know what he supposed would be the result of such a mad leap but he may have fancied that by chance he would escape uninjured and that his cunning would enable him to be at large once more to carry on his scoundrel's work it was on January 22nd, 1879 that this notorious criminal sprang from the train and nearly cheated the gallows it was on February 4th following that he appeared in the crown court and the witnesses held at Leeds by Mr Justice Lopes the indictment charged him with the murder of Mr Dyson I was very glad to think that the end of the business was near at hand because I had been in Leeds waiting for several days and I can't say that I cared for the place the trial began and ended on the same day and the evidence left no doubt that peace had murdered Dyson very deliberately in the dock the monster did not appear to be very much concerned and it is said that he actually had some hope of an acquittal his counsel did his best for him he was defended by Mr Frank Lockwood who afterwards became Solicitor General but no impression was made on the jury who, when the judge had summed up were only a few minutes in finding the prisoner guilty the judge wasted no words while passing sentence of death and then the warders closed round and the criminal was taken away going down the dock stairs with perhaps as little sympathy as any man ever got who descended them peace was taken to Armley Jail about two miles distant to await his execution in three weeks there seemed to be a positive wave of relief in the country when it was realised that this dangerous villain who had made himself a terrorist of the police as well as to the general public was put beyond the power of doing further mischief any lingering doubt that might have existed as to the justice of his punishment was dashed by the confession peace made of the murder which I have mentioned that of the policeman Cox on November 27th 1876 an absolutely innocent lad named William Hubbrun was condemned to death at the Old Bailey for the murder of Cox the real murderer, peace, was in court and he heard the sentence passed he knew later that the hangman was actually in the prison arranging for the execution to give a hint that there had been a terrible miscarriage of justice Hubbrun at the 11th hour was reprieved and sent to penal servitude for life finally the lad, whose father had died of a broken heart got a free pardon but only because of what peace confessed when he knew that there was no hope for him in this world peace was hanged in a semi-public way that is to say representatives of the press witnessed his end he was a hypocrite and a coward to the end for on the scaffold he made a whining speech and told the hangman that the rope hurt him he was executed on gallows that were erected in the prison yard and he was buried in the yard not far away I believe the identical scaffold is in the Chamber of Horrors at Madame Tassaud's and on it is a figure representing peace in the convict dressy war when he was hanged another figure is that of Marwood the executioner the extraordinary man the executioner the extraordinary public interest which was aroused in the case of peace was shown by the eagerness of people to get mementos of him I was present at the house at Peckham when the things in it that had been got together by this cunning burglar were sold by auction there were all sorts of musical instruments and there was a good deal of competition for the fiddle on which the man used to play there were also a pony and cart which peace used when he was going about he brought him to keep up the impression that he was a person of the utmost respectability the pony and cart were bought by a Walworth Costa Munger who promptly christened the animal Charles peace which I think was rather hard on it the sale lasted two days and very good prices were realised I imagine that some of the money raised went to pay for peace this trial the whole of the household arrangement showed that peace was a man of great taste in some directions he had an astonishingly clever way of leaving a lot of people into the belief that he was a gentleman and I have often thought that he might have won great success if he had turned his talents to honest efforts the capture of such a notorious scoundrel attracted enormous public attention and Robinson came in for a great deal of it he was made much of and faded and dined and persuaded to go on the musical stage in the end he was called upon to resign from the police force and he had to make a living by selling newspapers outside the Angel finally he died in a workhouse I got nothing out of the business nor did I expect anything and what I never had I shan't miss have I the trenching that I used on peace no I had to give it up when I left the force and the bullseye lantern you see here is not the one I had that night on Blackheath when we caught him it's a lamp I use at night in winter to show me where I'm going because you see we have no gas or electric light in a little place like this which is more than two miles from a railway station End of Chapter 6 The Master Criminal Recording by Lucy Perry in Bath on July 3rd 2010 Visit LibriVox.org Recording by Corey Samuel Survivors Tales of Famous Crimes edited by Walter Wood Chapter 7 The Brighton Railway Murder In 1881 a profound sensation was caused throughout the country by the murder of Mr. Frederick Isaac Gold in a first class compartment of an express train from London Bridge Station to Brighton The murderer Percy LaFroy, alias Mapleton escaped from custody in the most astonishing manner and remained in hiding for more than a week his arrest was a matter of such intense interest that it was made known at the Lord Mayor's Banquet and in the House of Commons An important witness in the case was Mr. Thomas Picknell and this is his story of the crime Just on this spot where we are standing in the Sixth Foot Way I picked up a collar on the afternoon of June 27th 1881 it was an ordinary turned-down collar of the type very common in those days but there was an extraordinary thing about it and it was this the collar was covered in blood I examined the collar and so did my mate who was with me having done so I let it drop back into the Sixth Foot Way I was a ganger at that time and it was my duty to examine a certain section of the line twice every weekday and once every Sunday I was carrying out that task when I found the collar In spite of the stains I did not think much of the discovery for I supposed that a passenger had scratched his neck and had taken the collar off and thrown it out the window of a passing train all sorts of odd things are disposed of in this manner After throwing the collar back into the Sixth Foot Way we walked on to Bulcombe Station about three-quarters of a mile away and there I was startled to hear that another mate of mine named Thomas Jennings had found the dead body of a man in Bulcombe Tunnel Bulcombe, as you see, is a quiet little country place with not much going on but it suddenly became very busy and famous for a crime had been committed which filled the country with horror and was the thing that was mostly talked about for many a long day I soon learned what had happened Jennings had walked through the tunnel to do some hay-making and, having finished, he was walking back towards the station carrying a nap-the-lamp with him he had got almost exactly in the middle of the tunnel when he found the body lying in the Sixth Foot Way that is, of course, the space between the two sets of metals At that time the cause of death was not known and I don't suppose that any time was lost in trying to find out The main thing was to report the affair at the station and get the body out of the tunnel There was great excitement all at once an engine and a brake were got a brake such as a guard uses on a goods train and the engine took a number of us into the tunnel to get the body up and bring it on to Bulcombe It was a gloomy business and a strange scene it was as we gathered round the body in the Sixth Foot Way working by the lights of our nap-the-lamps just the sort of lamps you see at fares and lighting costar's carts at night The task was very difficult too because of the constant traffic through the tunnel which caused us time after time to get into the manholes for shelter We were in the tunnel about an hour because we had to wait for a policeman At the end of that time we had got the body into the brake and it was drawn by the engine to the station and carried to the railway in where it was put in a coach-house When we first saw the body it was lying on its back with the head towards Brighton Even in the gloomy light of the tunnel it was evident that terrible injuries had been caused for the face was covered with blood and on this the black dust from passing engines and the ballast had settled thickly, making the features look as dark as in egros It was clear enough that murder had been done and that there had been a long and fierce struggle before Mr. Gold was lying in the middle of Bulcombe Tunnel I first picked the colour up it was soon secured of course in view of the discovery of the body at about a quarter to five By that time an extraordinary thing had happened at Preston Park Station just outside Brighton A ticket-collector on opening the door of a first-class compartment found a young man in it who had neither hat nor collar who was covered with blood and who was looking as if he had been badly knocked about Blood was spattered all over the compartment and the young man, Percy Liffroy asked for a policeman to be sent for When one came he declared that when he left London Bridge two men were in the compartment with him one of them an elderly person and the other looking like a countryman Liffroy said that on entering a tunnel he was murderously assaulted by one of the men and became insensible and that he knew nothing more until he reached Preston Park While he was telling his tale it was noticed that a watch chain was hanging from his shoe and on his attention being called to the circumstance he explained that he had put his watch there for safety Liffroy was allowed to keep the watch and chain and to go on to Brighton the policeman being with him He was taken to the town hall where he made a statement and he was then removed to the hospital where his injuries were attended to He showed a keen wish to get away saying he wished to return to his home at Wallington near Croydon where he lived with a second cousin He was given permission to go back but the case looked very suspicious and two railway policemen accompanied him On the journey at one of the stopping places the party learned that Mr. Gold's body had been found This was stated by an official of the company and Liffroy heard it but it does not seem that he was greatly upset by the tidings He reached Wallington and the cousin's house then he told the police that he was going out to see a doctor Amazing as it seems, he was allowed to go and from that moment for more than a week all trace of him was lost An inquest was held a tremendous affair it was for a little place like Bulkham special wires being fitted so that long telegrams could be sent off to the newspapers and a verdict of willful murder was returned against Liffroy A reward too was offered for his arrest and the whole country was thrown into a state of the most intense excitement and a lot of people were quite unnerved when it came to a question of travelling by train I spent many weary days at the inquest at the police court proceedings and at the trial at the Assizes so that every detail of the case became familiar to me and I remember them pretty well even now so I will just outline the actual story of what happened on that famous summer day in 1881 Mr Gold was a retired London businessman about 64 years old and lived at Brighton he was still interested in a business in London and every Monday morning he went to town to get his share of the profits this money he sometimes took home with him and at other times he paid it into the bank on this particular Monday morning he received £38 odd and with the exception of the shillings and pence he put the money into the bank and then went to London Bridge Station which he reached just before 2 o'clock the train and Express left London Bridge at 2 o'clock the only stopping places being Croydon and Preston Park Mr Gold who was a seasoned ticket holder was well known on the line he occupied a seat in a first class smoking compartment and just before the train started LeFroy who had been walking up and down the platform and the passengers jumped in and seated himself in the compartment at Croydon the guard noticed that Mr Gold was apparently taking a nap for he had a handkerchief over his head when the Express reached Merstham Tunnel a passenger heard four reports which he thought were fog signals but which proved to be revolver shots LeFroy had begun with his murderous work by firing with a revolver which he had got out of porn then began a long and terrible struggle for Mr Gold, though elderly was a big, powerful man and he defended himself in the most resolute manner mile after mile the fight went on it was calculated afterwards that the struggle was continued over a distance of 14 miles it began when the train was about 17 miles from London and ended only in the middle of Bulkham Tunnel about 31 miles from London Bridge with the flinging out of the compartment of a man who, by that time had one bullet in the head and about 14 knife wounds on various parts of the body the medical evidence showed that the actual cause of death was a fracture at the base of the skull which was, no doubt, the result of the fall from the train into the six foot way that there was a fierce struggle was shown by the statements of a woman who lived in a cottage at Hawley about eight miles from Merstham Tunnel she was outside the cottage and as the train dashed by she saw two men struggling in a compartment they were standing up and at first she did not know whether or not they might be engaged in the sort of horseplay which so often takes place in trains the train roared through Bulkham Tunnel and out into the open air and passed me on the line but I took no more notice of it than I took of any of the scores of trains that went up and down in a course of a day by that time LeFroy had shut the door of the compartment and was speeding on to Preston Park no doubt concocting the wonderful tale which he told when the train stopped for the collection of tickets he had thrown his collar away and his silk hat as well doubtless also the revolver and the knife for we found a knife in a tunnel near the body at Brighton he went to a shop to buy a collar which proved to be the same size as the one I found and he got a hat also the same size as the one which was found on the line and an uncommon size because LeFroy was an uncommon looking person he had a receding forehead and a very receding chin and his teeth and gums showed prominently when he smiled I had many opportunities of studying him and he seemed to be the last person in the world to commit a murder least of all the murder of a man like Mr. Gold I should think that Mr. Gold was almost twice the size taking all round of LeFroy I dare say that the awful peril of his position and his determination to see his business through gave LeFroy the strength of a madman while he was doing his work he was only about 22 years old and was about 5 feet 8 inches in height but weedy looking and not very fit the murder had been done and the whole country was more or less panic-stricken because LeFroy had escaped there was a tremendous outcry and all sorts of theories were set afoot to account for his disappearance he had committed suicide gone abroad been seen in many towns in England and so forth but as a matter of fact he had made his way to London and taken lodgings in a small house in a little mean street in Stepney giving out that he was an engineer from Liverpool it was afterwards known that LeFroy hid in the house for nearly 8 days never leaving it and almost starving certainly looking so miserable and wretched to arouse pity in the heart of anyone who saw him there was never a suspicion that he was a murderer in those days there were not the wonderful means that exist now of publishing photographs and particulars of people who were wanted by the police it was a rare thing for a newspaper to give a portrait but the Daily Telegraph had a picture of LeFroy which aroused enormous interest and was remarkably like him he was so uncommon looking that if he had been at large pretty certain he would have been taken much sooner than was actually the case LeFroy had neither money nor luggage and it became urgently necessary to secure the means to pay his bill he managed to send a telegram off in the name of Clark to an office in Gresham street asking for money to be sent to him that night without fail that was on Friday July the 8th eleven days after the murder by that time the published portrait had been seen and studied by great numbers of persons and when telegram was handed in at the post office information was given that a man strongly resembling the picture was lodging at the house in Stepney the police were communicated with and instead of the money reaching LeFroy when the door opened he saw two police officers he knew why they wanted him and made no resistance nor did he say much except that he was not guilty of the crime LeFroy was taken to Stepney police station then to Scotland Yard and having spent the night at King Street police station Westminster he was hurried off to Victoria station early next morning and taken to East Grinstead the blood-stained clothes which he was wearing when he reached Brighton and which he had exchanged for another suit while in charge of the police were carried down at the same time at that preliminary hearing the magistrates at Cookfield in which district the body had been found sat in a Talbot hotel LeFroy being kept in Lewis Chail sixteen miles away the magistrates' inquiry lasted four days and each morning LeFroy was driven in a two-horse fly from the prison to the court and each afternoon he was driven back I do not think he was ever seen in public without being hooted LeFroy was committed for trial at the Maidstone as sizes and had to wait four months in prison before he appeared in the dock before the Lord Chief judge the hearing occupied four days enormous interest was taken in one of the most striking things in connection with the crime and that was the railway carriage in which the terrible struggle took place this carriage was seen time after time by jury men and others concerned in the case and I became very familiar with it in the actual compartment there were abundant signs of the fight and even on the footboard were marks of blood which showed that to the very end Mr. Gold had fought for his life he had apparently made a last frantic clutch as he was hurled out of the train the state of the carriage and the condition of the body showed at a glance how long and fierce the fight had been as for the appearance of LeFroy at Preston Park and Brighton I cannot say anything as I did not see him then but when I did see him soon after his arrest there were not many signs that he had gone through such a desperate struggle he seemed to have had matters pretty much his own way but having a loaded revolver and a knife against an unarmed man gave him tremendous odds it was on gunpowder plot day that the trial before the Lord Chief Justice began by that time LeFroy had improved very much in looks and had had time to pull himself together considering the nature of the evidence against him and the almost utter hopelessness of an acquittal he was amazingly cool in fact he seemed to be about the most unaffected person in court there was no doubt that he had a mania for attracting public attention and he made the extraordinary request that he should be allowed to get a dress suit out of porn and wear it in the dock this fancy was not gratified but the young man made the best of his chances and was particularly attentive to a silk hat which he wore each morning when he was brought up into the dock from the cells below he bowed ceremoniously to the judge and the court generally it seemed as if the prisoner's great object was to attract attention and I was astonished that a man who stood in such peril of his life could find time or inclination for such trifles but the fact was that to the very last moment LeFroy believed that he would be acquitted and there were other people who actually persuaded themselves that he would be found not guilty it may have been that they credited the story of the third man in a compartment the person who looked like a countryman all I can say on that point is that if there really was a third party in the compartment it was the devil himself I got weary of the whole business long before it was finished though we had a day off in the course of the trial that was on Lord Mayor's Day when the judge had to go to London to take part in the ceremonies the afternoon of the fourth day of the trial the judge had finished his long summing up and the jury retired to consider their verdict that took them only a few minutes they found LeFroy guilty and he was sentenced to death when he had been condemned he told the jury that some day they would learn that they had murdered an innocent man it was an odd circumstance that after being so closely connected with the case for so long I was not present in court when LeFroy was found guilty and sentenced I had got tired of the oft-told story and the stuffy atmosphere and when the summing up was going on I was wondering round the prison walls examining them when I got back to the court all was over LeFroy had been removed and soon afterwards he was taken handcuffed and under a strong police escort to Lewis Jail even in the condemned cell LeFroy did not abandon hope and he wrote a letter in which he asked for a file and a small saw to be sent to him concealed in the crust of a meat pie his object evidently being to try and break out a prison though how he expected to do that when he was constantly guarded is a mystery he also tried to get poison sent into him but these attempts were fruitless a petition for a reprieve was signed but no notice was taken of it when, at the very last LeFroy knew that his doom was certain he confessed to the murder he said that he was so desperately in need of money that he was determined to go to any length to get it even to the extent of murder he walked up and down on a platform at London Bridge in the hope of finding a woman alone in a compartment in that case he would have got in and demanded money from her hoping that he would be able to escape and that it would not be necessary to do more than stun her there was not, mercifully, any such solitary woman and seeing Mr. Gold alone and noticing that he looked prosperous LeFroy jumped into the compartment just before the train started the watch which he had in his shoe at Preston Park was Mr. Gold's before being arrested LeFroy threw the watch over Blackfriars Bridge LeFroy was hanged at Lewis by Marwood on November 29th almost exactly five months after he murdered Mr. Gold I don't know what became of the collar I saw it at the inquest and at the trial but not afterwards and I didn't wish to see it for I had had enough of it as to the revolver the police made a long and tiring search on the line and elsewhere but they were not successful after LeFroy was hanged a ganger found a revolver in a little hole at Ellswood and that was supposed to be the weapon which was used I dare say there are many relics of the terrible affair but most of the people who were connected with the trial have died of all the local people I think I am the only one left though Jennings is I believe still alive somewhere in America well that's the story of the famous Brighton train murder here we are on the very spot where I found the collar now we can go on picking primroses on the embankment they're beautiful aren't they Balkan primroses are said to be the finest in England and being a Balkan man for fifty years I honestly believe it End of Chapter 7 The Brighton Railway Murder Chapter 8 of Survivors Tales of Famous Crimes This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Survivors Tales of Famous Crimes edited by Walter Wood Chapter 8 Palmer's Poisonings In the whole of modern British criminology there is no more appalling character than Dr. William Palmer the rougely poisoner He was a notorious evil liver, an extensive forger, and a wholesale murderer The late Mr. Justice Stephen said of him No more horrible villain than Palmer ever stood in a dock Palmer was convicted of the murder of a man named Cook and was hanged outside Stafford Jail on June 14th, 1856 But he was indicted for two other murders and it is known that he had committed at least eleven of these terrible crimes His victims including his wife and four children All the infants dying within a few weeks of birth and suddenly Practically a life study has been made of the Palmer case by Dr. George Fletcher J.P. whose story is narrated I paid my first visit to rougely when I was a schoolboy fourteen years old and walking from the station I passed a fine house with a garden fronting on the road A number of trippers had come into rougely from the adjacent black country and they stared hard at this particular building for it was the house in which Dr. Palmer had been born As we looked at the house a woman evidently the mistress came out and walked to the garden gate near us and speaking with an extraordinary amount of pride she said to us Well, I'm Mrs. Palmer, the mother of Dr. Palmer and I'm not ashamed of it The judges hanged my saintly bill and he was the best of my whole lot It was a dramatic incident and I have never forgotten it nor have I forgotten seeing John Parsons Cook for whose murder Palmer was hanged Cook came to Bromesgrove where I lived shortly before he was murdered and I remember him playing cricket for the town club From those early and distant days I have maintained a constant interest in the case which has no parallel in medical jurisprudence My former partner Dr. Forschal soon after he qualified went to rougely as assistant to old Dr. Bamford who was so closely associated with the Palmer case Palmer was then in practice at rougely and my partner often saw him and said that he was clever at his work but was an idle, loose character It is difficult to avoid exaggeration in speaking of Palmer but Mr. Justice Stephen did not overstate his character Palmer was a cool, callous, calculating poisoner of the most inhuman type and his name will be handed down to posterity in legal and medical circles as the greatest and most cruel murderer that England has ever known a man for whose blood all Britons clamored and whose awful guilt not a soul doubted His trial and condemnation caused an upheaval in the world of medical jurisprudence and though more than half a century has passed since he was hanged yet the small town of rougely in Staffordshire is still associated with the name of Palmer who was born there, was educated at the grammar school there and for eight years was in full practice in the town as a doctor owing to his profession he was able to carry on his murderous work free from suspicion until his victims numbered about eleven then he overreached himself and finally was led to his doom on the gallows outside Stafford jail where a friend of mine saw him hanged Palmer was a marvelous man and in order to estimate his character something must be said of his antecedents his father Joseph was an entirely self-made man first a woodcutter then a Sawyer when earning a pound a week on the estate of the Marquis of Anglesey he came across Sarah Bentley a young woman from a very low slum in Derby where her drunken mother lived an idle life the Marquis's agent was paying his addresses to Sarah and she might have made an excellent match but the course low Sawyer took her off to a local fair and married her before they returned home the steward continued to pay attentions to Sarah not withstanding her marriage and while he was carrying on this intrigue Joseph set to work and robbed the estate very heavily of its best trees plunder at which the steward connived there was little cause for wonder then that when Joseph died suddenly in 1836 he left the large fortune of 80,000 pounds a widow with a terrible character the woman I saw at the gate of the fine house at Rougeley and two daughters and five sons of whom one William then not quite 12 years old was to achieve lasting notoriety coming from such a stock Palmer was heavily handicapped at the very start and an old school fellow of his whom I saw not long before his death told me that the lad was thoroughly bad he had unlimited pocket money but squandered it all and when he wanted more he got it by the simple process of rifling his sister's dresses and purses at home from school Palmer was apprenticed to a doctor tile coat of Haywood where he met Annie Brooks Thornton a loyal woman who was to endure many agonizing experiences before she herself fell a victim to the poisoner it was not long before Palmer was compelled to leave Haywood in deep disgrace he was then only 20 years of age but it is believed that already he had murdered his first victim a man named Abley whom he was treating to liquor Abley died half an hour after drinking his last glass of brandy and at the inquest it was shown that Palmer had evinced far too much admiration for Mrs. Abley after walking Stafford County Hospital for a few months Palmer went to London and entered St. Bartholomew's Hospital as a student taking his MRCS in 1846 in October 1847 he married Annie Brooks Thornton and in October 1848 their first boy was born after qualifying Palmer returned to Rougeley and there he practiced for a few years and could have done well but his innate depravity made it impossible for him to go straight in any way and his love for the turf drove him to the utmost extremity for want of money by 1853 he owned 16 racehorses and had a regular stud two miles from home on the edge of Canick Chase an almost inevitable thing happened Palmer got into serious financial difficulties and very soon disposed of 8,000 pounds drawn from his mother left to him by his father to become due to him at her death and nearly 2,000 pounds more which he had obtained from her he was so badly cornered by bills and acceptances that he was forced to go to the money lenders in 1853 he raised 2,000 pounds on a bill which bore the acceptance of his mother this acceptance was forged one willing instrument employed was the gentle wife who was forced to sign the mother's name at Palmer's bidding by means of forging his mother's name Palmer continued to raise money in 1854 he owed one Birmingham money lender 8,000 pounds then he fell into the clutches of a notorious bill-discounting bloodsucker named Pratt a London lawyer and from that time began the downfall which ended with the ignominy of the gallows in due course Pratt gave evidence and I was told by one who was in court that it was terrible to hear his testimony given an emersalously cold voice and to see how each letter read in court had driven Palmer to more and more awful steps to avoid utter ruin and detection of his forgeries and robberies the latter now totaling the great sum of 20,000 pounds Pratt admitted discounting the bills at 60% and insisted on interest being paid monthly this then was the state of things a man of terribly vile character with bills in the hands of discounters to the extent of 20,000 pounds to all of which his mother's name was forged drifting more and more into loose company and entirely neglecting his practice money and plenty of it was absolutely essential and so Palmer proceeded to get it by the most infamous of all methods the deliberate murder of his own family, relatives and friends his first victim was his mother-in-law Mary Thornton a woman who had never married but had been housekeeper for 30 years to Colonel Brooks a member of one of the Staffordshire families gentle Annie as Palmer's wife was called was Mary Thornton's illegitimate daughter Colonel had left his housekeeper several good houses in Stafford and 3,000 pounds in cash all of which Palmer understood came to Annie on her mother's death Annie on her wedding day received 500 pounds from her mother who a year after gave her 1,000 pounds Palmer was then hard up and he soon borrowed 500 pounds more from his mother-in-law despite her strong objections he persuaded her to come and live with them the woman must have known something of the real nature of the monster for she declared to friends in Stafford I know I shall not live a month nor did she for Palmer poisoned her a mysterious illness with unaccountable symptoms sat in and old Dr. Bamford was called in the woman died and was buried in Rougeley churchyard where I copied from the tombstone quote sacred to the memory of Mary Thornton late of Stafford who died 18 January 1849 aged 50 years and quote she was the first known victim of Palmer to find a sepulcher there the next victim was a bookmaker named Bladen who was with Palmer at Epsom Bladen won 500 pounds in bets and Palmer lost heavily to him 400 or 500 pounds at Palmer's urgent invitation Bladen returned to Rougeley with him and the doctor promised to drive Bladen to see a brother of the bookmaker at Ashley 20 miles away writing to his wife Bladen said that he had over 600 pounds in his money belt and was going to Rougeley with Palmer who must pay him over 400 pounds so expect me home in three or four days wrote Bladen with 1000 pounds in hand the day after Bladen reached Rougeley the first hateful evil genius a disreputable lawyer named Jeremiah Smith drove him over to Ashley and back that was on a Wednesday and on the evening of that day Bladen was taken ill a circumstance which was attributed to the long drive on the Friday Dr. Bamford was called in and told Bladen his illness was due to too much port this being the explanation given to him by Palmer and Smith on the Saturday a friend Mr. Merritt on his way home from Chester Races found Bladen so ill that he summoned Mrs. Bladen she hurried down on the Saturday but only just in time to see him alive and unconscious he died very soon after her arrival and was screwed down without his wife having seen him again the funeral was hurried and Bladen was buried in Rougeley churchyard where I copied from a slate tombstone on the right main path leading to the south door the inscription in memory of Leonard Bladen of Ashby De La Zooche who died May 10th 1850 aged 49 years Palmer offered to pay the funeral expenses which the widow thought at the time was most generous of him but she said she was anxious to have her husband's papers and asked for the money belt this could not be found nor could Bladen's betting book Mrs. Bladen grew suspicious and she was actually about to sign an acknowledgement that her husband owed Palmer 70 pounds when by chance reflected in a mirror she saw an extraordinary expression on Palmer's face no said Palmer chatting pleasantly I never owed poor Bladen a penny what never she exclaimed why I saw a letter of yours last summer in which you asked for more time to repay 200 pounds you had borrowed she refused to sign and left the house Palmer had now started on that career of deliberate poisoning which is almost inconceivable and is certainly without parallel in modern times according to the marriage settlement if his wife should have a son the child was provided for a boy was born if there should be more children at the time of Mrs. Palmer's death they were to inherit the bulk of what she possessed others were born and of course they must not live for if they survived the wife Palmer would get so little and so it happened that a little girl and three little boys all died somewhat suddenly within a few weeks of birth and I have copied their names and ages and dates of death from the register of burials at Rougeley Church later on the manner of the death of these children was fully known it was known also that three of Palmer's illegitimate children by his servants were poisoned by him even then there were ugly rumors afloat but for the gentle wife's sake no one stirred to take serious action soon this devoted long-suffering soul who was only 27 years old was to die a lingering death Palmer insured her for the large sum of 15,000 pounds he paid only one premium of 450 pounds and then she died yet the insurance company paid the 15,000 pounds without question so successful was Palmer in this case that he tried to ensure his brother Walter a dissolute drunkard for 85,000 pounds the yearly premium to be 3500 pounds he did not succeed in this but he did manage to carry through a policy for 15,000 pounds and paid one premium he gave his brother 100 pounds to buy drink with and hired a servant in those days called a bottle holder to ply him with liquor so that in a very few weeks Walter was a besotted embecile but even this was not quick enough and Palmer poisoned his brother with prusik acid but the doom which he so rightly merited was near at hand and there was being built up against him a mass of evidence from which there was to be no earthly escape the insurance offices became suspicious a man dressed like a farmer but in reality an astute detective reached rougely and as the result of his and other inquiries the insurance office denied to pay the policy on Walter Palmer's death about this time Palmer met Cook for whose murder he was subsequently hanged Cook was intended for the law but just as he was qualified he took to the turf for at the age of 21 he had come into a fortune of 15,000 pounds Cook was a splendid cricketer a first-rate ore and a good all-round man when at Worcester races he stayed several times at Groomsgrove where I was born and lived till I was 19 years old many friends, my mother amongst them begged Cook to give up the turf and in his genial way he promised that he would but he came across Palmer who began at once to drag him down Palmer and Cook attended races together and Cook had backed bills for the doctor on November 13th the two went to Shrewsbury races where Cook's horse Polestar won the handicap and Cook came into possession of a considerable sum of money that sealed his doom for Palmer, utterly cornered by the bloodsuckers into whose clutches he had fallen was determined to have it when he got back home he found final threats from the money lenders threats which if carried out meant exposure of his forgeries of his mother's name for over 20,000 pounds this exposure was kept off only so long as Palmer paid the monthly interest of 60% failing in that a long term of imprisonment stared him in the face there also weighted him a letter from a woman he had ruined, one of many threatening to expose him if he did not send her 100 pounds of which she was in the greatest need so we see that a few hundred pounds in ready money were wanted at once to keep off ruin a little longer and Cook by winning the Shrewsbury handicap that day had come into 1,100 pounds in ready cash while at tattersaws on the following Monday he would receive 2,000 pounds more Palmer's mind was now thoroughly made up as to what he would do and that was take Cook's life and get his money returning to Shrewsbury on the Wednesday he rejoined Cook and with others they were making merry in a sitting room at the Raven on a pretext of ordering more brandy Palmer left the room and went to a sort of pantry lit by gas this was about half past 10 o'clock at night a Mrs. Brooks described as a lady who attended races and employed several jockeys went to see Palmer about the morrow's races and she saw him in the pantry which was separated from the passage by a glass partition he was holding up a tumbler to the gas and was dropping something into it then shaking the tumbler to see the thing dissolve and dropping a little more when Mrs. Brooks spoke Palmer must have been taken aback but he kept his presence of mind and said I will be with you directly he put the tumbler down and joined her and after remaining in the passage a few minutes talking he returned to his boon companions presently tumblers and more brandy were brought in and Cook was persuaded to have more liquor he took some and exclaimed why it's burning my throat he left the room accompanied by a bookmaker named Fisher and George Herring who became a famous millionaire philanthropist and died not long ago going to his bedroom Cook said I believe Palmer has drugged me a doctor was sent for and prescribed but Cook was so much alarmed that he took off his money belt and gave his cash 800 pounds in notes and gold to Herring next day Cook was on the course looking very ill Herring returned the money and Palmer and Cook went back to Rougeley Cook going to the Talbot arms exactly opposite Palmer's house next day he dined with Palmer and returned to his hotel very sick and ill no good purpose would be served by entering minutely into details of the few terrible days which followed days during which Palmer while being assiduous in his attentions to Cook and apparently doing his utmost to preserve his life was callously encompassing his death merely everything that Cook took contained antimony a mineral poison which was found in every tissue of the body when the post-mortem was made showing that it had been administered over a long period as usual poor old Dr. Bamford was called in a practitioner now 82 years of age he listened to all that Palmer had to say and shook his head and prescribed but there must by this time have come into his mind some suspicion of the awful truth he must have gone back in his memory to many of the cases of death with which Palmer had been concerned and surely there must have grown within him a strong suspicion that all was not well with the poor young fellow who was suffering so acutely in his bedroom at the Talbot arms on the following Monday Palmer went to London and in some rooms which he frequented off the strand he saw George Herring he undoubtedly meant that Herring also should become a victim and he asked him to take some wine but Herring bluntly refused and said afterwards that he suspected the man and never could tolerate him Herring left and there was no hope whatever of Palmer escaping a rest for forgery unless he got rid of Cook and obtained his money with which to pay the overdue and monstrous interest by means of a forged letter he received through Herring all Cook's bets and steaks at Tattersall's he had also stolen Cook's betting book and before leaving Rougeley for London he had managed to steal the 800 pounds from Cook's money belt Palmer hurried back to Rougeley bought three grains of strict nine from Newton a chemist in the place and went home the prosecution urged that Palmer made up two pills containing the strict nine and hastened to the Talbot arms where he met the villainess Jeremiah Smith in the hall and went upstairs to see Cook who was much better as well he might be his murderer having been away Palmer gave him the pills which he said Dr. Bamford had sent but as a matter of fact he had made up those strict nine pills and had substituted them for some pills which Bamford had actually prepared Palmer and Smith wished the doomed man good night and at about midnight Cook was left alone very soon he rang the bell and the chambermaid answering it found him in agony wracked with pain and writhing and twisting his body about he begged that Palmer should be sent for and Palmer came about four o'clock the house which had been roused settled down somewhat for the patient was quieter Palmer had given him some brown stuff and was left in charge sleeping in a chair near the fire early next morning as Cook had survived the strict nine Palmer went to the other chemist in Rougeley, Roberts and asked for three different poisons strong ladenum, prosic acid and six grains of strict nine whilst Roberts was putting these up Newton came in greatly to Palmer's consternation and as soon as Palmer had gone he asked Roberts what he had bought and though Newton did not then disclose the fact of the previous night's purchase yet this became an important link in the chain of evidence at noon a great friend of Cook's Dr. Jones from Lutterworth arrived Palmer having asked him to come saying that Cook had had a billious attack the three doctors including Bamford had a consultation and Cook said now mind Bamford no more of those doomed pills tonight they wracked me with the pains of hell last night no more pills for me ongoing out to the landing Palmer said those pills are best for him and it was agreed that Bamford should make up a couple of morphine pills Palmer accompanied the old man and watched him make the pills up at his urgent request Bamford wrote directions on the outside so that when Cook refused to take any more pills Jones was able to say that the three doctors had agreed that the patient should have them Jones of course never suspecting that Palmer substituted two strict nine pills for the morphine preparations very well I'll swallow them said Cook residedly and having done so Palmer walked across the street to his house and Jones went to suffer in the coffee room in half an hour he went back to the bedroom having arranged to sleep in a second bed not more than a few minutes had passed when Jones was awakened by piercing shrieks and cries that Palmer should be summoned Palmer was sent for and he answered the frantically pulled bell by appearing at the window of his bedroom I never dressed so quickly in my life he told the maid who fetched him and he repeated the remark to Jones who thought he must have slept in his clothes the truth was that Palmer had neither undressed nor gone to bed he was simply waiting for the summons which he knew must swiftly come to attend to the death of Cook in less than a quarter of an hour all was over and the contorted features and terribly twisted frame of the victim showed what a cruel death he had died with monstrous but understandable haste Palmer sent for a charwoman to lay the body out and told Dr. Jones to go down and get a meal the housekeeper unexpectedly entering the room of death saw Palmer searching the pockets of Cook's coat and when Dr. Jones went upstairs he saw Palmer hunting under the pillow where the dead man's head was resting ah Jones said Palmer calmly I'm looking for his watch and purse here they are you'd better take possession he handed over a sum of about four pounds ten shillings but said nothing of the eight hundred pounds which he had stolen from Cook's belt later Jones went to London and told Cook's relatives what had happened and the stepfather Mr. Stevens grief-stricken for he dearly loved the young fellow went to Rougeley that love aroused suspicion in Stevens a suspicion which refused to be satisfied with the lying explanations of Palmer and a post mortem examination was insisted on and was made in the assembly room of the hotel and a strange examination it was attended by amongst others Dr. Bamford the landlord of the hotel a solicitor named Savage Landor a distant relation of mine and about half a dozen townsmen when the organs seemed healthy Palmer exclaimed I say Bamford they won't hang us yet but he was intensely anxious to destroy all evidence of his villainy the examination was made by a Dr. Devonshire who had only carried out two before helped by Newton the chemist who had sold Palmer some of the strict nine and knew nothing whatever about post mortem work when the stomach was being examined Palmer deliberately pushed Devonshire's knife through it so that nearly all the contents escaped and later he cut a slit through the covering of the jar containing the organs to be sent to London for analysis having managed to take the jar out of the room before the examination was finished he offered the post boy who was to take the jar to the station ten pounds to smash it and persuaded the postmaster an old school fellow to open the letter from Professor Taylor the government analyst containing the results of the analysis this the foolish postmaster did and later received two years imprisonment for his outrageous offense Palmer also sent the coroner when the inquest was opened generous presence of game and fish and a ten pound note but all was in vain the jury determined a verdict of willful murder against him and at last the news so well deserved was round his neck it was fitting enough that this amazing case should culminate in an amazing trial from first to last Palmer never had the opportunity to open his mouth as he would have today and give his own version of what had happened he was committed for trial on the coroner's warrant after repeated sittings by the jury at the inquest the police went to his bedroom where he was ill to arrest him but it was three days before he could be removed then in the dead of a December night he was hurried off to Stafford jail just escaping the fury of a shouting crowd which had waited 24 hours under his window for his removal later on when Palmer had been taken to London for trial a strong body of mounted troops was employed to escort him such being the intensity of public feeling that ordinary police protection was considered insufficient Palmer was never taken before any bench of magistrates a strange circumstance which brought upon me a polite contradiction when I was in Stafford working up details of the case I was told that this was most improbable, almost impossible yet when we adjourned to the county hall where the old papers and documents were kept I was proved correct for the indictment had had the words committing magistrate erased and the name of the coroner substituted so strong in hostile was the local feeling against Palmer that there could be no hope of an impartial trial in Stafford he had been a genial boon companion and was a hypocritical churchgoer but piece by piece his appalling crimes were revealed and it was not too much to say that the whole country clamored for his death even before he had been tried a special act of parliament was passed known as the Palmer Act to enable the trial to take place at London and that act has been used in other famous cases when it has been considered that local prejudice would bring about an unfair trial Palmer was accordingly tried at the Old Bailey by three judges Lord Chief Justice Campbell, Baron Alderson and Mr. Justice Cresswell and after a trial extending over a fortnight a trial during which other high court judges actually went on to the Old Bailey to listen to the proceedings so great was the universal interest in the case the prisoner was found guilty and was sentenced to be hanged outside Stafford jail there is no doubt that the conviction was largely due to the skill and cleverness of the leading counsel for the crown Sir Alexander Cockburn who afterwards became Lord Chief Justice and Palmer himself realized this for when he was being removed from the dock after his conviction he observed to a bystander using a sporting phrase it's the riding that's done it Palmer was taken to Euston station through the portals that still stand he was handcuffed during the journey to Stafford which was made in a first class compartment and still further to lessen his chances of escape one of his legs was manacled to the leg of one of the men who had charge of him an enormous crowd assembled on that fine June morning to see the man meet his doom he was buried in the yard of the jail and in accordance with a custom then prevailing at that particular prison he was put into his grave naked and uncoffin I possess a letter written by Palmer while under sentence of death and I have one of many letters sent to him after his condemnation especially by ladies urging him to repent and make his peace with God Pratt the unspeakable scoundrel died a raving madman not long after the execution and the equally villainous lawyer Jeremiah Smith got his desserts pretty well especially when he was under the ruthless cross examination of Cockburn that is a mere outline of the career of the most callous and notorious of modern English murderers even a summary of such a life leaves the impression that the criminal so old in vice and iniquity must have been a man of mature age yet when he met his shameful but most justly deserved death Palmer was only 31 years old End of Chapter 8. Palmer's Poisonings