I purchased this book from Amazon. It's a horrific case about two depraved and fiendish men who raped and murdered young girls in the 1980s. They were called the Railway Murders because of their location near railway stations. However it's a good read. I recommend it to anyone interested in true crime. A Dangerous Place by Simon Farquhar is published by History Press.
In 1684 William Carstares became the last man in Britain to be tortured with thumbscrews. He was tortured because he was suspected of being involved in a plot against the king.
On 18 August 1634 a French Catholic priest named Urbain Grandier was burned to death after being convicted of witchcraft. He was supposed to have caused a group of nuns to become demon posessed. In 1971 a movie called The Devils was made about it.
On 17 August 1962 Peter Fechter became the first person shot by East German guards at the Berlin Wall.
Mary Blandy was convicted of murdering her father and was hanged for the crime. Mary was born in 1720 into a middle-class family. Her father, Francis Blandy, was a well-to-do lawyer and the town clerk of Henley on Thames in Oxfordshire. Mary was, by all accounts, intelligent and well educated.
Keen to see his daughter marry well, Francis offered a dowry of £10,000 (a huge sum at that time). However, Blandy's entire estate was only worth about £4,000, and he could not have honoured the bargain. Still, the offer attracted a man named Captain William Cranstoun in 1746. Cranstoun was the son of a Scottish nobleman. In 1747, he asked to marry Mary. Francis agreed, and even invited him to move into the Blandy home.
However, Cranstoun was already married. When Francis Blandy found out, he was naturally enraged. However, Cranstoun managed to persuade Mary and her mother that his marriage was invalid and would soon be annulled by the Scottish courts.
Cranstoun moved to London to await the court's decision. However, the Scottish court ruled that his marriage was legal.
Cranstoun persuaded Mary that he had a 'love powder' that, if she mixed it with her father's food and drink, it would change his attitude. He would start to like Cranstoun. The 'love powder' was actually arsenic. It's not clear if Mary naively believed Cranstoun or if she realised what the powder actually was. In any case, her father fell ill and gradually worsened. He died on 14 August 1751.
Nevertheless, Mary was not arrested till the following year, 1752. Cranstoun heard of the arrest, and he fled to France. Mary Blandy was convicted of murder, and she was hanged on 6 April 1752.
On 16 August 1819 the Peterloo Massacre took place. A big crowd held a peaceful political meeting at St Peters Fields in Manchester, England. The magistrates sent in troops who killed 11 and injured about 400.
The last person to be executed in the Tower of London was German spy Josef Jakobs on 15 August 1941. He was shot by a firing squad. This is a video about the case.
On 13 August 1964 Gwynne Evans and Peter Allen were hanged in separate prisons. They were the last people to be hanged in Britain for murder. The death sentence for murder was abolished for a trial period of 5 years in 1965. It was permanently abolished for murder in 1969. This is a YouTube video about the case.
I found an interesting video about two evil rapists and murderers, John Duffy and David Mulcahy. They were known as the Railway Killers. They struck near railway stations or railway lines in London and Surrey during the 1980s. It's a horrific case. Duffy was convicted of murder in 1988. Mulcahy was convicted in 2001.
I found this interesting video about a charming individual who killed his parents.
Derek Bentley was hanged in 1953. The unfortunate man was granted a posthumous pardon in 1998. It was a tragic case. This YouTube video forensically examines the statement supposedly made by Mr Bentley to the police.
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On 10 August the murderer John George Haigh was hanged in Wandsworth prison in London. Haigh killed 6 people and dissolved the bodies in acid. Haigh asked for a trial hanging, to make sure everything went OK. The request was refused but Haigh need not have worried, his execution proceeded without fault.
The Great Train Robbery took place on 8 August 1963. It was a notorious crime where the robbers held up a train and stole a vast amount of money. This YouTube video explains it all.
On 7 August 1888 Martha Tabram was murdered in the East End of London. The unfortunate woman was stabbed repeatedly. Some people think she was the first victim of the notorious serial killer Jack the Ripper.
On 7 August 1890, Anna Mansdotter became the last woman to be executed in Sweden. She was convicted of killing her daughter-in-law. She was beheaded with an axe.
On 6 August 1890, William Kemmler became the first man to be executed in the electric chair. The first woman executed in the electric chair was Martha Place in 1899.
The famous Staffordshire poisoner William Palmer was born on 6 August 1824. In 1856 Palmer was convicted of poisoning his friend with strychnine and sentenced to death. On the gallows, he is supposed to have said 'are you sure this damn thing's safe?' (a very doubtful story!) Palmer was dubbed 'The Prince of Poisoners' and is believed to have poisoned up to 15 people.
I found a good video about the infamous child killer Colin Pitchfork. It's a horrific case.
On 31 July 1910 Dr Crippen was arrested when arrived by ship in Canada. Hawley Harvey Crippen was believed to have murdered his wife, Cora Crippen by poisoning her with hyoscine. Police became suspicious when she disappeared and Crippen fled with his lover, Ethlel le Neve to Canada. A human torso was found in his cellar, but the head and limbs were never found. The captain of the ship Crippen and le Neve were on became suspicious of the pair, who were, of course travelling under false identities. Ethel le Neve was dressed as a boy and they supposed to be father and son. However, the captain was not fooled. He radioed London. Police sailed for Canada on a faster ship and arrived before Crippen. Dr Crippen and Ethel le Neve were returned to Britain for trial.
Hawley Harvey Crippen was convicted of murder and he was hanged on 23 November 1910. Ethel le Neve was tried separately and she was acquitted. Dr Crippen became famous as he was the first murderer caught by radio. However, some people now question if Dr Crippen really murdered his wife. Was the torso in the cellar really that of his wife? Was Dr Crippen innocent of his wife's murder? - BBC News
Elizabeth Short was born on 29 July 1924. In 1947 she became the victim of an unsolved murder in Los Angeles. She became known as the Black Dahlia.
Haigh murdered people for money, then dissolved the bodies in acid. He was born on 24 July 1909 in Lincolnshire, but his family moved to Yorkshire.
Haigh’s parents belonged to the Plymouth Brethren, a strict religious sect, although it is unknown whether this had anything to do with his later behaviour. Haigh won a scholarship to attend Wakefield Grammar School, which meant he was a choirboy in Wakefield Cathedral.
After leaving school, Haigh did clerical jobs. He also married in 1934, but the marriage was short-lived. Haigh turned to fraud, but he was not very good at it. He kept getting caught. His first prison sentence was in November 1934. He was released in December 1935. In 1936, he moved to London, hoping for a fresh start. For a time, he worked as a chauffeur for a young man named William McSwan. Haigh was convicted of fraud again in November 1937. He was released in 1940. He then worked as a fire watcher, alerting the fire brigade when necessary. However, in 1941 he was sent to prison again. He was released in 1943.
It has been suggested that Haigh may have been affected by his experiences during the German bombing, and that is what turned him to murder. Or maybe the third time he was sent to prison, he was determined not to get caught again. This time, Haigh obtained acid from the prison workshop. He also obtained dead mice that prisoners caught. He carried out experiments by dissolving dead mice in acid. It had obviously occurred to him that you could destroy a human body that way.
Haigh foolishly believed that he could not be convicted of murder if there was no body. He was wrong. English law does not require a body to prove murder. Haigh often said that murder could not be proved without a corpus delicti. But he misunderstood the Latin phrase. It does not mean a human body; it means a body of evidence.
This time, after being released from prison, Haigh turned to murder. His first victim was William McSwan, who had employed him previously. The two met, apparently by accident, and renewed their friendship. On 6 September 1944, Haigh lured William to a basement and hit him over the head with an iron bar. He finished off McSwan and placed his body in an oil drum. He then filled it with acid. After two days, William's body had dissolved into sludge, which Haigh poured down a drain.
Haigh told William McSwan's parents that their son had disappeared to avoid conscription. Haigh then persuaded them to employ him as a rent collector. On 2 July 1945, he lured William's father to a basement, where he killed him. His wife arrived about an hour later, and Haigh killed her too. He had two oil drums prepared to dissolve the bodies in.
Afterward, Haigh forged their signatures. He sold their property, and he persuaded people that they had emigrated to Australia. However, Haigh spent huge amounts on gambling and by 1948 he was beginning to run short of money. His next two victims were Dr Archibald Henderson and his wife Rosalie.
On 13 February 1948, Haigh persuaded Dr Henderson to come to a workshop he rented in Crawley, Sussex, by telling him he had an invention to show him. Haigh shot Dr Henderson and placed him in an acid bath. Later, he lured Rosalie Henderson to his workshop. He shot her and dissolved her in acid too. Once again, Haigh forged signatures, allowing him to sell their property. He managed to convince people that the Hendersons had gone to live in South Africa. But Haigh continued his lavish spending, and before long he was running short of money again.
His last victim was Olive Durand-Deacon. In 1949, Haigh was living at the Onslow Hotel in London. Mrs Durand-Deacon was a fellow guest. She was a wealthy widow, and befriended Haigh. She had a scheme to manufacture false fingernails, and Haigh feigned interest. He invited her to come to his workshop in Crawley. On 18 February 1949, Haigh gave her a lift there in his car. When she entered the workshop, he shot her in the back of the head. Haigh placed the body in an acid bath. He then sold Olive's jewellery. He took her Persian lamb skin coat to a dry cleaner.
Haigh then drove back to London. Later, he went back to the workshop and poured out the dissolved body on the ground. But Haigh was becoming careless. The body had not been completely destroyed, and traces of it remained on the ground. Meanwhile, the other residents of the hotel noticed Olive was missing and became concerned. A woman named Constance Lane told the police. They spoke to other hotel residents, and a policewoman, Alexandra Lambourne, was immediately suspicious of Haigh. She persuaded her superiors to check if he had a criminal record. They then found that Haigh had convictions for fraud.
They also discovered that Haigh had a workshop in Crawley. They searched it and found a receipt for Olive's lamb skin coat from a dry cleaner. They also found a recently fired revolver. And they found that Haigh had sold the missing woman's jewellery. Haigh realised the game was up and he confessed to the murder of Olive Durand-Deacon. He also told police about the other murders he committed. However, Haigh hoped he could escape execution by pretending to be insane. He claimed to be a vampire and that he drank the blood of his victims.
The police searched the ground around Haigh's workshop in Crawley. Despite his boast that he had destroyed the body of Mrs Durand-Deacon, traces of it were found, including animal fat, which does not dissolve in acid. Olive had been suffering from gallstones, and a layer of fat surrounded them and protected them from the acid. There were also fragments of foot bones (they probably survived because the body was not completely immersed). Most telling, the police found a denture, which a dentist identified as belonging to Olive.
Haigh went on trial on 18 July 1949. Haigh pleaded not guilty due to insanity. But the jury was most unlikely to accept his plea since he obviously killed people for their money. Nevertheless, the defence called Dr Henry Yellowlees, who said that Haigh was a 'paranoaic'. However, the prosecution lawyer asked Dr Yellowlees if Haigh knew he was doing something punishable by law. Yellowlees was forced to admit that he did. The prosecution lawyer then added 'Punishable by law and therefore wrong?'. Yellowlees had to say yes.
The jury found Haigh guilty of murder, and he was sentenced to death. John George Haigh was hanged on 10 August 1949.
Edward Leonski murdered three women in Melbourne, Australia, in 1942. He was born in New Jersey on 12 December 1917.
His parents were Russian immigrants. It’s said that both parents abused alcohol. It’s said his mother was overprotective and controlling. Edward was called a ‘mummy’s boy’, and later it was suggested that he killed women because he hated his mother. He was really killing her.
Leonski was conscripted into the army in February 1941. In February 1942, he was sent to Australia. At that time, there was a ‘brownout’ of reduced lighting, which made it easier for Leonski to kill people.
He prepared breakfast on a military base, but after he finished, he was free to wander the streets of Melbourne.
The first victim was Ivy McLeod. She was found dead in a shop doorway in Melbourne on 3 May 1942. She had been strangled, and the killer had removed some of her clothes. He left the body in a degrading position. Two more victims followed; Pauline Thompson was strangled outside a boarding house on 9 May, and Gladys Hosking was strangled on 18 May.
This time, when he returned to his military base, Leonski was challenged by a sentry for being dishevelled and muddy.
When news of the murder of Gladys Hosking broke, the sentry informed the police. He identified Leonski at a line-up. Several witnesses who had seen Leonski also identified him.
Leonski confessed to the murders. When he was asked why he killed women, he replied, ‘it was to get their voices’. (It has been suggested that their voices reminded Leonski of his mother). Leonski also drank heavily, and that may have lowered his inhibitions.
Although the murders happened in Australia, Leonski was tried under American military law. He pleaded not guilty because of insanity. However, his plea was rejected. On 17 July 1942, he was found guilty of murder.
Edward Leonski was hanged on 9 November 1942. He was buried in a military cemetery in Hawaii.
I have published a book of famous murder cases. It's called Here Come the Murderers! It's available from Lulubooks.
In 1860 a teacher named Thomas Hopley beat a boy to death. The boy was 14-year-old Reginald Chancellor and he had a learning disability. Among other things, the teacher hit him with a candlestick because he could not repeat the multiplication table.
The teacher was charged with manslaughter, not murder, because the intent to kill could not be proved. He was sentenced to 4 years in prison. Discipline in the 19th century was brutal but even by their standards, beating a child to death was going a bit too far.
Corporal punishment was made illegal in state schools in Britain in 1987. It was made illegal in private schools in 1999.
On 22 July 1986, the British Parliament voted to end corporal punishment in state schools. The new law received royal assent on 7 November 1986. Corporal punishment became illegal in state schools on 15 August 1987. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qs35t2xFqdU
Fanny Adams was an 8-year-old girl who was murdered in Alton, Hampshire, in 1867. Fanny was born on 30 April 1859. Her father was a bricklayer named George. Her mother was named Harriett. Fanny was the fourth of six children. She had three sisters and two brothers.
Fanny was tall for her age. She looked, it was said, older than her age. She was also a bright girl. People who knew Fanny described her as a happy and talkative child.
In the mid-19th century, Alton was a small town with a population of about 4,000. There was a brewing industry in the town and fields of hops. Fanny lived in Tanhouse Lane. Near her house was an open place named Flood Meadow, through which the River Wey flowed. The river sometimes flooded, giving the meadow its name. Next to it was a hop garden.
On 24 August 1867, Fanny asked her mother for permission to go and play in Flood Meadow with her 5-year-old sister Lizzie and her best friend, Minnie Warner, aged 8. Her mother agreed. There was little crime in Alton, and Mrs Adams was not worried.
Between 1 pm and 2 pm, the girls had the misfortune to meet a 29-year-old solicitor’s clerk named Frederick Baker. He was from Guildford but had recently moved to Alton, where he worked for a solicitor named William Clements in the High Street. The girls had seen the man before.
Frederick Baker gave Minnie and Lizzie three half pennies to buy some sweets. He also gave Fanny a half penny.
For a time, the girls played while Baker watched the girls playing while he smoked his pipe. He also picked some blackberries for them.
Minnie and Lizzie eventually decided to go home. Baker then asked Fanny to come with him on her own along the Hollow, a road that led to the nearby village of Shalden. Fanny refused.
Baker then grabbed the child and carried her off. Minnie and Lizzie ran and told Mrs Warner, Minnie’s mother. But she was unconcerned, and the girls went off to play again.
It may seem incredible that Mrs Warner did not immediately raise the alarm, but attitudes were very different then. Mrs Warner may have thought it was some sort of game.
About 5 pm, the two girls, Minnie and Lizzie, went home again. A neighbour, Mrs Gardener, saw them and asked where Fanny was. The two girls told her what had happened. Mrs Gardener was worried, and she told Fanny’s mother, Mrs Adams. The two women went off in search of the missing child.
Within a short time, they met Baker near a gate separating the hop garden from the Meadow. Mrs Gardener asked him, ‘What have you done with the child?’. Baker replied ‘nothing’. Mrs Gardener then asked if he had given Minnie Warner money. Baker admitted he had given her money. But he claimed that he often gave money to children. Not surprisingly, Mrs Gardener was suspicious. She told Baker ‘I have a great mind to give you in charge of the police’. Baker replied, ‘You may do as you like’.
The two women went home, no doubt hoping Fanny would turn up. But, of course, she didn’t. By 7 pm, her mother was growing very worried, and she and a group of neighbours went in search of her.
A man named Thomas Gates found the head of a child stuck on two hop poles. The eyes had been cut out, and the right ear was missing. It was the head of Fanny Adams.
More of the remains of Fanny Adams were found that evening. But as it was growing dark, the search had to be called off until the next morning. The next day, searchers found one of Fanny’s arms, a foot, and her intestines. Her eyes were eventually found in the river.
At the trial of Frederick Baker, Dr Leslie said: The remains were that of a female child, the head, arms, and legs were separated from the trunk’. The doctor also said: ‘A deep incision divided the chest between the ribs. The right leg was torn from the trunk, and the whole contents of the pelvis and chest were completely removed. Five incisions had been made on the liver, the heart cut out and missing’.
A man named William Henry Walker found a stone with flesh and hair sticking to it. He thought it might be the murder weapon. At the murder trial, Dr Leslie said that in his opinion it was.
Meanwhile, Fanny’s mother, Harriet Adams, was naturally very distraught. She went to tell her husband, George, who had been playing cricket. He got his shotgun and was going to shoot the murderer but was persuaded not to.
At 9 pm on Sunday, 25 August 1867, the police went to the office of Clements, the solicitor. Superintendent Cheney asked Baker if he had heard of the murder. Baker replied, ‘Yes, they say it’s me’. The Superintendent told him, ‘Well, you are suspected’. Baker replied, ‘I am innocent’.
Despite his denials, Baker was arrested on suspicion of the murder of Fanny Adams. An angry crowd had gathered outside the office, so the police had to smuggle him out the back door.
Baker was found to be carrying two small knives (they were too small to have carried out the mutilation. It was believed a larger knife was used, but it was never found). Baker’s trousers were wet, presumably from an attempt to wash off blood stains. The police also found bloodstains on Baker’s shirt cuffs. Baker could not account for them. He said ‘Well, I don’t see a scratch or cut on my hands to account for the blood’.
The next day, the police searched the solicitor’s office. They found Baker’s diary in his desk. An entry read: ‘Killed a young girl. It was fine and hot’. Baker admitted it was his handwriting but claimed he was intoxicated at the time.
Baker made another very incriminating remark on the day of the murder. At 7 p.m., he went to a pub with a colleague. An employee of the pub said he was moving and claimed he could turn his hand to anything. Baker said he might join him, but admitted there were only a very limited number of jobs he could do. But he then added, ‘I could turn butcher’.
An inquest into the death of Fanny Adams was held at the Duke’s Head Inn in Alton on 27 August 1867. Minnie Warner gave evidence. So did Mrs Gardner. In 1867, the jury at an inquest could not only find that a person was a victim of murder, but they could also name the person who they believed had committed the murder, even though that person had not been tried. The jury found that Frederick Baker murdered Fanny Adams. The law was changed in 1977.
The trial of Frederick Baker for murder began on 5 December 1867. The defence claimed that it could not be proved that Baker killed Fanny. But at the same time, they tried to argue that if he did do it, he was insane.
Minnie Warner and Mrs Gardener gave evidence. Other witnesses said Baker had left the solicitor’s office after 1 p.m. (Shortly before the murder was committed). He returned at 3.25 p.m. Baker left the office again at 4.30 p.m. (At which time he met Mrs Adams and Mrs Gardener near the murder scene).
More witnesses described seeing Baker in the vicinity of the murder on the afternoon of 26 August. A woman named Eliza White said she saw a man with three children at about 2 p.m. She identified Baker as the man. Mrs White said that afterwards, she heard ‘a girl cry out, not a cry of pain, as in play, trying to get away from someone’. A witness named William Alder was walking back from the nearby village of Lasham at about 2 p.m. He also saw Baker, who he knew. He also saw three children.
Both Mrs Gardener and Mrs Adams saw Baker after 5 p.m. A woman named Mary Ann Porter also said she saw Baker in the area between 5 and 6 p.m.
There was also the fact that Baker wrote in his diary, ‘Killed a young girl. It was fine and hot”. The defence claimed that what he meant was ‘a young girl was killed’ not ‘I killed a young girl’. They also tried to cast doubt on Minnie Warner’s identification of Baker, and they said the two knives found on Baker were too small to have carried out the mutilations. (They may very well be true, but it doesn’t rule out the possibility that Baker had a larger knife that was never found).
The defence also tried to argue that even if Baker did do it then he was insane. They claimed that Baker’s father was violent and had once tried to kill his son and daughter with a poker. They also claimed that Baker had tried to commit suicide after his fiancée broke off their engagement in 1865. Baker’s sister had died of a ‘brain fever’. Also, Baker’s cousin was in a lunatic asylum and was violent. But none of this impressed the jury.
The judge advised the jury that three verdicts were possible – guilty, not guilty or not guilty on the grounds of insanity. The jury took only 15 minutes to find Baker guilty of murder. The judge then sentenced him to death. While awaiting execution, Baker confessed to killing Fanny.
At that time, executions were carried out in public. Frederick Baker was hanged outside Winchester prison, in front of a crowd of about 5,000 people at 8 a.m. on 24 December 1867. His body was buried within the precincts of the prison.
Meanwhile, Fanny Adams was laid to rest in Alton Cemetery on 28 August 1867. In 1868, a gravestone was erected, paid for by public subscription. An inscription on the gravestone reads ‘Sacred to the memory of Fanny Adams, aged eight years and four months, who was cruelly murdered on Saturday, August 24, 1867’ and ‘Fear not them which kill the body are not able to kill the soul but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in Hell Matthew 10 v28’.
I quite often read that an infamous murderer said something just before they were hanged, only to find out later that it almost certainly isn't true. Before he was hanged the poisoner William Palmer is supposed to have said 'Are you sure this thing is safe?'. But nobody who was present at his execution ever mentioned him saying that. The story that he did first appeared long after he was dead. Another poisoner called Thomas Neill Cream is supposed to have said 'I am Jack the ...' just before someone pulled the lever and he was hanged. Again, the same applies. The story first appeared in a magazine long after he was dead and nobody who was actually there ever mentioned him saying that. (In any case, he was in prison at the time of the Jack the Ripper murders).
I also made a video about an unsolved murder in Blossom Alley, Portsmouth, in 1923.
In Britain, the last person under the age of 18 to be hanged for murder was 17-year-old Charles Dobel on 2 January 1889. In 1933, the minimum age for hanging was raised from 16 to 18.
A gruesome murder happened in Portsea, Portsmouth in 1923. The victim was Mary Frances Pelham, aged 37. According to newspaper reports, she was born in ‘the north of England’. During the First World War, she moved to Brighton and later to Portsmouth. She was separated from her husband. Mary was a kind woman, especially to local children. She was a sex worker, although she also sold flowers. She was known as Brighton Mary.
On 27 January 1923, a neighbour found her dead in bed in her hovel. The unfortunate woman had been strangled with a scarf or handkerchief. She was also stabbed or slashed with a broken bottle. A neighbour had seen Mary with a sailor the previous night. The navy held an identity parade and a woman did pick out one sailor but he had an alibi and was never arrested. The killer was never found.
The public was shocked, not just by the murder but by her living conditions. She lived in Blossom Alley, an alley 300 yards long and only 4 feet wide. Her home was a ‘one-up-one down’. Built in the 18th century it was one room over another joined by a ladder.
The floors were sagging so the ceiling of the bottom room was 6 feet high at one end and 10 feet high at the other. Five houses shared three outside toilets and one water tap. Following the horrific murder, a great deal of slum clearance took place in Portsea.
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.
Edward Pritchard was a poisoner. The press dubbed him the Human Crocodile. He was born in Southsea, Portsmouth, on 6 December 1825. His father was a naval officer. At the age of 21, Edward became an assistant surgeon. In 1851, he married Mary Jane Taylor, a woman from a wealthy family. The couple moved to Hunmanby in Yorkshire. They had 5 children.
However, Pritchard had a reputation for being a liar. He was also a womaniser. In 1858, he moved with his family to Glasgow. Pritchard continued womanising. Then, in 1863, a servant girl named Elizabeth McGirn died in a fire at his home. Strangely, the girl had not attempted to escape; she was found lying on a bed. Nothing was ever proved, but it’s possible Palmer drugged her and then started the fire. Perhaps Pritchard made her pregnant, then decided to kill her to get rid of her.
In 1865, Pritchard poisoned his mother-in-law, Mrs Taylor, and his wife. Pritchard’s wife, Mary Jane, fell ill, and her mother moved in to nurse her. Mrs Taylor fell ill and died on 28 February 1865. Her daughter died on 18 March 1865. A Dr Paterson, who attended the sick woman, refused to sign a death certificate, so Pritchard signed one himself.
However, someone (probably Dr Paterson) wrote an anonymous letter to the police accusing Pritchard of murder. The bodies of both victims were exhumed and were found to contain antimony. The police also discovered that Pritchard had purchased large amounts of poison shortly before the two women died.
Pritchard was charged with murder, and he went on trial in July 1865. He was found guilty and he was hanged in front of a large crowd in Glasgow on 28 July 1865.
It was the last public execution in Glasgow. (Public executions were banned in Britain in 1868).
Gordon Cummins was a serial killer in Britain in 1942. He was known as the Blackout Ripper because he killed women during blackouts. During the Second World War, all lights had to be hidden to avoid helping enemy bombers.
Windows were covered to prevent lights in buildings from shining out, and the streets were unlit. That was known as the blackout. Of course, the blackout provided many opportunities for crime, and as a result, it became much worse.
Gordon Frederick Cummins was born in York in 1914. His parents were middle-class. Cummins went to school till he was 16 and then went to college in Northampton till he was 18. However, Cummins was a lazy student. He was fired from his first job for laziness. He joined the RAF in 1935. However, Cummins was known as a fantasist who told tall tales. He was not popular with his peers. In 1936 he married a young woman named Marjorie Cummins.
In the early morning of 9 February 1942, the body of a woman was found in an air raid shelter in Marylebone, London. She had been strangled with her scarf and then dumped in the air raid shelter. The woman’s handbag was found near the scene, but it did not yield any clues.
The unfortunate woman was identified as Evelyn Margaret Hamilton, aged 41. She was a pharmacist from Newcastle. She worked as a shop manager in Essex. Unfortunately, she had lost her job. Evelyn managed to get another job in Grimsby, and she was staying in London on her way to her new position. She was last seen alive in a cafe, and the police believed she was attacked while she was walking back to her boarding house. At first, they thought it was a robbery that went wrong.
On 10 February 1942 another crime was discovered. Evelyn Oatley, aged 35, was found dead in her apartment in Soho. Evelyn was a sex worker. She met Cummins and took him back to her home. Her throat had been cut with a razor, and the body had been slashed. A blood-stained can opener was found on the bed. It had been used to mutilate the body. Fortunately, the police found a fingerprint.
The third victim was Margaret Lowe, aged 42. She was also a sex worker. It is believed she was murdered on 11 February 1942 in her flat in Gosfield Street off Tottenham Court Road. However, her body was not discovered until 13 February. She had been strangled and stabbed multiple times. The pathologist Bernard Spilsbury described the mutilations as ‘quite dreadful’. Once again, the police found fingerprints.
The fourth victim was Doris Jouannet. She was last seen alive on 12 February 1942, and her body was found the next day at her home in Paddington. She had been strangled with a scarf and then mutilated.
On the evening of 13 February, Cummins attacked a woman named Mary Heywood in Picadilly. He met her in a bar and persuaded her to come with him to another pub for a drink. However, in a dark street, Cummins tried to strangle the woman. Fortunately, a young man heard a commotion and went to help. Cummins fled the scene and in his hurry, he left behind his gas mask and haversack, which had his name and air force number.
The RAF confirmed that the gas mask belonged to an airman called Gordon Cummins. The police arrested him for the assault on Mary Heywood, and on searching his living quarters, they found belongings of the murder victims. The police also found that Cummins’ fingerprints matched those found at the crime scenes.
Cummins denied the murders and claimed that another serviceman had stolen his gas mask and committed them. Not surprisingly, the jury did not believe him. Cummins was tried for murder. On 28 April 1942, he was found guilty and sentenced to death.
Gordon Cummins was hanged in Wandsworth prison in London on 25 June 1942, during an air raid.
Franz Muller, a German, was the first person to murder someone on a train in Britain. Muller was born on 31 October 1840. He became a tailor. In 1864, he was living in England but he struggled to make a living.
At that time, trains were divided into carriages, without connecting corridors. On 9 July 1864, a train was travelling between two railway stations in North London, Fenchurch Street and Hackney. It arrived at 10.11 pm. Two men entered a carriage and they immediately spotted blood. They called the guard who also saw blood. He found a stick, a beaver skin hat and a bag. The carriage was sealed and it was sent for examination.
At 10.20 pm a train was travelling in the other direction when the crew spotted the body of a man lying by the track. The man was still alive but he died of head injuries the next day. He was identified as 69-year-old Thomas Briggs, a chief bank clerk. Mr Briggs had been beaten and thrown off the train. Whoever killed him had stolen his gold watch and chain, but failed to take £5 (a large sum of money at that time) from his pocket.
Thomas Briggs ’ relatives identified the bag and the stick found in the carriage but they did not recognise the hat.
It seems that in his hurry, the attacker had taken the wrong hat, leaving his behind. He also failed to search the victim’s pockets.
A jeweller named John Death said that a man with a German accent came to his shop on 11 July, two days after the murder and sold him a gold watch chain (but not the watch). The chain was identified as belonging to the victim. A reward of £300 was offered for anyone who gave information leading to the arrest of the murderer.
A cabdriver named Jonathan Matthews didn’t hear about the murder until nine days after it happened. Matthews said he didn’t read newspapers, as they were expensive. He knew Franz Muller, and he became suspicious. Muller had given his youngest daughter a box from Death’s jewellers. Matthews took it to the police. Fortunately, he also had a photo of the suspect. The police took the hat found in the carriage to Muller’s landlady. She confirmed that it was his. He had foolishly left it behind and taken the victims.
Muller had boarded a ship to the USA on 15 July but two policemen boarded a faster ship and they arrived in New York before Muller. When the ship carrying Muller arrived, they boarded and arrested him. Among his luggage they found Thomas Brigg’s watch and his hat (although it had been altered, it was still identifiable). Muller was then extradited to stand trial in Britain.
The trial began on 27 October 1864. Muller denied being on the same train as the victim but the jury did not believe him. Muller was sentenced to death and he was hanged on 14 November 1864.
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.
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.
Dr Marcel Petiot was a French doctor who killed 27 people. Petiot was born on 17 January 1897. Like many murderers, Petiot had a history of petty crime before he started killing people. At the age of 17 he robbed a post box. In 1916 he was conscripted into the French army. However, Petiot showed many signs of mental illness. In July 1919 he was discharged from the army with a disability pension.
Despite that, he was able to study medicine under an accelerated education programme for war veterans, and he qualified as a doctor in 1921. Petiot practiced medicine in Villeneuve.
Marcel Petiot became mayor of Villeneuve in 1926. In 1927 he married and they had a son the next year. Following many accusations of stealing he was suspended as mayor in 1931. He later resigned and in 1933 he moved to Paris. He purchased a building in Rue Lesueur.
In 1940 the Germans conquered France. The German army occupied northern France, including Paris. From November 1942 they occupied the whole country. Dr Petiot thought of an ingenious way to make money. Many rich people were desperate to escape from occupied France. Dr Petiot offered to arrange to smuggle them out of France to South America in return for a large sum of money.
He told them they would need a vaccination against malaria or some other infectious disease. He told them that, as a doctor, he could give them the vaccination himself.
When the victim arrived at his surgery, Petiot told them he would give them the required vaccination. Instead, he injected them with cyanide. When the victim was dead, Petiot would dispose of the body with quicklime or he burned them in a stove.
Dr Petiot killed people during 1942 and the early months of 1943. In May 1943, Petiot was arrested by the Gestapo and held on suspicion of helping people to escape from France. However, he was released in December 1943. Why they released him is not certain but Dr Petiot soon returned to killing people.
His crimes came to light on 11 March 1944. Black smoke was pouring from a chimney of a house in Rue Lesuer. A neighbour called the police. The police phoned Dr Petiot, who promised to come to the building. Thinking a chimney must be on fire the police called the fire brigade. Firemen who entered the building discovered human remains burning in a stove. When Dr Petiot arrived, he informed the police that the dead bodies were those of traitors. The police allowed him to go. Petiot promptly disappeared.
Dr Petiot was arrested on 31 October 1944. He claimed he was a member of the resistance and that all the people he killed were collaborators.
However, the police could find no evidence that he had ever been part of the resistance. Dr Petiot went on trial on 19 March 1946. On 4 April he was convicted of 26 murders.
(He was acquitted of one of the murders he was charged with though it is very likely he was guilty). Marcel Petiot was guillotined on 26 May 1946.
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.
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.
