Louisa Merrifield

 Louisa Merrifield poisoned a woman with phosphorus. She was born in Wigan, Lancashire, on 3 December 1906. She married her third husband, Alfred Merrifield in 1950. In 1951 they moved to Blackpool.

In March 1953, she was employed as a housekeeper to a 79-year-old woman named Sarah Ann Ricketts, who lived in a house she owned in Blackpool. Both Louisa Merrifield and her husband moved in with Mrs Ricketts.

Mrs Ricketts was so taken with her new companions that she made a will in their favour. They would inherit her house. That proved to be a deadly mistake.

Perhaps Merrifield was impatient to inherit the house. Or maybe she was afraid the old woman would change her will. At any rate, she turned to murder.

Sarah Ricketts had the odd habit of eating jam from a jar with a spoon and drinking rum with it. It’s believed that Merrifield added rat poison, which contains phosphorus, to it. Mrs Ricketts died on 14 April 1953, although a doctor visited her shortly before she died and found her to be healthy. 

Louisa Merrifield did not call a doctor until the next day. He was suspicious and he refused to issue a death certificate. Instead, he phoned the police.

An autopsy was conducted and the body was found to contain poison. Several witnesses told the police that they had seen Sarah Ricketts the day before her death and she seemed normal. She certainly did not seem ill. 

The police found that Merrifield had purchased rat poison from a chemist. (At the time, anyone who bought poison was legally obliged to sign a poisons register). The police also found a spoon with traces of poison, although Louisa had carefully disposed of all the jam jars Sarah Ricketts ate from.

Both Alfred and Louisa Merrifield went on trial on 20 July 1953. On 31 July, Louisa was found guilty and she was sentenced to death. Alfred Merrifield was acquitted, and he was released. Louisa Merrifield was not so lucky. She was hanged on 18 September 1953. She was the third-to-last woman to be hanged in Britain. 

Thomas Neill Cream

Thomas Neill Cream was born in Glasgow, Scotland, on 27 May 1850, but his family moved to Canada when he was a child. Cream was trained to be a doctor. He was first convicted of murder in 1881. While living in Chicago, he gave strychnine to a man named Daniel Stott, who suffered from epilepsy. Cream managed to convince Stott that he had a cure for the ailment. Stott’s death was, at first, ascribed to natural causes. 
However, Cream did something very strange. He wrote to the coroner accusing a pharmacist of poisoning Stott. 

The body was exhumed and was found to contain strychnine. Cream was arrested and tried for murder. He was convicted but he was treated with surprising leniency. 
He was sentenced to life imprisonment and he was released in 1891. Why did Cream write to the coroner? He could have gotten away with murder. Perhaps Cream wanted to be caught.

At any rate, after being released in 1891, he moved to Lambeth, London and began poisoning sex workers. Presumably, Cream got some sadistic pleasure from poisoning people. 

The first victim was a 19-year-old woman named Ellen Donworth. She collapsed in agony on the street on 13 October and she died on the way to the hospital. Before she died, she said that a ‘tall gentleman’ had given her a bottle with ‘white stuff’ in it. An autopsy showed she had been poisoned with strychnine. 
Again, Cream wrote letters to people about the murder. He wrote to the coroner, using a false name, offering to name the murderer in return for a large sum of money. He also wrote to the owner of the booksellers W.H. Smith, accusing him of the murder of Donworth and offering to keep silent in return for money. Again, he used a false name.

Next, Cream murdered Matilda Clover. On 20 October 1891, she was found writhing in agony in her room and died shortly afterward. She said a man had given her some pills. Cream wrote to a doctor, William Broadbent and accused him of murdering Matilda Clover. 

In April 1892, Cream met a sex worker called Louise Harvey. Cream helpfully offered her some pills, which he said would clear up her complexion. Fortunately, she only pretended to take them. Cream left, presumably believing he had poisoned her. 
Two other women were not so lucky. On 11 April 1892, Cream met two sex workers, Alice Marsh, aged 21 and Emma Shrivell, aged 18. Cream spent the night with them but before he left, he gave them some pills. 

Unfortunately, both girls took the pills and died of strychnine poisoning.
Cream was caught because he could not resist talking about the murders. He met an American tourist and offered to take him on a tour of the places where the murders were committed. 

However, the tourist was a policeman and he was suspicious of Cream. He informed the British police and they placed Cream under surveillance. They found that he often paid for the services of sex workers and they also found out about his criminal record in the USA. 

Cream was arrested on 3 June 1892 and his trial began on 17 October. He was found guilty on 21 October and was sentenced to death. Thomas Neill Cream was hanged on 15 November 1892.

Henri Landru - Bluebeard

 Henri Landru persuaded rich women to marry him. He took their money then killed them and disposed of the bodies. He was called Bluebeard because he was like a character in a French fairy tale. 

Henri Landru was born in Paris on 12 April 1869. Like other murderers he had a history of crime before he turned to murder in 1915. He was sentenced to two years in prison for fraud in 1900. It was the first of many sentences.

Landru placed adverts in the ‘Lonely Hearts’ pages of a Paris newspaper using a false identity. Landru was completely dishonest and callous but he could also be charming. 

After meeting a suitable rich woman Landru promised to marry her and persuaded her to give him her life savings and valuables. He then invited her to come to his villa in a village near Paris. 

It’s not known how Landru killed his victims. He may have strangled them. It’s believed he dismembered the bodies and burned them in a stove. When women disappeared their families were naturally suspicious but they did not know Landru’s real name. 

Landru’s first victims were a woman named Jeanne-Marie Cuchet in 1915 and her teenage son Andre in 1915. They were followed by nine others. 

Landru’s downfall began when on or about 1 September 1917 Landru murdered a woman named Celestine Buisson having pocketed her savings. Landru went on to murder three more women. However in 1919 Madame Buisson’s sister saw Landru in Paris and recognised him. She followed him into a shop and heard him order a china dinner service to be delivered to his home. The sister informed the police. 

From the shop they obtained the address where Landru was living (under a false name). When he was arrested Landru was found to be carrying a notebook which contained details about missing women.

The police searched Landru’s villa and found many fragments of bone and teeth among ashes. Witnesses said they had sometimes seen black smoke coming from his chimney. The police also found clothes and papers belonging to his victims. Landru went on trial on 21 November 1921. He was accused of the murder of 10 women and one teenage boy. On 30 November he was found guilty of 11 murders and he was sentenced to death.

Henri Landru was guillotined on 25 February 1922.

In 1947 Charlie Chaplin starred in a film called Monsieur Verdoux. It was inspired by the case of Henri Landru. 

Sidney Fox - Matricide

 Sidney Fox was hanged in 1930 for the murder of his mother. Fox was born in Norfolk in 1899. His mother was Rosaline Fox. It’s not certain if Rosaline’s husband William, was his father. Before the murder, Sidney had a history of petty theft and fraud and spent time in jail.

In 1927, Fox’s mother met a 51-year-old woman called Charlotte Morse. Although Fox was gay, he began an affair with Mrs Morse. Fox also stole her jewellery and insured her life. One night Mrs Morse awoke to find her room filling with gas. A gas tap behind a heavy piece of furniture had been turned on, so it was obviously not accidental. Fox was trying to murder the woman for her life insurance money. Mrs Morse told the police. Sydney was not convicted of attempted murder but of stealing and was sentenced to 15 months in prison.

In May 1929, Fox and his mother began a life of staying in hotels and leaving without paying the bills. Sidney took out a life insurance policy on his mother, to expire at midnight on 23 October 1929. 

On that date, they were both staying at the Hotel Metropole in Margate. Mother and son were in adjoining rooms with a connecting door. 

At 11.40 PM on 23 October, Fox raised the alarm that his mother’s room was on fire. Two other guests found the adjoining door closed. They found Rosaline Fox in a burning armchair. They pulled her out, but she was already dead. Sidney claimed he had left his mother reading a newspaper in her room. At first, it was thought the fire was accidental and Rosaline’s death was ascribed to shock and suffocation. 

However, the insurance company was, not surprisingly, suspicious. It was just too convenient that Rosaline died just 20 minutes before the life insurance policy expired. The fire was supposed to have been started by a gas fire in the room but investigators found a patch of unburnt carpet between the fire and the armchair Rosaline was found in. The fire could not have spread from the gas fire to the armchair without burning the patch of carpet between them. 

Even more suspicious, petrol-soaked newspapers and a can of petrol were found in the dead woman’s room. As a result of the investigation, the body of Rosaline Fox was exhumed. Pathologist Bernard Spilsbury conducted an autopsy and claimed that the dead woman had been strangled before the fire started. There were no signs of smoke inhalation. 

Sidney Fox went on trial at Lewes in March 1930. Pathologist Bernard Spilsbury was adamant that Mrs Fox had been strangled and he claimed he saw a bruise on his throat. However, other doctors disagreed. They could not see the ‘bruise’ as it had disappeared as the body decomposed. It was possible, they argued that the ‘bruise’ seen by Spilsbury was just discolouration caused by the body decomposing. Spilsbury also had to admit that the hyoid bone (a small bone in the throat) was not broken. (It is usually broken during strangulation). 

Fox did not help himself. He was asked why he closed the door to his mother’s rooms, knowing it was on fire. Fox replied ‘so that smoke should not spread into the hotel’. 

The prosecution lawyer said ‘rather that your mother should suffocate in that room than smoke should get about in the hotel?’. Fox’s seeming callousness badly damaged his case. He was convicted of murder and he was hanged on 8 April 1930. 

Peter Kurten - The Vampire of Düsseldorf

 Peter Kurten was a German serial killer. He was born on 26 May 1883. He was one of 13 children. His father was an alcoholic and physically abused Peter. 

Kurten later claimed he committed his first murders when he was 9. He said he pushed a friend, who could not swim, off a raft. Another boy jumped in to save him but Kurten held the would-be rescuer underwater. The other boy, unable to swim, drowned. The authorities ascribed the two deaths to accidental drowning. Whether Kurten killed them or whether the deaths were accidental is not known.

Kurten claimed that he began abusing animals when he was 13. As an adult, Kurten had a record of petty crimes such as stealing and fraud and he spent much of his life in prison.

Kurten committed his first definite murder on 25 May 1913. He broke into an inn. Kurten found a 9-year-old girl called Christine Klein asleep. He strangled her, then cut her throat. Unfortunately, Kurten was not caught. 

From 1925 to 1929, Kurten committed many crimes of arson in Dusseldorf. Then, on 3 February 1929 a woman named Apollonia Khun was attacked with a knife. Fortunately, she survived. On 8 February Kurten strangled and stabbed an 8-year-old girl named Rose Ohliger. On 13 February 1929 Kurten stabbed a 45-year-old man named Scheer while he was walking along the street drunk. Kurten attempted to strangle four women between March and July 1929. However, all escaped. The next murder was on 11 August when Kurten strangled and stabbed a woman named Maria Hahn. 

On 21 August Kurten stabbed three strangers. All three survived. Then, on 24 August Kurten killed two girls, Gertrude Hamacher aged 5 and her adopted sister Luise Lenzen aged 14. Kurten persuaded the older girl to go to buy him some cigarettes. While she was away he strangled the younger girl and cut her throat. He did the same to the older girl when she returned. The next day, 25 August Kurten met a young woman named Gertrude Schulte. Kurten asked to have sex with him. The woman said ‘I’d rather die’. Kurten replied ‘Well die then’ and stabbed her several times. Fortunately, she survived. 

For his next murder, Kurten used a hammer. He killed a young woman called Ida Reuter on 30 September 1929. On 11 October 1929, he killed a young woman named Elizabeth Dorrier with a hammer. On 25 October 1929 Kurten attacked two women with a hammer but both survived.

However, on 7 November 1929 a 5-year-old child was not so lucky. Kurten strangled and they stabbed her. In 1930 Kurten continued to attack young women early in 1930 but all of them survived.

Finally a woman called Maria Budlick came to Dusseldorf by train looking for a job. She had the misfortune to meet Peter Kurten. He persuaded her to come to his apartment for a meal. She agreed and afterward he offered to take her to a hostel. Instead he lured her to a secluded place where he tried to strangle her. Budlick screamed so Kurten let her go. 

Budlick did not inform the police. Instead she wrote a letter, which was incorrectly addressed. A postal worker opened the letter and upon reading the contents he showed it to the police. They spoke to Budlick and she was able to show them the building where Kurten lived. 

By chance Kurten returned to the building and saw police there. He fled the scene and went to live in lodgings. But on 23 May he returned home and he confessed to his wife and urged her to claim the reward for finding the murderer. 

Kurten seems to have decided that the game was up. On 24 May his wife told the police. She also told them that Peter had agreed to meet her at St. Rochus church later that day. Kurten was arrested when he came to the rendezvous. He surrendered without any struggle or protest. Instead he made a long confession to all his crimes. 

Kurten went on trial on 13 April 1931. At first he pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity but he later changed his plea to guilty. On 22 April he was convicted of nine murders. Peter Kurten was executed by guillotine on 2 July 1931. 

Fritz Haarmann - The Butcher of Hanover

 Fritz Haarmann was a German serial killer. He was born in Hanover on 25 October 1875. At school, he was a low-ability student. At the age of 15, Fritz was sent to a military academy but he was soon discharged after showing symptoms of epilepsy. Fritz then worked in his father’s cigar factory. 

Haarmann began luring boys to secluded places then sexually abused them. He was soon arrested but he was diagnosed as ‘incurably deranged’. He was detained in a mental asylum but in 1897, he escaped to Switzerland. He returned to Hanover in 1899. 

He was conscripted into the army in 1900. He later claimed that he enjoyed his time in the army but he was discharged from the army on medical grounds as he had mental health problems.

He was awarded a pension but it was not enough to live on. So Haarmann turned to stealing. 

In 1914 he was sentenced to 5 years in prison but he was released in 1918. Despite his criminal record, he became a police informer. 

He also became a murderer. His first victim was a 17 year old boy named Friedel Rothe who was killed in October 1918. Later Haarmann the police caught Haarmann in bed with a 13 year old boy. He was sentenced to 9 months in prison. 

On his release in 1919 he met a man named Hans Grans. The two began a relationship and Grans later became an accomplice. 

The pair met boys at the railway station and lured them into Haarmann’s home, where they were killed, dismembered and thrown into the River Leine. Haarmann sold the boys' clothes. 

The second murder was in February 1923 and many more followed. Haarmann claimed he strangled boys by biting their throats. However, inevitably people began to find human remains in the river. In May 1924 children found a human skull on the banks of the river. A pathologist said it was the skull of a young man and it had been cut from the body.

Meanwhile people had, of course noticed the large number of teenage boys who were disappearing in Hanover. In the following weeks three more skulls were found. Children also found a sack of bones near the river. Eventually the police dredged the river and they found hundreds of human bones. Haarman was a suspect because of his previous offences against boys and he was placed under surveillance. Two undercover policemen saw him arguing with a 15 year old boy. 

Foolishly, Haarmann himself went to two other officers and demanded they arrest the boy for travelling with forged documents. The boy told the police he had been staying with Haarmann for several days and that the adult had sexually assaulted him several times. 

The police arrested Haarmann and searched his apartment. They found the walls and floors were bloodstained. Haarmann claimed the bloodstains were from animals he had butchered and sold. But the police also found large numbers of clothes and other personal effects. 

The police placed the clothes on display in the police station and the relatives of the missing boys were invited to look at them to see if they could identify them. Many of the clothes were indeed identified as belonging to missing youths. Eventually Haarmann confessed to the murders, although he claimed he couldn’t remember how many boys he had killed. In the end the police were able to identify 27 victims. 

The trial began on 4 December 1924. Haarmann was convicted of 24 murders, he was acquitted of 3 of them. He was sentenced to death. 

His lover Hans Grans was also put on trial. He was also found guilty of being an accomplice and he was sentenced to 12 years in prison.  

Fritz Haarmann was executed by guillotine on 15 April 1925. Haarman’s head was preserved for research. It was finally cremated in 2014. 

Burke and Hare

 Burke and Hare are often called grave robbers. In reality, they did not rob graves. Instead, they murdered people and then sold the victims’ bodies to surgeons for dissection. Today, many people donate their bodies to science but in the early 19th century, attitudes were very different. Most people were horrified by the idea of being cut up after they were dead. As a result, surgeons found it hard to find bodies to dissect in lectures. So some were willing to pay large amounts of money for dead bodies, without asking too many questions. Burke and Hare are believed to have murdered 16 people. 

William Burke was born in Ireland around 1792, and it’s believed he came to Scotland to work as a navvy on the canals. He eventually settled in Edinburgh, where he worked as a cobbler, repairing shoes. It’s not certain when William Hare was born. He was probably from Ireland. At any rate, by 1827, he owned a lodging house in Edinburgh and he had befriended William Burke. 

The murders began in stages. In November 1827, a boarder known as Old Donald died in Hare’s lodging house. He died owing £4 (a considerable sum of money in those days). Hare told Burke and they decided to sell the body to anatomists to recoup the money. They told the authorities that Old Donald was dead. A carpenter made a coffin for him. Burke and Hare filled it with bark (normally used for tanning). They sold the body to a surgeon, Dr Robert Knox, for £7 and 10 shillings (there were 20 shillings in a pound). So they made a handsome profit from his death.

The next step was to murder a man who was ill but still alive. A tenant called Joseph, a miller, fell ill with an infectious disease. That would drive away other tenants from the lodging house. The two men gave Joseph whisky, then suffocated him.

This time, Burke and Hare sold the body for £10. Suffocating him meant there were no marks on the body. When the body was dissected, it would not be obvious that the person had been murdered.

Burke and Hare began regularly killing people and selling the victims’ bodies. It’s not certain in what order they killed the victims, but the third victim was probably a woman named Abigail Simpson. In February 1828, she was lured to the lodging house and given whisky. She was then suffocated. Once again, they sold the body for £10. Over the next months, Burke and Hare continued luring people to the lodging house, giving them whisky, then suffocating them, and then selling the bodies. 

One of the victims was a mentally disabled man, James Wilson. He was called ‘Daft Jamie’. He was well known in Edinburgh. He was often seen begging. The unfortunate man was lured to the lodging house, where he was given whisky and suffocated. They sold the body, as usual, but this time several medical students recognised the dead person. Local people also noticed James was missing. Dr Knox likely suspected the truth because he ordered the immediate dissection of James’ body. Like so many other murderers, Burke and Hare became overconfident and started being careless.

The last victim was an Irishwoman named Margaret Docherty. She was murdered on 31 October 1828. Burke and Hare befriended her. She was invited to stay at the lodging house. Two other lodgers, James and Ann Gray, were told they must move out to make room for her. Margaret Docherty was suffocated in the usual way and her body was hidden under some straw. The Grays returned the next day to collect their belongings. They were left alone in the house and they looked under the straw, discovering the dead body. 

The Grays immediately alerted the authorities but while they were away, Burke and Hare removed the body and took it to be dissected. 

On 3 November, Burke and Hare were arrested. But the authorities were not sure if they could secure convictions.

So Hare was offered immunity from prosecution if he turned King’s evidence, that is if he testified against Burke. On 25 December 1828, William Burke was found guilty of murder and he was sentenced to death. 

He was hanged in public in Edinburgh on 28 January 1829. Burke’s body was publicly dissected, as his victims' bodies were. His skeleton was given to the Anatomical Museum of the Edinburgh Medical School. 

William Hare moved to England. What happened to him after that is not known. No action was taken against the surgeon, Dr Robert Knox.

The dreadful crimes were remembered in a rhyme:

‘Burke's the butcher, Hare's the thief, Knox the boy that buys the beef’