MURDERS
See Also: ASSASSINATIONS & ASSASSINATION ATTEMPTS; CHEESE Murder In The
Lane; EMBASSIES Libyan People's Bureau, Yvonne Fletcher; EXECUTIONS; FOLK
TRADITIONS Urban Legends, Sweeney Todd; FORENSICS; THE
HOMOCIDAL HOMEOPATH; JACK THE
RIPPER; LIBRARIES Joe Orton; LORD LUCAN; REFERENCE WORKS The Oxford English
Dictionary; SEX CRIMES & VIOLENCE; THE SUSPENDED BANKER; THE TOWER OF
LONDON Richard III
In
early 2018 London's murder rate overtook that of New York City for the first
time in modern history. It was because of a bout of knife crimes.
Arsenic Poisoning
Arsenic
was a by-product on mining. During the
19thC it came to be used in a wide variety of manufacturing
processes and was widely available as a rat poison. During the 1840s there was a fashion for
women to use it to murder their husbands.
It could be passed off as sugar.
Following the execution of Sarah Chesham (n e Parker) (1809-1851)
it largely passed out of vogue.1
It was
also used to commit infanticide. The
growth of life-insurance prompted the establishment of burial clubs. A child could be insured for 5 and buried
for 1. The difference could be used to
feed the surviving sibs. Some women
insured their victim-offspring several times over. In order to try to counter the practice an
1850 Act of Parliament banned the life of child who aged under ten being
insured for more than 3.
1. Not everyone was dissuaded.
Mary Ann Cotton (n e Robson) (1832-1873), a former Sunday school
teacher, became Britain's most prolific serial killer.
See
Also: CHEMICALS; CLOTH MANUFACTURING & TREATMENT Dye, Poisonous Hosiery
The
Croydon Poisonings
In 1928
and 1929 three members of the Duff family were killed by arsenic poisoning. The murders were never solved.
The Auto-widow
Marie
Marguerite Laurient was a striking-looking Parisienne prostitute who had a
number of wealthy men as her clients. In
1917 and 1918 she allowed the future King Edward VIII to partake of her charms. She wed Prince Ali Kamel Fahmy Bey, a
wealthy Egyptian, who was a decade younger than she was. Their short-lived union proved to be highly
dysfunctional. In 1923, while they were
staying at The Savoy, she shot her spouse dead.
The
princess was put on trial two months later.
Her past was not a matter of public knowledge. She had in her possession a number of letters
that the Prince of Wales had written to her.
A deal was brokered between his aides and the auto-widow. They, with some assistance from figures
within Scotland Yard, sought to ensure that she would not be convicted. Whether it was as the result of their efforts
or not, she was acquitted of the charge.
Location:
The Savoy Hotel, Savoy Court, WC2R 0EZ (red, blue)
The Brides In The Bath
George
Joseph Smith was a drifter. During the
years 1912-4 he married successively Bessie Mundy, Alice Burnham, and Margaret
Lofty. He was older, poorer, and less
well-educated than all of them.
Physically, he was unprepossessing but was very self-confident. He alienated them from their families,
extracted their money and then murdered them by drowning them baths.
Burnham s
father read a newspaper report of Lofty's death. He noticed parallels between it and his
daughter's case. As a result, Detective
Inspector Arthur Neil started examining the case.
Smith
went to his solicitor in Shepherds Bush to collect Lofty's insurance
pay-out. There, he was arrested by Neil.
He was
tried for Mundy's murder at the Old Bailey in 1915. The prosecution was led by Sir Archibald
Bodkin and the defence by Edward Marshall Hall.
The
lack of marks on their bodies made it seem unlikely that a conviction for
murder would be obtained against him.
However, the pathologist Spilsbury could find no evidence of poison or
illness in any of the exhumed corpses.
He concluded that Smith had murdered them by sudden immersion while they
were bathing. When this was revealed in
court the accused blanched visibly.
Up
until then forensic medicine had not been well-regarded in by the law courts.
Smith
was hanged in 1915,
The Common Law's Influence
Anglo-Saxon
society was focused on restorative justice.
Thereby, a culture of blood feuds was not encouraged.
In
terms of individuals avoiding being murdered England has a low rate for an
industrialised country. In the early
1990s it had an annual rate was 1.1 per 100,000 of the population (in
Scotland the figure was 5.5). This
safeness dates back to at least the 15thC and in part stems both
from the early abandonment of the blood feud and from the use of Common Law to
settle disagreements.
See
Also: FOLK TRADITIONS
Kieran Kelly
Kieran
Nosy Kelly (1930-2001) had been a petty criminal in his native Dublin. He enlisted in the British Army but was dismissed
for going A.W.O.L.. He worked in
construction but became increasingly alcoholic.
Mental health issues led to his spending time in Broadmoor Hospital. Following his release, he lived as a
derelict.
In 1983
Kelly was arrested for petty theft. At
Clapham Police Station he was placed in a cell with William Boyd, a fellow
homeless person. A few hours later it
was discovered that he had killed Boyd.
He was formally interviewed about what he had done. He declared that he had been annoyed by the
man's snoring. He went on to state that
he had killed other people. The
following year he was convicted of Boyd's murder and the 1975 killing of Hector
Fisher, another homeless man. He died in
prison.
Location:
Clapham Police Station, 51 Union Grove, SW8 5QJ
Stephen Lawrence
On 22
April 1993 Stephen Lawrence was murdered.
The
Lawrence family were aided by the counsel of Simon de Banya (1960-2013), who
worked for Monitoring Group, which provided support and advocacy for the
victims of crime and race discrimination.
In 2013
Gary Dobson confessed to having participated in the murder of Stephen.
Suzy Lamplugh
In 1986
Suzy Lamplugh was working for the Fulham branch of Sturgis & Sons. She met a Mr Kipper for a house
viewing. She was never seen again.
The
Suzy Lamplugh Trust
Location:
The Foundry, 17-19 Oval Way, SE11 5RR
Website:
www.suzylamplugh.org
Douglas Malcolm
At the
age of sixteen, Derek Malcolm came across a book that his father owned that had
an index that referred to a chapter entitled Mr Justice McCardie tries
Lieutenant Malcolm ; the chapter itself had been removed from the volume. During the First World War Douglas Malcolm
had been on leave from the front when he had learned that his wife, a former
actress, had been having an affair with Anton Baumberg, a Russian Pole, whose
activities had drawn him to the notice of Scotland Yard. On 14 August 1917 the cuckold went to the
lover's lodgings house carrying a pistol and a horsewhip. There, he shot Baumberg four times at close
range.
The
jury acquitted Malcolm on the grounds of self-defence. It was the first instance in British law of a
crime passionel. Fifteen years
after the murder, Mrs Malcolm gave birth to young Derek.
Dennis Nilsen
Dennis
Nilsen worked in the Professional & Exec Recruitment section of Kentish Town
Job Centre. Those whom he interviewed
included the writer Will Self.
D.C.I.
Peter Jay was the head of Hornsey C.I.D..
He took some bones and strips of skin that had been recovered from
Nilsen's drain to David Bowen, a forensic pathologist, who was based at Charing
Cross Hospital.
When
Nilsen returned home, he was greeted by Jay with the words, I've come about
your drains.
Central
TV filmed an interview with Dennis Nilsen.
The Home Office tried to ban its broadcast on the grounds of copyright
infringement because it had not given its permission. The case was heard in the High Court before
Sir William Aldous (1936-2018), who as a barrister had specialised in
intellectual property. He ruled against
the department on the grounds that it would be a public benefit for it to be
showed that a mass murderer could appear to be an ordinary, intelligent person.
Location:
23d Cranley Gardens, Muswell Hill, N10 3AA
195
Melrose Avenue, Cricklewood, NW2 4NA
Martha Ray
In the
late 1770s the 4th Earl of Sandwich, as the First Lord of the
Admiralty, was deeply involved in the American War of Independence. The singer Martha Ray was the peer s
mistress. In 1779 she was shot dead,
while leaving Covent Garden theatre, where she had been watching an opera. Her killer was the Rev James Hackman, a young
clergyman who had become infatuated with her and whose proposal of marriage she
had rejected. He then tried to shoot
himself but failed. At the subsequent
trial, which was presided over by the magistrate Sir John Fielding, the cleric
was convicted. He was hanged. However, his tale was taken up by the new
fashion for sensibility. A flood of
publications followed in which he was portrayed as the epitome of the doomed
young lover.
Location:
Bow Street, WC2E 9DD (purple, brown)
See
Also: ASSASSINATIONS & ASSASSINATION ATTEMPTS Majestic Targets, His
Majesty's Pleasure; OPERA The Royal Opera House
Harry Roberts
The
Braybrook Street Massacre occurred on 12 August 1966.
In 2006
Harry Roberts's parole application was turned down.
Location:
Braybrook Street, c.W12 0AH
Lord William Russell
In 1840
Lord William Russell was murdered by Francois Courvoisier his valet. The deed was witnessed in silhouette by
someone in a house opposite. Courvoisier
was naked. The nudity was prompted by
the murderer's wish not to have any bloodstains on his clothes.
Location:
16 Dunraven Street, W1K 7FE (blue, yellow)
Savage Grace
In
November 1972 Anthony Baekeland killed his mother Barbara Daly Baekeland.
Location:
81 Cadogan Square, SW1X 0DY (blue, brown)
Suicide
The
Law
Suicide
was decriminalised by the Suicide Act of 1961.
The measure made assisting, aiding, or abetting suicide an
offense. In large part, it was
promoted by the barrister and Conservative M.P. Sir Charles Fletcher-Cooke
(1914-2001), who had been active on the issue for over ten years.
John Tawell
John
Tawell was an Attender of Quaker Meetings who was convicted of forgery. He was transported to Sydney. There he worked as a pharmacist and made a
fortune. He returned to England but
found that he was a social outcast. In
1845 he murdered by poison his mistress Sarah Hart in Slough and returned to
London by train. An account of what had
happened and a description of him were telegraphed ahead. He was arrested at Paddington Railway
Station.
Location:
Paddington Railway Station, Praed Street, W2 1HB (red, blue)
David
Backhouse 2024