Teacher beat a boy to death

 In 1860, a teacher, Thomas Hopley, beat a 15-year-old boy with learning difficulties, Reginald Cancellor, to death at a boarding school in Eastbourne, England. Hopley was convicted of manslaughter. He was sentenced to four years in prison. Corporal punishment was savage in 19th-century schools, but actually beating a boy to death was going a bit too far.

Mary Ann Cotton

 Mary Ann Cotton was one of Britain’s worst serial killers. It’s not certain how many people she killed. She may have poisoned up to 21 people.

Mary Ann was born in Durham County in 1832. Her father was a miner, but he died in an accident when Mary Ann was 10. When she was 16, Mary Ann became a domestic servant. In 1852 she married William Mowbray. The couple moved to Cornwall, where William had a job on a railway. The couple had 4 or 5 children in Cornwall but only one of them lived (unfortunately, due to a lack of documentation many of the details of Mary Ann’s life are uncertain). Infant mortality was very high in the 19th century, and the loss of several children was not unusual.

In 1857 Mr and Mrs Mowbray returned to County Durham with one surviving child. The couple soon had more children. However, the only surviving child from their years in Cornwall died in 1860.

Mary Ann persuaded her husband, William, to take out a life insurance policy. Soon afterward, another of their children died. William himself followed in 1865. His death was ascribed to an infectious disease and Mary Ann Cotton gained £35 (a large sum of money at that time). Mary Ann was left with two daughters. Sadly, one of them died, apparently of an infectious disease. Mary Ann then sent her only surviving child, a girl named Isabella, to live with her mother, leaving her free of children and with no husband.

Mary Ann soon remarried. She met a man called George Ward and they soon married. The unfortunate man died in 1866, once again seemingly of an infectious illness. Mary Ann then became the housekeeper of a man called John Robinson, a widower. Shortly after she moved in one of Robinson’s children died. 

In 1867 Mary Ann went to visit her mother, who died shortly afterward.

Mary Ann then moved in with Robinson. Her daughter with William Mowbray, Isabella, also moved in. Sadly, Isabella died in 1868. 

In 1867 Mary Ann married Robinson and they had two children, but only one survived. Fortunately, Mr Robinson discovered that Mary Ann had stolen money from his building society account. 

He also reportedly became suspicious when Mary Ann kept trying to persuade him to take out life insurance. Robinson threw Mary Ann out of the house.

However, in 1870, she met a widower called Frederick Cotton. Soon afterward, Cotton’s sister and one of his children died. 

Yet, he married Mary Ann in September 1870. By the end of 1871, Frederick Cotton and two of his children had died. Once again, Mary Ann benefited handsomely from a life insurance policy. But she was left with a stepson, Frederick’s child.

Like so many murderers Mary Ann became foolishly overconfident. Having got away with murder several times she seems to have started feeling that she was invincible and she would never be caught. In 1872 Mary Ann took a lover named Joseph Natrass. However, he soon died, leaving his possessions to Mary Ann. Meanwhile, she became pregnant by a man named John Quick-Manning.

Mary Ann then tried to send her stepson Charles Edward Cotton to a workhouse. She told a workhouse official that she could not marry because of her stepson. Unwisely, she also told him ‘I won’t be troubled long. He’ll go like all the rest of the Cottons.’ Soon afterward the boy died and the official went to the police.

The body was exhumed and was found to contain arsenic. The bodies of Frederick Cotton and two of his other children were also exhumed and were found to contain arsenic. So was the body of Mary Ann was charged with the murder of the boy, Charles Edward Cotton. However, her trial had to be delayed because she was pregnant again. It did not begin until she had given birth for a final time in January 1873.

She went on trial on 5 March 1873. Not surprisingly, the jury found her guilty. Mary Ann Cotton was hanged in Durham jail on 24 March 1873. However, her neck was not broken, and she took about three minutes to be strangled to death.

It will never be known exactly how many people Mary Ann Cotton poisoned.

Fanny Adams

 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’.

The Bloody Benders

The Bloody Benders Arrive in Kansas

The Bloody Benders were a family of murderers in Kansas in the 1870s. Little is known about them; unfortunately, there are different versions of what happened. No doubt myths and legends have grown up.

It’s known for certain that the Benders were a family of four. They were German immigrants. Pa Bender was described as being about 60 years old in 1873. Ma Bender was said to be about 50. John Bender was about 27. Kate Bender was about 24.

The Homestead Act of 1862 gave settlers the right to free land if they farmed it for five years. After the Civil War, the Osage Indians were moved to a reservation in Oklahoma, and their land was then given to homesteaders.

At the end of 1870, the Benders claimed land in Kansas. They built a cabin about 2 miles from the town of Cherry Vale, next to the Osage Trail. In the 1870s, many people traveled along the trail by horse or wagon. The Benders let travelers stay the night. They also sold groceries to their neighbors. In the 1870s, Spiritualism was popular in the USA. Kate Bender claimed to be a spiritual healer. She even called herself ‘Professor Kate Bender’.

The Benders’ ‘inn’ was divided into two rooms by a canvas curtain. Nobody witnessed their murders, but the victims all had the back of their heads caved in and their throats cut. It’s believed the Benders would ask guests to sit with their backs to the curtain. Standing behind it was a man holding a hammer. At the right moment, he would smash the back of the guest’s head with the hammer. The Benders would then cut his throat and rob him. Under the Bender’s hut was a small ‘cellar’. 

It’s thought the dead body was hidden there until it could be disposed of. The Benders also sold the victims’ horses and wagons.

The Benders killed at least 11 people. The first definite victim was a man named Jones who was murdered at the beginning of 1871. His body was found dumped in Drum Creek. His head had been smashed in, and his throat was cut. 

Shortly after, two unidentified men were found dumped on the prairie, both of them had been killed in the same way as Mr Jones. The Benders then began burying their victims near their cabin rather than dumping them in the open.

The Bloody Benders are Discovered

The last victim of the Bloody Benders was Dr William H. York. Dr York had been an assistant surgeon in the Unionist army during the Civil War. He was in his early 30s at the time of his death.

In March 1873, Dr. York set out on horseback from Fort Scott, Kansas, for Independence. He told someone that he planned to stay at the Benders’ place. 

He was never seen alive again. His brother, Colonel Alexander York, grew alarmed when he did not return, and he set out with a party of men to look for him. The Benders admitted Dr York had stayed at their ‘inn’, but they claimed he had left normally. Colonel York and his men moved on, but the trail went cold. When the Colonel returned to the Benders’ place, he found it abandoned. The Benders had realized the game was up, and they had fled. 

On 6 May 1873, Colonel York’s men discovered a trapdoor in the Bender’s ‘inn’ with a ‘cellar’ below. They found it had dried blood in it. Then someone noticed a depression in the ground near the shack. On digging, they found the body of Dr York. His head was smashed in, and his throat was cut. 

Several other victims were found buried near the Benders’ inn. Altogether, seven graves were found. One of them contained two bodies.

Among the victims was Henry F. McKenzie from Indiana, who was relocating to Independence. He was about 29 at the time of his death. The body of William F. McCrotty from Cedar Vale was also found. 

Two victims were buried in the same grave. One of them was George Newton Longcor. Mr Longcor served in the American Civil War. He was 30 years old at the time of his death. 

The other body was his infant daughter, Mary Ann Longcor. She was only about 19 months old when she died. The child was either strangled or buried alive. A victim, Benjamin M. Brown, was identified by his silver ring. 

The bodies of two other men were never identified. Sadly, the bodies were too decomposed to allow identification. Altogether, the bodies of 7 men and a baby were found buried by the Benders’ shack, but it seems almost certain that the Benders also killed the three men found dumped in 1871.

Meanwhile, the Benders had fled with their wagon to the town of Thayer. They then escaped by train. What happened to them afterward is a mystery. A party of men pursued the Benders, but the trail went cold. For years afterward, there were rumors that vigilantes had caught the Benders and killed them, but no evidence was ever found to prove this. 

The governor of Kansas offered a reward of $ 2,000 (a large sum of money at the time) to anyone who could provide information leading to the arrest of the Benders, but no one ever claimed it. The Benders’ shack was then broken up. People took pieces of it as souvenirs, and it soon disappeared.

Blossom Alley

 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.

A History of Flowers

 I wrote a brief history of flowers. For thousands of years, they have enhanced life. 

Mary Wilson

 Although Ruth Ellis was the last woman to be hanged in Britain the last woman to be sentenced to death was Mary Wilson in 1958. 

Mary was born on 11 June 1889. She married a chimney sweep named John Knowles in 1912 He died in August 1955. Early in 1956 she married a painter and decorator named John Russell but he died early in 1957. At first, the two men were believed to have died from natural causes but later they were found to have been poisoned. 

In June 1957 Mary married Oliver Leonard. He soon fell ill and died on 3 October. 

A doctor ascribed his death to heart failure, although the truth is Mary poisoned him. On 28 October 1957 she married a fourth man, Ernest Wilson but he lived for only a short time after the wedding. He too, was poisoned. He died on 12 November 1957. At first his death was ascribed to natural causes.

However, people who knew Mary were suspicious. It was not just that her husbands kept dying; it was also the cheerful way she dealt with the deaths. It’s said that at her last wedding reception, Mary was asked what to do with the leftover sandwiches she said they would still be fresh for his funeral. (Such brazenness is common among multiple murderers. They often seem to think they will never be caught). Police began investigating and they exhumed the bodies of Oliver and Ernest.

She was convicted of poisoning two of her husbands, Oliver Leonard and Ernest Wilson with phosphorus, which was found in rat and beetle poison. She was sentenced to death but the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment because of her old age (She was 68). The remains of her two other husbands, John Knowles and John Russell were exhumed and found to contain poison but it was felt there was no point in having another trial. 

Mary Wilson, the merry widow of Windy Nook died in prison in 1963.