localhistories.org: 2026

Eric Brown killed his father. He used a most unusual murder weapon, a landmine. Eric lived with his father, Archibald, and his mother, Doris. His father was partially paralysed and used a wheelchair. He was a bully who ruled over his family with an iron rod.

His wheelchair was kept in an air raid shelter in the garden. On 23 July 1943, a nurse, Doris Mitchell, went to fetch it but found it locked. Eric emerged from the air raid shelter. Doris then got the wheelchair and took Archibald for a walk. After a while, she lit a cigarette for Archibald, but as he made himself comfortable, there was an explosion.

Nurse Mitchell survived without serious injuries, but Archibald Brown was blown to pieces. The explosion was caused by a type of mine used to destroy tanks. It had exploded two feet above the ground. The police surmised it had been placed under the cushion Archibald was sitting on.

They soon found that Eric had learned about this type of mine while in the army. He was on leave when his father was killed, and he had been seen in the air raid shelter. Eric soon confessed. He was brought to trial on 4 November 1943, but a doctor testified that he was a schizophrenic. The jury found him guilty of murder but insane. Eric was sentenced to be detained during his majesty’s pleasure. He died in 1975.

Marlborough

I wrote a brief history of Marlborough, a historic market town in Wiltshire

Alfred Rouse - the burning car murder

Alfred Rouse was hanged for the murder of an unknown man. Rouse was born in London on 6 April 1894. In 1914 he joined the army but he married Lily May Watkins before he departed for France. In 1915 he was wounded. He suffered head injuries and as well as injuries to his leg. Rouse slowly recovered. He was discharged from the army with a pension in 1916. However In 1920 a doctor examined him and his pension was stopped as he had completely recovered. However Rouse found work as a car mechanic.

In 1929 Rouse got a job as a salesman. It was a well paid position and it involved a lot of travelling by car. Rouse was also a womaniser who had many affairs. He had several illegitimate children and faced having to pay maintenance for them. With his financial situation strained Rouse looked for a way out. He turned to murder.

Rouse thought of a plan. He would offer a lift to a down and out and then kill the man. He would set the car on fire. He hoped he could make it look like an accident. The man’s body would be so badly burned it would be unidentifiable but the cars number plates would survive. Rouse hoped the police would identify the car as his and assume the dead body was him. If he was believed to be dead he could make a fresh start.

However, Rouse bungled the murder. In Britain 5 November is Bonfire Night when people light bonfires and fireworks. At 2 am on 6 November 1930 two young men were returning from a Bonfire Night Dance in Northamptonshire. They saw a fire in the distance. Strangely they saw a man on the opposite side of the road climb out of a ditch. He was carrying a briefcase. The man said ‘It looks like someone is having a bonfire’. He then walked off in the opposite direction to the two men. They soon discovered the burning car. As Rouse hoped, the police quickly identified the burning car.

The police spoke to his wife. She said she had last seen Alfred at 2 am on 6 November. (Rouse later said it was actually about 6.30 am). They showed pieces of the dead man’s clothing to Mrs Rouse. She was not certain if they were his.

The police were naturally keen to talk to the mysterious man who climbed out of a ditch. It had been a moonlight night and the two young men who saw him were able to describe him to the police. He matched the description of Alfred Rouse. So if he wasn’t the victim who was?

Meanwhile, Rouse went to his house in London then hitchhiked to the house of his mistress, who was heavily pregnant in Wales. She asked where his car was. He told her it had been stolen.

However his mistress showed him a newspaper that named him as the owner of the burned car. Rouse decided to leave and he caught a coach to London. He told his mistress where he was going and she told the police. They were waiting to arrest him when he arrived.

The police also found that the fire was not accidental. The feeder pipe from the petrol tank to the carburetor had been loosened allowing petrol to leak out. Across the two front seats of the car was the body of a man burned beyond recognition. The post mortem showed he was alive but unconscious when the fire started.

Rouse had a not very convincing explanation for the fire. He had picked up a man near St Albans and later stopped the car to go to the toilet. He asked the hitch hiker to fill the petrol tank with fuel from a can. The man then asked if he had a cigarette. Rouse did not smoke cigarettes but he had a cigar and gave the man one. He then went into a field. Looking back he saw the car on fire. According to Rouse the passenger must have accidentally ignited the petrol when he lit his cigar. Rouse claimed he tried to rescue the hitch hiker from the burning car but he could not.

The police were skeptical. Why had Rouse taken his briefcase when he got out of the car to relieve himself? (The two men who discovered the burning car saw him carrying one). Rouse claimed that he panicked and fled the scene.

However the police soon discovered that several of Rouse’s mistresses were taking out had child maintenance orders against him. He would be unable to pay them so he set fire to his car with an unconscious hitchhiker inside hoping he would be mistaken for the dead man.

He hoped could begin a new life with a new identity. On 27 November 1930 Rouse was arrested for the murder of an unidentified man.

His trial began on 26 January 1931. Expert witnesses testified that the victim was unconscious when the fire started. It was also revealed that a fragment of his clothing, which had survived the fire had been soaked in petrol. Rouse stood by his claim that the death was an accident. However the jury did not believe him. On 31 January he was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Alfred Rouse was hanged on 10 March 1931.

While awaiting execution Rouse sent a letter to a newspaper, the Daily Sketch confessing to the murder. Rouse claimed he met a man outside a pub in London and promised him a job in the Midlands and arranged to drive him there. Rouse got the man drunk by giving him a bottle of whisky. When he was sufficiently drunk Rouse strangled the man until he was unconscious. Rouse admitted he had deliberately loosened a pipe to let petrol flow out. He also poured petrol over the man. He then set the car on fire.

Monday, 2 February 2026

Huntingdon History

I wrote a brief history of the town of Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire

Sunday, 1 February 2026

Melksham History

I wrote a little history of the market town of Melksham in Wiltshire

Mary Blandy

I wrote about Mary Blandy. In the 18th century, she poisoned her father with arsenic. She was hanged.

Saturday, 31 January 2026

Animal Related Facts

I wrote about some animal-related history facts

Friday, 30 January 2026

Weather Related Facts

I wrote a list of some weather-related history facts

Thursday, 29 January 2026

Jack the Stripper

The Thames Nude Murders were a series of murders in London in the 1960s. Because the killer removed the victims’ clothes, he became known as Jack the Stripper.

It’s not certain how many women he killed but on 2 February 1964, the body of Hannah Tailford was found floating in the River Thames near Hammersmith Bridge in London.

She was naked apart from her stockings. The unfortunate woman was strangled and several of her teeth were missing. Her knickers had been stuffed down her throat.

The police surmised she had been dumped in the river at Dukes Meadows, a parkland in Chiswick, London. Hannah was a sex worker. She was from Northumberland, and she was 30 at the time of her death.

On 8 April 1964, a second body was found on the shore of the Thames at Chiswick. The victim was Irene Lockwood, aged 26.

Like Hannah Tailford she was a sex worker. The police realised that both women were probably killed by the same man.

A third victim was found on 24 April 1964 in an alleyway in Brentford. The woman had been strangled, and three of her front teeth were missing. She was identified as Helen Barthelemy, aged 22, from Glasgow. She was naked and specks of lead-based paint were found on her skin. It was the kind of paint used in the car industry and the police surmised that her body had been stored in a workshop where a high-pressure paint sprayer was used.

A fourth victim, Mary Fleming, was discovered on 14 July 1964 in Berrymede Road in Chiswick, London. Mary, a Scottish woman was a sex worker. She was 30 years old. This time, too, specks of paint were found on the victim’s body.

Another victim, Frances Brown AKA Margaret McGowan, was found in a car park in Kensington on 25 November 1964. Frances was a sex worker. She was born in Glasgow. At the time of her death, she was 21.

On 16 February 1965, the body of Bridget O’Hara, known as ‘Bridie’ was found by a shed behind the Heron Trading Estate in Acton, London. Again, flecks of paint were found on the body. Bridget was born in Dublin, and she was 27 years old.

The murders then stopped, perhaps because the killer committed suicide. Or perhaps he was arrested for an unrelated offence. Thames Nude Murders, also called the Hammersmith Nude Murders, were never officially solved.

Forced Contraception in Greenland

By chance, I found out about this scandal of forced contraception in Greenland 😠

Tuesday, 27 January 2026

Catherine Hayes

Catherine Hayes was executed for killing her husband in 1726. She was born Catherine Hall near Birmingham in 1690. She moved around the country working as a domestic servant. Eventually, she was employed by a farmer named Hayes in Warwickshire. In 1713, she married the farmer’s son John, who was a carpenter and merchant. In 1719, the couple moved to London, where John Hayes became a successful businessman.

But Catherine became dissatisfied with her marriage. In 1725, Catherine took in a lodger, a young man named Thomas Billings. He was a tailor. She had an affair with him.

Catherine took in a second lodger, a man named Thomas Wood, who was a butcher. Catherine had affairs with both lodgers.

Catherine Hayes eventually decided to murder her husband. She persuaded her lovers that murder was justified because her husband physically abused her, and he blasphemed God (which was shocking in a religious age).

On 1 March 1726, John went drinking with the two lodgers. When they went home, John lay drunk on a bed. Billings hit John with an axe. A woman named Mrs Springate, who lived upstairs, heard John cry out and knocked on their door to ask about the noise. But Catherine managed to persuade her that nothing was wrong. She claimed she and some visitors had been ‘making merry’.

Wood helped Billings to finish off John, hitting him with the axe. To make identification more difficult, they cut off his head and threw it into the River Thames. They dumped the body in a pond in the countryside.

But the head washed up on the shore of the River Thames, and it was found by a waterman.

The head was displayed in public in the churchyard of St Margaret’s Church in Westminster, and certain people recognised it as the head of John Hayes. The rest of his body was discovered on 24 March.

Catherine Hayes and her two male lovers were arrested, tried, and found guilty. The two men were sentenced to be hanged (one of them, Thomas Wood, died in jail before the sentence could be carried out).

Thomas Billings was hanged on 9 May 1726, the same day Catherine was executed. His body was hanged in chains in a public place as a warning to others.

However, Catherine suffered a worse fate. In the 18th century, if a woman murdered her husband, it was considered ‘petty treason’, and the penalty was death by burning (although the woman was usually strangled with a rope before the flames reached her). Certain types of murder were considered petty treason. If a servant murdered his master or if a clergyman killed his superior.

The punishment of burning was abolished in 1790. The legal concept of petty treason was abolished in 1828.

Thomas Crapper Day

27 January is Thomas Crapper Day. He was a great designer of toilets, but Mr Crapper did not actually invent the flushing toilet.

Monday, 26 January 2026

Wellingborough

I wrote a little history of Wellingborough in Northamptonshire

Saturday, 24 January 2026

Aberdeen

This is my history of Aberdeen

Friday, 23 January 2026

Newark on Trent

I wrote a little history of Newark on Trent in Nottinghamshire

Tuesday, 20 January 2026

Axminster

I wrote a little history of Axminster in Dorset

Friday, 16 January 2026

Devizes

I wrote a short history of Devizes

Tiverton

I wrote a brief history of the town of Tiverton in Devon

Thursday, 15 January 2026

The Axeman of New Orleans

The axeman of New Orleans was an unknown serial killer in the years 1918-1919. As his title suggests, he killed people with an axe. He usually chiseled out a panel of a back door to gain access to people’s homes. His first victims were Joseph Maggio, an Italian grocer and his wife, Catherine. On 23 May 1918, the axeman broke into the couple’s home, cut their throats with a razor and then hit them both with an axe. The motive for the murders was unclear. It was not robbery, as nothing was taken.

The axeman next struck on 27 June 1918. He broke into the home of Louis Bessumer, another Italian grocer and Harriet Lowe. He struck both of them with an axe. Fortunately, both survived although Harriet suffered from partial facial paralysis for the rest of her life. Once again nothing was stolen.

The next attack was on 5 August 1918. The axeman broke into the home of Anna Schneider. He struck her with an object (some accounts say an axe, others say a bedside table lamp) but she survived. Anna was 8 months pregnant at the time of the attack but luckily the baby was not harmed. Anna gave birth shortly afterward.

The next victim was an elderly man named Joseph Romano. Joseph lived with his two nieces. On 10 August they were woken by the sounds of a struggle. On investigating they found their uncle had been hit with an axe. He was still alive but he died two days later.

The axeman did not strike again until 10 March 1919. This time he struck in Gretna, Louisiana. He broke into the home of Italian grocer Charles Cortimiglia. He struck Charles and his wife with an axe. Both survived. Sadly, their two year old daughter Mary was also hit with an axe and she died. Rosie accused Iorlando Jordano and his son Frank of being the attackers. Both men were convicted of murder. Iorlando was sentenced to life imprisonment while his son was sentenced to death.

However, they could not have been guilty. Iorlando was nearly 70 and in poor health. His son, Frank, was a tall and heavily built man. The killer had chiseled out a panel of a door to gain entry. Frank would not have been able to squeeze through. Charles Cortimiglia said his wife was lying and the Jordano’s were innocent.

Eventually, Rosie Cortimiglia admitted she lied and the two men were released. (Her motive for accusing two innocent men is not known).

Steve Boca was attacked by a man with an axe on 10 August 1919. Fortunately, he survived. Sarah Laumann was attacked on 3 September 1919. She too survived.

The last murder by the New Orleans Axeman happened on 27 October 1919. A man named Mike Pepitone was attacked and killed in his bed. The attacks then ceased. The case remains a mystery.

The Brighton Trunk Murder of 1934

On 17th June 1934, a railway employee named William Vinnicombe noticed a horrid odour coming from a trunk in a left luggage room in Brighton Railway Station.

The trunk was locked, but Detective Bishop of the Railway Police was called to deal with it. Inside, they found the torso and arms of a woman. The head and legs were missing.

The following day, 18 June 1934, a stinking suitcase was found at Kings Cross Railway Station in London. It contained the woman’s legs.

The famous pathologist Bernard Spilsbury said the victim was a woman aged about 25.

She was well nourished and probably stood about 5 feet 2 inches tall. Sadly, she was 5 months pregnant at the time of her death. Her head was never found, making identification very difficult.

From the condition of her hands, feet, and nails, Spilsbury thought the woman was middle class. He also gave his opinion that whoever dismembered the woman had little surgical skill.

The police appealed for information about missing women, but the dead woman was never identified. The motive for the murder is unknown, and the whole case is a mystery.