Margaret Backhouse climbed into the driver's seat of her Volvo on the 9th April 1984. When Margaret, who lived at Widdenhall Farm, near Chipping Sodbury, with her 44-year-old farmer husband, turned the ignition key, the car exploded. She was left with severe injuries to her buttocks and legs. The police suspected that the intended victim was husband Graham. He told officers that he was the victim of a hate campaign and that a sheep's head had been stuck on a fence at the farm along with a note that read 'You next.' Backhouse was given 24-hour police protection. On 18th April Backhouse requested that the 24-hour guard be removed following the fitting of a 'panic button'. This alarm system was connected to the local police station and, on 30th April, it was activated.

When the police attended, in the form of PC Richard Yeadon, it was to find the body of Colyn Bedale-Taylor. Bedale-Taylor, 63-years-old and a neighbour of Backhouse, had died from a shotgun blast to the chest. Clutched in his hand was a Stanley knife. A weeping Backhouse was found lying in the lounge drenched in blood from knife wounds to the face and chest. His story was that Bedale-Taylor had arrived and told him that he had come to repair some furniture. When being told that there was no furniture to repair he had accused Backhouse of being responsible for the death of his son in a car crash in 1982. He then told Backhouse that he, Bedale-Taylor, was responsible for planting the car bomb and attacked Backhouse with the Stanley knife. Backhouse had run back into the house and grabbed a gun. When Bedale-Taylor had refused to back off, he had shot him.

This story was at odds with the forensic evidence and Backhouse appeared at Bristol Crown Court in February 1985 charged with murder and attempted murder. The forensic investigation had shown that Backhouse's wounds had been self-inflicted and that Bedale-Taylor could not have been holding the knife when he died. His right palm was covered with his own blood, which could only have happened after he was shot and when he was not holding the knife. The prosecution showed that Backhouse had debts of £70,000. Until March 1984 his wife had life insurance cover of £50,000 but this was increased by a similar amount. It was alleged that Backhouse had tried to kill his wife for the insurance money and, when that failed, had faked the attack by Bedale-Taylor to shift police investigations away from himself. The jury preferred the prosecution version and, on Monday 19th February 1985, after nearly six hours deliberation, found Backhouse guilty of both charges. He was given two life sentences.

When he was twenty-one Antony Baekeland's parents separated and he lived with his doting mother, Barbara Baekeland, an ex-film star, in a penthouse flat in London. He had homosexual tendencies and was known to experiment with LSD. On 17th November 1972 he stabbed his over-indulgent mother to death. When police arrived they found Antony ordering a Chinese meal.

At his Old Bailey trial, which began on 6th June 1973, witnesses told of the possibility of an incestuous relationship between Antony and his mother. It was suggested that Barbara had been trying to 'cure' her son of his sexual preferrences. His defence, one of diminished responsibility, was successfully argued and he was found guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter. He was sent to Broadmoor.

He was discharged from Broadmoor in July 1980 and went to live with his grandmother in New York. He had only been there a week before he attacked the elderly woman, because she nagged him. He was locked up on Riker's Island and committed suicide there on 21st March 1981.

George Bailey was executed on 2nd March 1921 for poisoning his wife. His four day trial in January of that year was notable as the first murder trial which had female jury members.

When he appeared at Aylesbury Assizes he told the court that his wife had threatened suicide and had then swallowed prussic acid. The jury, advised by Mr Justice McCardie to 'arrive at your verdict without flinching, and to deliver it with unswerving firmness' disbelieved his story and duly returned a guilty verdict.

Doreen Baird, a 14-year-old schoolgirl, was baby-sitting five children. One of the children, 16-month-old June Croft, was crying more than the others. Baird tied a scarf around the child's neck to try and stop her crying and, not surprisingly, the child died of strangulation.

At her trial at Sheffield Assizes she pleaded diminished responsibility and medical evidence described her as emotionally immature and of low intellect. On 27th November 1958 she was found guilty of manslaughter and sent to Approved School.

Baker is responsible for one of the most famous phrases in the English language, 'sweet Fanny Adams.' On Saturday 24th August 1867 seven-year-old Fanny and her young sister, Lizzie, left their Alton, Hampshire, home to play with their friend Minnie Warner. They met Minnie and the three children walked the half mile to Flood Meadow, near the River Wey. When they arrived they were met by Baker, a local solicitor. He offered them halfpennies if they would go with him to The Hollow, a quiet country road. They agreed and went along with the young man quite willingly. When he tried to entice young Fanny into a hop grove the children began to express their doubts. Baker gave Lizzie and Minnie another halfpenny each and told them to go home. He picked up young Fanny and carried her into the hop field.

When the child failed to return home a search party set out and soon found her. She had been battered to death. Her head, with its eyes gouged out, had been stuck on a pole and other portions of of the child were found nearby.

It did not take the authorities long to arrest Baker. When they examined his diary for the fateful day they found the entry, 'Saturday August 24th. Killed a young girl. It was fine and hot.' The jury took no time to find Baker guilty and he was duly hanged.

At Essex Assizes, on 1st November 1961, Rose Baker was found unfit to plead to a charge of non-capital murder. She had been a patient in a mental institution for seven years when she strangled, with a sheet, a fellow inmate because she was upset by her singing. She was ordered to be detained during Her Majesty's Pleasure.

At 1am on the freezing morning of 5th January 1985 a pretty, dark-complexioned woman was found lying in undergrowth at Keston Ponds, near Bromley in Kent. She was wearing a blouse and dress but no overcoat. She had an open gash across her throat which had bled profusely. She was taken to a nearby house and help was called for. She was deeply unconscious but still alive, the sub-zero conditions slowing the haemorrhage. She was taken to Bromley Hospital and put straight into intensive care. The woman was identified as 42-year-old Dr. Madhu Baksh. She was the second wife of 52-year-old Dr. John Baksh, a general practitioner with surgeries in Mottingham and Chislehurst. Both the practices were doing very well and his wife, like Mrs Baksh 'number one', was a partner with her husband. John Baksh had reported his wife as missing during the evening of the 4th after she failed to turn up for an evening out with her husband.

As Madhu started to slowly recover she tried to mumble a few words to waiting detectives. One of these words was 'morphine'. Tests were immediately carried out on pre-transfusion blood samples from the woman and a massive dose of morphine was detected. Detectives doing background investigation discovered that John Baksh held insurance policies worth £215,000 on his wife's life. Further checking revealed what had happened. Baksh had driven his wife's car and abandoned it in Bromley. He then administered a narcotic drug to to his wife, probably in a drink, to make her drowsy and had then injected her with morphine in the back of the thigh. He then took her body to Keston, placed it in the undergrowth and slashed her throat.

Dectectives also discovered that Baksh's first wife, Ruby, had been found dead in her bed while they were on holiday in Spain in 1983. The cause of death had been certified as a heart attack, though no post-mortem had been conducted. The body was exhumed and organs removed back to England for testing. Tests proved that the woman had received a large dose of morphine. She had been insured for £90,000.

Baksh was charged with murder and attempted murder and appeared at the Old Bailey in December 1986. The jury were unanimous in finding him guilty and he received life and 14 years' imprisonment, respectively. Madhu obtained a divorce on the grounds of his 'unreasonable behaviour'.

On 10th December 1913 a ship's steward was waiting for his girl-friend outside a tarpaulin-maker's shop in Old Hall Street, Liverpool. A shutter blew down from the shop and hit him on the head. A man appeared from inside the shop and apologised. A couple of minutes later the steward saw a young lad come out of the shop pushing a handcart with a bundle in it. The lad was soon joined by the other man and the two walked off down the street pushing the cart and its load. The steward had just unknowingly witnessed the disposal of a murder victim's body.

The next day a sack was found to be obstructing one of the gates of a lock on the Leeds-Liverpool canal. Recovered to dry land, the sack was found to contain the body of a woman. She had been battered to death. She was identified as Christina Bradfield, a 40-year-old spinster who managed her brother's shop in Old Hall Street.

The police started a manhunt for 22-year-old tarpaulin-packer George Ball and 18-year-old Samual Angeles Elltoft, who also worked for Bradfield's. Elltoft was quickly found at home in bed but Ball had vanished. After a manhunt lasting ten days, he was discovered in a lodging-house in the city. He was disguised and was found to have Miss Bradfield's watch in his pocket.

They were both tried in February 1914 at Liverpool Assizes. Ball tried to claim that a man had broken into the shop and threatened staff with a gun. The man had then hit Miss Bradfield and escaped with the takings. This was rather weak, especially as the woman had been bludgeoned and been sewn into a sack.

Ball was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death while Elltoft was found guilty as an accessory after the fact and given four years' penal servitude. Ball was hanged on 26th February 1914.

The Barbers were married in 1970. Michael was a 24-year-old unskilled worker and his bride, Susan, was 17-years-old and brought with her a child of a previous liaison, though Michael thought the six-month-old daughter was his. They lived in a pre-war terraced house in Osborne Road, Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex. Michael had had previous encounters with the law, for car-theft and traffic offences and in 1972 he was again in trouble, this time for indecently assaulting his six-year-old niece.

By 1980 the Barbers had three children and Susan had a regular lover in the shape of 15-year-old Richard Collins, who lived three doors away. When Michael went off at 5am, to his job as a packer at a local cigarette factory, Richard would nip round and hop in next to Susan while the bed was still warm.

Saturday 31st March 1981 saw Michael up even earlier. He was going on a fishing trip in the Thames estuary with some friends and he had left home by 4am. Conditions were dangerous in the estuary due to a high wind and the trip was cancelled. Michael returned home and found his place in bed, and his wife, being kept warm for him by Richard. Michael hit them both and Richard got out quickly.

The following Tuesday found them at their local doctor's surgery where Susan wanted treatment for a bruise on her ear where Michael had hit her. The doctor offered to help resolve their marital difficulties and Susan expressed a willingness to patch things up. This didn't include cutting young Richard out her life though and she stayed in touch secretly by letter.

On Thursday 4th June 1981, Michael complained at his works' clinic of a severe headache. The next day the headache was accompanied by stomach pains and nausea. By Saturday he was poorly enough to call a doctor, who prescribed an antibiotic. Monday saw Michael with breathing difficulties and he was admitted to Southend General Hospital and placed in intensive care. On Wednesday 17th June he was transferred to Hammersmith Hospital with a severe kidney condition.

The doctors were baffled at Michael's deterioration and, when no specific infection could be identified, the question of paraquat poisoning was raised. Junior staff were instructed to obtain blood and urine samples and to send them to the National Poisons Reference Centre for analysis. It was understood that this had been done and that a negative result had been received back.

Michael Barber died on 27th June. A post-mortem was carried out by Professor David Evans and both he and his pupil were informed that tests had disproved the paraquat poisoning theory. Major organs were preserved and, although both pathologists suspected paraquat poisoning, judgement was reserved until histology slides became available.

Michael Barber was cremated at Southend on July 3rd. The same night Richard moved in with Susan. Michael's employers agreed that she should have a £15,000 death benefit plus £300 per annum for each child and she received these in October. By now Susan was having the time of her life. Richard's place had been taken by another live-in lover and Susan had purchased a CB radio and used the call-sign 'Nympho'. She soon became the centre of a regular orgy of drink and sex. What she didn't know was that the net was slowly tightening.

In September Professor Evans had received the histology slides. These indicated that Michael had ingested a toxic substance, probably paraquat. He sent his report to the renal unit. This caused some dismay as they had been told that the tests for paraquat had been negative. It was decided to hold a conference in January 1982, to sort out these anomolies. A doctor preparing material for the conference noticed that Barber's file held no notes about the examination of samples. Inquiries made at the National Poisons Reference Centre revealed that the samples had never been sent for analysis. Tissue samples were quickly recovered from the mortuary and sent to ICI, the manufacturers of paraquat. Serum samples went to the National Poisons Unit. The results came back quickly, both confirming the presence of paraquat.

Nine months after her husband's death Susan Barber was arrested at her home. Richard Collins was arrested the same day. Their trial at Chelmsford Crown Court began on November 1st 1982 with Barber being charged with murder, conspiracy to murder and of administering poison with intent to injure. Collins was charged with conspiracy to murder. Both pleaded not guilty. Susan Barber admitted putting the poison on her husband's food but maintained that she didn't want to kill him, she just wanted to make him ill so that she could get away without him coming after her. They were both found guilty. Susan Barber was sentenced to life imprisonment and Richard Collins to two years'.

Barclay, a 31-year-old labourer, took Nancy Brians, a 45-year-old prostitute, to a room in a Newcastle hotel. When her naked body was discovered she had been beaten to death and violently assaulted. Barclay had a long history of sadism, sexual perversion and vicious attacks on women. He also had a history of mental problems and medical testimony described him as a psychopath.

His defence was one of diminished responsibility at Newcastle Assizes and, on 21st January 1960, Barclay was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to life imprisonment.

A doctor was called to the Barlow house in Bradford on 3 May 1957. He was told by Kenneth Barlow that he had found his wife drowned in the bath. She had previously complained of feeling unwell - she was two months' pregnant, had vomited in bed and decided to take a bath. Barlow said he had dozed off and awoke to find his wife with her head under the water. He had tried to revive her but to no avail. The doctor could find no marks of violence on the corpse but noticed that Mrs Barlow's pupils were widely dilated.

A post-mortem could find nothing amiss but police were suspicious because both Barlow's pyjamas, and the Barlow bathroom, showed no signs of the wetness that would have been expected if Barlow's story of trying to rescusitate his wife were true. Hypodermic syringes were found in the house but these were explained away by Barlow's occupation as a nurse. Two needle marks were eventually found on Mrs Barlow's buttocks. These, along with the dilated pupils and Barlow's story of his wife vomiting suggested insulin poisoning. Tissue samples were analysed and the presence of insulin was confirmed. A witness told of Barlow boasting that insulin could be used to commit the perfect murder and Barlow was arrested and charged.

There was a considerable amount of forensic evidence presented at the trial and there was very little that the defence could do to refute the charges. 38-year-old Barlow was duly found guilty of non-capital murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment. He was released in 1984, after serving 26 years, still maintaining his innocence.

Barnes and 22-year-old James William Forbes were both serving sentences in Preston Gaol. It was Barnes' first time inside - he'd received nine months' for shopbreaking - and he was due to be released in twelve days time. A fight broke out between the two men, over tobacco, as a result of which Forbes died.

At Leeds Assizes on 13th December 1957, 32-year-old Barnes was convicted of non-capital murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Elvira Barney was a 27-year-old wealthy, gin-loving, socialite who had separated from her American husband. On 31st May 1932 she telephoned her doctor telling him that a 'terrible accident' had happened. She sounded in a highly agitated state. At the foot of the stairs in Elvira's Knightsbridge house at 21 William Mews lay the body of 24-year-old Michael Scott Stephen. He had been shot in the chest at close range. The police, when they arrived, found a .32 Smith & Wesson revolver with two empty chambers.

The neighbours had been awoken by a row between the couple shortly after the pair had arrived home, rather the worse for wear, following a party at the Cafe de Paris. The neighbours reported that they had heard Mrs Barney shout 'I will shoot you', followed by one or more shots.

Mrs Barney told the police that a quarrel had ensued between the couple, a common occurence according to the neighbours, and that she had threatened suicide after Stephen had said he was going to leave her. She said that they had struggled and that the gun had gone off accidently as they fought. She was arrested and charged with murder on 3rd June 1932.

She was defended at her Old Bailey trial by Sir Patrick Hastings. Despte evidence from ballistics expert Robert Churchill that the weapon was one of the safest types manufactured Sir Patrick pointed out that the gun had no safety catch and demonstrated that the trigger only took a very light pull to fire. This, he insisted, made it an obvious case for accidental death. Mrs Barney was found not guilty, though several points were not satisfactorily explained in court. These included a bullet hole in the bedroom wall of the house, but no bullet, and testimony from witnesses who stated that Mrs Barney had, on another occasion, fired at Stephen, in the street outside, from an open window.

Elvira Barney moved to France and was found dead in a Paris hotel bedroom four years later.

On 27th February 1961, 21-year-old baker's assistant, Barrett was found guilty of the non-capital murder of his baby daughter, Julie. Barrett had rowed with his wife over what they were going to watch on the television, and he hit her. She left him alone in the house with their child for half an hour and, when the baby started to cry, he attacked it. He broke four ribs and ruptured the child's liver.

At Nottingham Crown Court he was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Barrett, a 41-year-old Jamaican labourer, had a another violent quarrel with his 35-year-old wife, Indiana, in their home in Walsall. He packed his bags and left. After he had had second thoughts about things he returned and tried to patch things up. His wife took a vegetable knife from under her pillow and attacked him with it. He relieved her of the knife and stabbed her.

He was convicted of manslaughter at Stafford Assizes on 7th December 1960 and sentenced to seven years' imprisonment. He was subsequently transferred to Braodmoor and, upon his release, repatriated to Jamaica.

Mary Ann Barry and Edwin Bailey, her common-law husband, were hanged in 1874 for the murder of their one-year-old child. They were both petty thieves and alcoholics and considered the child a nuisance.

Adelaide married Edwin Bartlett when she was 19 and he was 29. He came from a close-knit family of prosperous grocers and Adelaide seemed resent the closeness that she had married into. Edwin seemed to have no interest in satisfying his young wife and within a year of their marriage she had begun an affair with her brother-in-law.

In 1885 she became friends with the Rev. George Dyson, a Wesleyan minister. Edwin approved of the relationship and even made a will leaving everything to Adelaide, with Dyson as the executor. The Bartletts moved to Pimlico in October 1885 and, within a matter of weeks, Edwin became ill with the doctor diagnosing subacuse gastritis. On 1st January 1886, Adelaide called her landlord and asked him to 'Come down; I think Mr Bartlett is dead.'

Doctors found about 1/16 of an ounce of chloroform in the dead man's stomach and deduced that a large dose must have been swallowed. The intruiging thing was that, although chloroform is a corrosive poison, no traces were found in his mouth or throat. Both Adelaide and Dyson were charged with the murder of Edwin, though the case against Dyson was withdrawn before it came to trial.

It was shown in court that Edwin had bought several amounts of chloroform from various chemists and his wife admitted that she used it, sprinkled on a handkerchief, to help her husband to sleep during the period of his illness. The defence put forward the theory that Edwin had drunk the chloroform to commit suicide and, as there was no evidence to show how the poison had been administered, the jury returned a verdict of not guilty.

After the case a well-known doctor said that 'in the interests of science, she should now say how she did it!'

Mary Harker was born at Aisenby, in Yorkshire, in 1768 and became known as the Yorkshire Witch. Her father was a farmer and both her parents were well-respected. She showed a proclivity for theft at an early age and, when her stealing didn't stop, she was sent to work as a domestic. By 1778 she had been sacked from so many posts that no-one would employ her and she moved to Leeds and took up dressmaking. She was quite successful and supplemented her income by becoming a soothsayer.

When she was 24 she married a wheelwright named John Bateman who had fallen under her spell. Marriage did nothing to quieten Mary and they were soon forced to move to escape accusations of theft. Mary continued with her supernatural activities and built a formidable reputation, feared by the superstitious simplefolk as a witch.

In 1806, William and Rebecca Perigo approached Mary convinced that a neighbour had cast a spell on Mrs Perigo. By this time Mary had an imaginary ocacle, Mrs Blythe. Mrs Blythe obligingly advised the Perigos to follow various courses of action, all of which enriched the artful Mary to the extent of impoverishing the couple. In April 1807 Mary went to the Perigos and showed them a letter she said had come from Mrs Blythe. In it the oracle told the dupes to take half a pound of honey to Mrs Bateman. She would put 'such stuff' into the honey as the helpful spirit advised. They must then eat this mixture.

The 'stuff' was mercuric chloride. On May 11th the Perigos started eating the 'pudding' and they both became sick. Mary gave them an antidote. Unfortunately for the couple, this turned out to be arsenic. William ate very little of the mixture or antidote. Even so, he was ill for days and his lips turned black. Rebecca forced herself to eat everything and she died in agony on 24th May 1808.

Mary was arrested and charged with murder. A search of her house turned up a cache of the Perigo's property and a collection of poisons. At her trial Mary tried to blame Mrs Blythe but this was easily refuted. Dozens of witnesses testified to Mary's criminal activities including fraud, extortion and abortion. The jury quickly returned a guilty verdict. Even while she waited for her appointment with the gallows she couldn't resist temptation and swindled fellow prisoners with promises of reprieves. She was hanged at 5am on 20th March 1809. Her body was displayed in public and thousands paid to view it, with the proceeds going to charity. Strips of her skin were sold as charms to ward off evil.

Bates was temporarily staying with his friend, 24-year-old Jordon Rayner. Bates, a 29-year-old labourer, beat his friend to death and, over the next week, disposed of the dead man's property.

When arrested he was charged with capital murder. He admitted that he had pawned the dead man's belongings but he claimed that a man called 'Fred' had killed his friend. He said that 'Fred' had stayed at the house on the night of the killing, committed the murder and then vanished. He had been unable to trace 'Fred' and had been afraid to tell the police because of his lengthy record of dishonesty.

At Durham Assizes, on 29th January 1960, he was found not guilty of capital murder but guilty of non-capital murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.

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Bastion, a 31-year-old labourer, suffered from tuberculosis and was unable to work. He had also been treated for mental problems. He became suspicious that his wife might be carrying on with another man. Because of his illness the couple had to rely on his wife's wages. When she had to go to Birmingham, to spite her, he killed his two sons, four-year-old Stephen and three-year-old Francis, by beating them to death with a rolling-pin. He then tried to commit suicide in a pond on Clapham Common.

At his Old Bailey trial medical evidence was given that described Bastion as insane but this was disputed by the prosecution. On 28th February 1958, Bastion was found not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to life imprisonment. Three months later he was transferred to Broadmoor.

Galloway, in Scotland, was a bleak place in 1400. Travellers would disappear with monotonous regularity. No traces of them were ever found, they simply vanished. The king's officers investigated and hanged several likely-looking characters, but travellers still vanished. This continued for many years, with people going missing followed by the hanging of a couple of tramps or local inn-keepers.

A husband and his wife were returning from a fair one day, with both of them on the same horse, when a wild looking creature leapt out and grabbed the horse's bridle. The husband took out his pistol and fired at the attacker. Suddenly they were surrounded by a horde of the creatures. The husband unsheathed his sword and started cutting. His wife was pulled from the horse and had her throat instantly cut. The husband was pulled to the ground but managed to keep them at bay with his cutlass.

At that moment it happened that a crowd of about 30 people, returning from the same fair, came upon the scene. The woman had, by this time, been disembowelled. The crowd charged and the attackers ran off. His wife was dead but the husband was the first person to survive assault by the gang for almost a quarter of a century.

Within four days the king arrived with 400 men. They started searching and soon came to the seashore. This was in an area of high cliffs so they waited until the tide had gone out and then rode along the beach. After a while they noticed a cave in the cliffs. They sent for some torches and, when they arrived, the troops clambered up and entered the cave.

After following the passage it suddenly opened out and they found figures dazzled by the torchlight. Hanging from the ceiling of the cave were body parts and there were piles of money and jewellery in the recesses. The creatures were cornered and preferred to fight. Eventually sheer weight of numbers prevailed and 48 of them were rounded-up.

They were taken to the Tollbooth in Edinburgh and, from there, to Leith. The leader of the gang was determined to be Sawney Bean who, 25 years earlier, had run away with a woman and lived in the cave since then. She had born him eight sons and six daughters and these, in turn, had produced eighteen grandsons and fourteen daughters.

They lived by cannibalism, hence the missing travellers. It was 'thought needless to try such creatures who were professed enemies to mankind' so they were executed without the bother of a trial. The men had their hands and feet chopped off and allowed to bleed to death and the women, who had been made to watch, were thrown alive into three large fires.

Arthur Beard was a nightwatchman. He was drunk when he raped and suffocated 13-year-old Ivy Lydia Wood in 1919. He was convicted of murder at Chester Assizes and sentenced to death.

He appealed and the plea was heard before the Court of Criminal Appeal which reduced the original charge to one of manslaughter. This was on the grounds of his drunken state and his not being in a condition to be capable of acting with malice aforethought. The case went on to the House of Lords. Once again the judgement was reversed with the original charge, verdict and sentence being re-instated. The Lord Chancellor ruled that, while Beard was too drunk to form the intention to kill, he was able to form the intention of rape, during which he used violence which caused the death.

He was, however, reprieved.

Beaumont, a 43-year-old labourer, had twice been a patient in a mental hospital and had previously tried to commit suicide. He was devoted to his 44-year-old wife, Mabel. He beat her to death with a gun then tried to commit suicide with an overdose of aspirins and shooting himself, but failed.

The jury found him guilty but insane at Norfolk Assizes on 11th February 1958 and was ordered to Broadmoor during Her Majesty's Pleasure.

John Beddingfield was a 24-year-old farmer when he married Ann. They moved to a large farm in Suffolk, a wedding present from his parents. It did not take Ann too long to become bored with her husband and she started an affair with a 19-year-old servant named Richard Ringe. The pair were less than discrete about things, with the servant visiting his mistress in her room at night.

After three months of the relationship Ann decided that it would be better if her compliant husband was removed from the scene entirely. She persuaded Binge, with the promise of half the estate, to join her in her plot. Even now the pair had no concept of discretion. Ann told a servant of the master's imminent demise and Ringe, who had bought some poison, tried to persuade a kitchen maid to add it to the master's drink.

When this failed they decided on a course of direct action. In March 1763 Ringe strangled Beddingfield while the man slept. He burst into Ann's room and told her 'I have done for him.' 'Then I am easy', replied Ann, not the wisest conversation ever held, as a servant girl was in bed with Ann at the time as a bedwarmer. The girl leapt from the bed and went to discover her master's body displaying obvious signs of strangulation.

None of the servants gave evidence at the Coroner's enquiry and a verdict of 'death by natural causes' was returned. The jury felt that the man had somehow strangled himself with his own bedding while having a nightmare.

Over the next few weeks the relationship between the murdering pair deteriorated. The servant girl who had been in bed with Ann on the fateful night waited until she had received her wages and then went to the authorities and recounted all she knew. At their trial in April 1763 Ann maintained her innocence while Ringe, after hearing testimony from the servants, confessed his part in the crime. They were both convicted and sentenced to death. On 8th April 1753 they were both drawn by sledge to Rushmore, near Ipswich, where Ringe was hanged and Ann was burnt alive at the stake.

This 11-year-old monster caused a sensation in 1968 when she killed two small boys in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Martin Brown was found dead in a derelict house in the Scotswood district of Newcastle on 25th May 1968. A local nursery school was broken into a couple of days later. Police investigating the incident found four notes, one of which referred to the death of Martin Brown.

Two months later Brian Howe, aged three, was also found dead. He had been strangled and his body had numerous small cuts on it. The police launched an investigation that took in the interviewing of 1,200 children. Two girls, Norma Joyce Bell and Mary Flora Bell (no relation to each other), gave answers that were suspicious or evasive. Each was questioned several times and changed their stories twice.

Eventually, each accused the other of 'squeezing' Brian Howe's throat and Mary accused Norma of making the cuts on his body with a razor blade. Both girls were arrested on 5th August 1968 and, when charged with murder, Mary replied, 'That's all right by me.'

At their trial in December 1968, Mary was very confident and self-possessed. Both girls admitted breaking into the school and writing the notes found there. After nine days of evidence Norma, who had appeared confused and over-awed during the procedings, was found not guilty. Mary was, because of diminished responsibility, found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to life imprisonment.

John Bellingham developed an irrational grudge against authority when a business venture in Russia he was involved in collapsed and the government refused to rescue him from the financial mess he was in.

In May 1812 he waited in the lobby of the House of Commons and when the Prime Minister, Spencer Perceval, entered he shot him dead. He made no attempt to get away and blamed the government for denying him justice. Bellingham pleaded guilty at his trial for murder and made a long, rambling statement about his grievances. The judge ruled that Bellingham had understood what he had done and sentenced him to death. He was hanged within the week.

20-year-old Bennett would try his hand at any get-rich-quick scheme that he could think of. He was ably assisted by his young wife, who he had married in West Ham on 22nd July 1897. In 1900 he fell in love with a parlourmaid named Alice Meadows. On 28th August 1900 he proposed marriage to the girl, notwithstanding his wife and young child.

On 15th September 1900 he sent his wife and child to Great Yarmouth, where he later joined them. On the night of 22nd September 1900 a man and a woman were seen on Yarmouth beach by a courting couple, Alfred Mason and Blanche Smith. There were sounds of a woman moaning. The next morning, the body of a young woman, strangled with a bootlace, was found on the beach. The police took a long time identifying the corpse as that of Mrs Bennett, as she had booked into a local boarding-house as a widow from York named Hood.

Bennett was back in London by this time. Once the police had identified the body it took no time to find her husband and he was arrested in London on 6th November. Bennett had made a fatal error. He had taken from the body a gold chain. A photograph of the woman, taken the day before the murder, showed her wearing it and her Yarmouth landlady identified it as having been worn by Mrs Bennett when she left the house on the fateful night. A search of Bennett's London lodgings quickly revealed the chain.

Bennett was tried at the Old Bailey and even Sir Edward Marshall Hall, defending him, who tried to convince the jury that the chain found in Bennett's lodgings was of a different design to the one in the photograph, could do nothing to save him from the gallows. He made no confession and was hanged at Norwich Gaol on 21st March 1901.

The body of Dora May Gray was found on Yarmouth beach on 14th July 1912. She had been strangled by a bootlace and her killer was never found.

Thomas Bennett was a 73-year-old widower, who lived with his son, and who had begun to act strangely at home. He woke up with a headache one morning and went round to see one of his neighbours, 77-year-old Annie Waters, to ask for some aspirins. In a moment of madness he clubbed her with a hammer.

At his Old Bailey trial on 10th May 1957, he was found unfit to plead. He was ordered to be detained during Her Majesty's Pleasure.

When Misses Phyllis Squires, aged 60, and Elizabeth Ivatt, aged 88, told Benson that they were unable to supply him with any money, after he called at their Wandsworth home, he battered them both to death. The 34-year-old clerk and church worker then poured paraffin over the bodies and set them alight.

On 27th October 1959, at the Old Bailey, he was found to be insane and unfit to plead. He was ordered to be detained during Her Majesty's Pleasure.

One of the most controversial cases in British legal history. On 2nd November 1952 two youths were spotted breaking into Barlow & Parker, a wholesale confectioner's. The police were called and they arrived at about 9.25pm in a van and a car. Bentley and Craig spotted the police and tried to hide behind a lift-housing on the flat roof of the warehouse. DC Frederick Fairfax noticed a footprint on a window-sill and climbed a drain-pipe onto the flat roof. Fairfax called on the two to surrender but was met with a stream of defiance from Craig. He charged at the pair and grabbed the nearest figure, which happened to be Bentley. Bentley broke free and called to his partner, 'Let him have it, Chris!' Craig fired and wounded DC Fairfax in the shoulder. Fairfax caught up with Bentley and flattened him with a punch.

DC Fairfax stripped Bentley of his weapons, a knife and a knuckle-duster. By this time armed reinforcements had arrived and surrounded the building. PC Miles, who had been in the first car to arrive, had located the manager of the building and had obtained the keys. Miles entered the building and went up an interior staircase to the roof. He kicked open the roof door and stepped onto the roof. He fell dead, shot through the left temple. Craig continued to fire and scream threats at the police until he ran out of ammunition. He then leapt from the roof of the building, a drop of 27 feet. The fall broke his spine, breastbone and left wrist. In the meantime, Bentley had been escorted from the roof under arrest.

At their trial at the Old Bailey they were both charged with murder, even though Bentley was under arrest when Craig fired the shot that killed PC Miles. Craig, being 16 at the time, could not be hanged. There were many contentious points at their trial. The defence maintained that Craig had not been aiming at the policemen when he fired, but over their heads. A ballistics expert, Mr Lewis Nicholls, gave evidence that the gun, a sawn-off, First World War .455 Eley service revolver, was wildly inaccurate at distances over six feet. No-one was sure how many shots had been fired on the roof. Craig stated that he had reloaded the gun once and had fired eleven times, two of them being misfires. Police only found two bullets on the roof and one in Faifax's clothing. No trace could be found of the bullet that killed Miles. Many of the judge's continual interjections during the trial were damaging to the defence. The main point of the prosecution's case was based on the pair having a common purpose while the defence maintained that the 'joint enterprise' had ended fifteen minutes before PC Miles' death, when Bentley was arrested.

The jury considered their verdict for just 75 minutes before returning guilty verdicts on both youths, with a recommendation for mercy in Bentley's case. Bentley was sentenced to death. Craig, who the judge described as 'one of the most dangerous young criminals who has ever stood in that dock' was sentenced to be detained during Her Majesty's pleasure.

Derek Bentley, aged nineteen, was hanged in Wandsworth at 9am on 28th January 1953. Craig was released from prison in May 1963 and he settled in Buckinghamshire.

Another one for Broadmoor. This 19-year-old aircraftman had the idea that the power of the Soviet Union was so many times greater than that of the West they were bound to win any potential conflict between the two sides. To prevent his parents, 42-year-old Leonard Charles and his 38-year-old wife, Irene, suffering should hostilities occur, he shot them as they lay in bed. He showed the bodies to a friend later that day and then went to the pictures.

Medical evidence presented at his trial at Pembrokeshire Assizes described him as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. He was found guilty but insane and, on 22nd June 1959, was sentenced to be detained at Broadmoor during Her Majesty's Pleasure.

Biddick, 39-years-old, a fitter and Special Constable, was living with 60-year-old Betty Moore. In a fit of jealousy he strangled the woman and then strangled her 14-year-old daughter, Donna.

At his trial at Cornwall Assizes he put forward the defence that he had strangled the woman by accident while embracing her and then, overcome by grief, had strangled the child while his mental responsibility was diminished. This theory didn't impress the jury and, on 6th June 1959, he was found guilty on both charges of non-capital murder and sentenced to life.

Billings, a 26-year-old fisherman, and his wife, 23-year-old Tessa, had been married for six years. He had a history of heavy drinking and it had been something of a stormy marriage and the pair were currently separated. A report reached Billings that his wife was seeing another man. He had already been drinking and went to see his wife to ask her to return to him. She refused and he stabbed her a dozen times with a filleting knife that he had bought on the way to see her.

The jury at his trial at Lincoln Assizes heard that Billings was mentally unstable and a psychopath. On 12th February 1962 he was found not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to twelve years' imprisonment.

The sweet-shop in Tregonissey, Cornwall, was run by 50-year-old Mrs Annie Black. On 11th November 1921 she died of what appeared to be gastro-enteritis. Her doctor, however, was not satisfied and a post-mortem was conducted and arsenic was found in body tissues. Her husband, 36-year-old Edward Black, had left home three days before she died. He made a precarious living selling insurance and owed money.

He was found in a Liverpool hotel with a self-inflicted throat wound. A coroner's jury returned a verdict of murder naming Black as the culprit. His trial opened at Bodmin on 1st February 1922 and lasted two days. A local chemist testified that Black had purchased two ounces of arsenic and signed the poisons register. The jury took 40 minutes to find him guilty and he was hanged on 24th March 1922.

Mary was raised with all the advantages. She was the only daughter of a lawyer, Francis Blandy of Henley on Thames, and had the best in home life and education. By the time she was 26-years-old she was beginning to think that an advantageous marriage had passed her by, despite the promise of a £10,000 dowry from her father.

It was about this time that Captain William Henry Cranstoun came into the Blandy's lives. He was the son of a Scottish peer and was recruiting in the area. On hearing of the dowry he ingratiated himself with the family. Mary was flattered by the man and her parents, snobbishly, thought him a worthy suitor for their daughter. For Cranstoun's part, he had a problem. He was already married, with two children. He wrote to his wife asking her to disown him, which she did. When he wrote and asked her to have the marriage annulled she objected and brought legal procedings against her husband. Francis Blandy heard of the scandalous behaviour of Cranstoun and threw him out. Cranstuon went to live with his mistress and then returned to his family in Scotland.

Despite the distance, Mary and Cranstoun carried on their contact. Cranstoun sent Mary some powders. These, according to Mary, were designed to make her father more compliant in the matter of their relationship. Mary put them into her father's gruel and tea. He quickly became ill, as did a servant who had finished off some of the poisoned food. Doctors told Mary that if her father died she would be accused of murder. She quickly disposed of the rest of the powders and her letters from Cranstoun but she was seen by the servants while she was burning them. Francis Blandy died on 14th August 1751.

Mary came to trial on 3rd March 1752. She was convicted and sentenced to death. On mounting the scaffold some people in the crowd tried to look up her skirts and she requested the executioners, 'Gentlemen, don't hang me high, for the sake of decency.'
Cranstoun fled to France on hearing of Mary's arrest and joined a monestery. He died there on 30th November 1752. Had he managed to marry Mary he would never have got his hands on the £10,000 dowry. Blandy's entire estate amounted to less than £4,000.

It was 2am on the morning of 7th December 1839 when the fire was noticed inside the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Savings Bank. The fire brigade arrived and quickly had the fire under control. When the police entered the office of the bank's clerk, Joseph Millie, they found him lying on the floor with his brains splattered all over the room. They went into the manager's office and found Archibald Bolam on the floor. He had blood pouring from a cut in his throat. The wounds, however, were only superficial and he quickly recovered.

According to Bolam he had received several letters making threats on his life. One of these, promising that he would be attacked at home, had arrived the day of the fire so he had gone home to ensure that everything was alright. When he had returned and let himself into the bank at around 7pm and had found Millie lying on the floor, looking 'as if asleep.' Before he could find out what had happened he had been struck from behind. He had run for the door and been struck a second time, at which point he had collapsed.

The police were instantly suspicious. They reckoned that, even if he had been knocked unconscious, he should have recovered before 2am. Also, with his brains spread all over the room, Millie looked anything but 'asleep.' Bolam also told the police that he had burned all the theatening letters except the last one, but that one, which had been on his desk, must have been taken by his assailant.

Bolam had also told police that he felt the knife on his throat while he was lying down, just before he passed out. But all the blood from his wound was down the front of his shirt, not the sides and back, as would have been expected had he received the wound while lying down. There was also a matter of the coal found in Millie's pockets. When police searched Bolam's house and found a large amount of money in gold, Bolam was arrested.

Millie was a hard-working widower with four children and public sympathy ran high. Despite all of this, at his trial in July 1840, Bolam was only sentenced to transportation for life.

Jamaican labourer, Bolt killed his 37-year-old mistress, Ellen Chapman. She had, earlier that day, told Bolt to leave and not to return. He broke into her bedroom and slashed her 18 times with a razor. He also injured two of her children who tried to come to her rescue. He told police that they had been friends for about two years and that he was the father of one of her children. He admitted to the authorities that he had committed the crime but said that he did not know what he was doing when he slashed her.

At Maidstone Assizes on 27th November 1961, 35-year-old Bolt was found guilty of non-capital murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Boocock was a 15-year-old warehouse boy and a member of a gang. He had been drinking heavily when his gang was involved in a fight outside a Bradford public house. After the fight 19-year-old Arthur Bairstow was found beaten to death.

Boocock was charged with non-capital murder. At his trial at Leeds Assizes his plea of guilty to manslaughter was accepted and, on 16th December 1957, he was sentenced to be detained for a period not exceeding five years.

Raymond Maurice Mezzone was a married man. He was 29-years-old and had been having an affair with 19-year-old Bourne, also married. Mezzone had ended the relationship but wanted custody of the child that Bourne had had by him. Bourne went to the Mezzone's home and, while arguing with the couple outside the house, took a knife from her bag and stuck it in her ex-lover.

At Birmingham Assizes, on 16th July 1957, she was found not guilty of non-capital murder but guilty of manslaughter and was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment.

Bowman suspected his 40-year-old wife, Jane, of having an affair with his father and of spending his savings, so he strangled her.

When 38-year-old Bowman appeared at Durham Assizes, medical testimony was given that he was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and still believed that his wife was alive. On 29th January 1960 he was found unfit to plead and ordered to be kept in strict custody during Her Majesty's Pleasure.

Five of Elizabeth's eight children had died from one cause or another. She had a history of mental problems including suffering from delusions and three suicide attempts. She imagined that her six-year-old daughter, Betty Floretta, had tuberculosis and had been spitting blood, so she strangled her in an apparent act of mercy. Elizabeth then took an overdose of aspirins and stuck a knife in her own neck.

She was found guilty but insane on 27th November 1957 at Warwick Assizes and was ordered to Broadmoor.

At Chester Assizes on 6th May 1966, after a fifteen day trial, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley were jointly found guilty of the murder of Edward Evans and Lesley Ann Downey. Brady was also found guilty of the murder of John Kilbride while Hindley was found guilty of being an accessory after the fact. Brady received three life sentences and Hindley two life sentences and a further seven years on the accessory charge. The sentences brought to an end one of the most horrifying trials in British legal history.

Brady, whose real name was Ian Duncan Stewart, was born on 2nd January 1938, the illegitimate son of a Scottish waitress, and was brought up by foster parents in the Gorbals district of Glasgow. He developed a reputation as an up-and-coming psychopath and glorified in the maiming of animals and the torturing of young children. After several brushes with the law, mainly for theft and housebreaking, he was ordered to live with his mother. She had moved to Manchester and married a man named Patrick Brady. Ian Brady quickly became a teenage drunk and received a two year Borstal sentence for theft.

Hindley had been brought up in the Gorton district of Manchester and was known as a normal youngster who liked animals and children, even if she was a little shy and unsociable. She was not particularly pretty with heavy features, a prominent nose and big hips. Their paths first crossed when nineteen-year-old Hindley joined the firm of Millwards as a junior typist. Brady was an invoice clerk in the same office and she fell in love with the pale youth who spent his lunch hour reading 'Mein Kampf' but who completely ignored her.

Eventually Brady asked Hindley to go to the pictures with him, to see 'Trial at Nuremberg.' On their return to Hindley's grandmother's house he seduced her and they were soon inseparable. By this time Brady had formed a cult-worship for Hitler and Nazism. He introduced Hindley to his views and she dyed her hair blonde and took to wearing leather boots. Brady called her 'Myra Hess'.

Before very long they were posing together in pornographic pictures. When they found that they couldn't sell them, their thoughts turned to bank robbery. Hindley joined a local gun club and learnt to shoot. She also passed her driving test in November 1963, so that the team had a getaway driver.

In September 1964 the couple went to live with Hindley's grandmother in Wardle Brook Avenue, Hattersley. They were friends with Myra's sister, Maureen, and her 17-year-old husband, David Smith. They had got married the year before when Maureen discovered she was pregnant. Smith must have seemed to Brady as the perfect pupil. He had a fondness for drink and a record of violence and Brady set about impressing him with his boastful talk of murders committed and the possibilities of armed robbery.

Partly to prove to Smith that he was no idle boaster and partly to ensnare Smith, Brady picked up 17-year-old homosexual Edward Evans on the evening of 6th October 1965 and took him back to Hattersley. Hindley got Smith out of bed late that night and asked him to take her home. Once at the Wardle Brook Avenue council house she got him to come inside. Evans was sitting on the sofa in the living-room and Brady, using an axe, set about smashing his skull. A pathologist later counted fourteen separate wounds. Brady finished Evans off by strangling him with a length of flex and then declared, 'It's done. It's the messiest yet.' All three of them scrubbed the living-room and a frightened Smith helped Brady truss the body and wrap it in polythene before carrying it upstairs.

Next morning a terrified Smith recounted to his wife what he had seen. They rang the police. When police searched the house they found the body of Evans in a locked bedroom. Brady was arrested. The police then set about trying to find the 'three or four others' that he had boasted of to Smith. A search of the house revealed two left luggage tickets, for lockers at Manchester Central Station, that were hidden in the spine of a book. Each locker held a suitcase which contained coshes, wigs, photographs and tape recordings.

Some of the photographs were of a small girl. She was identified as 10-year-old Lesley Ann Downey. She had gone missing in December 1964. One of the tape recordings was of Lesley crying and pleading to be allowed to go home.

Notes made by Brady featured another missing child. This was 12-year-old John Kilbride who had vanished in November 1963. Some of the photographs recovered showed Brady and Hindley on Saddleworth Moor and it was from these pictures that police were able to identify search areas. The graves of Lesley Ann Downey and John Kilbride were found within a few hundred yards of each other.

At their trial they both denied all knowledge of any harm being done to Lesley Ann. They said that the child had agreed to pose for pornographic photos on payment of ten shillings and that the child had left the house unharmed. The pair lied to the end and were found guilty.

Police continued to investigate children who had gone missing over the previous couple of years and were sure that Brady and Hindley were responsible for some of these disappearances.

On the evening of 12th July 1963, 16-year-old Pauline Reade had left her home to go to a dance at the Gorton Railway Institute. She never arrived. A year later Keith Bennett vanished. He was 12-years-old and on the evening of 16th June 1964 he set off for his grandmother's house in the Longsight district of Manchester. He also vanished.

In 1987 a confession, made by Hindley the year before, was published and it became known that the pair of them had been responsible for the deaths of Pauline Reade and Keith Bennett. Pauline's body was found on Saddleworth Moor in August 1987.

On 14th July 1938 a motorist driving through Wimbledon spotted a woman's body lying in the road. At first it looked as though she had been the victim of a hit-and-run accident. On closer inspection the police decided that the woman had been killed elsewhere and dumped to make the death appear accidental. Tyre-marks on the woman's legs were identified as having come from Morris Minor or Austin Seven cars. The woman was identified as 30-year-old prostitute Rose Muriel Atkins, also known as 'Irish Rose'.

Two days later George Brain was reported to the police on suspicion of embezzlement by his employers. Brain was 27-year-old driver working for a firm of boot-repairers and drove the firm's green Morris van. Brain had vanished after leaving the van in a work-mate's garage. Police inspecting the van discovered bloodstains and Rose Atkin's handbag with Brain's fingerprints on it.

Brain stayed at large until 27th July when he was recognised in Sheerness and arrested. Brain told police that he had picked up Rose Atkins in Wimbledon late at night and she had demanded money, threatening to tell his employers that he was using the van after hours. He had hit her with the van's starting handle, which was at odds with the fact that the girl had been killed with a knife. The knife had been found hidden in the van's garage. He had stolen four shillings from the woman's handbag.

At his Old Bailey trial it took the jury just fifteen minutes to find him guilty and he was hanged on 1st November 1938 at Wandsworth Prison.

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This vicious mother and daughter pair were hanged in 1740 for the murder of a servant. Elizabeth Branch was born in Phillips-Norton, in Somerset, and was cruel even as a child. She married a wealthy farmer and she soon began to beat their servants on any pretext, making them sleep outside when it took her fancy. It was little wonder that their daughter, Mary, grew up like her mother.

Mr Branch died leaving Elizabeth and Mary quite a fortune. Once he was out of the way they started abusing and torturing their servants with a vengence. Jane Butterworth was a rather slow-minded orphan and she became the focus of the pair's manic cruelty, being beaten senseless at every opportunity.

One day Jane had been too slow to buy some yeast and the pair stripped the girl and beat her with brromsticks and then pouring salt into her wounds. Ann Somers, a milkmaid, entered the farmhouse and found Jane lying in a pool of blood while Elizabeth sat in front of the fire.

That night they ordered Ann to sleep with the body of the dead girl. In the middle of the night the pair decided that they ought to dispose of the body. They dragged the body into a field where they buried it.

As can be imagined, Ann Somers didn't feel particularly secure with the couple and raced off to the police the first time she got the chance. Mary and Elizabeth were arrested.

They came up for trial in Taunton in March 1740. They were condemned to death after the jury heard Ann Somers' testimony. Word got to the local authorities that local residents intended to 'tear them apart while alive' so the pair were taken to Ivelchester to be executed.

Mrs Branch confessed her crime while her 24-year-old daughter wept openly at her side. Both women were left to hang for over an hour while a stream of clergymen lectured the audience on the evils of beating servants. Apparantly, the crowd were not particularly interested in the sermons and were only concerned with ensuring the pair were properly despatched.

George Briers

John Topping, 58-years-old, and his 17-year-old stepson, Briers, were continually quarrelling. Briers had retired to his bedroom one day after his stepfather had come home drunk and a row had developed. He heard a thump and thought that Topping was striking his mother. He took his shotgun, went downstairs and shot his stepfather.

At his trial at Liverpool Crown Court, where he was charged with capital murder, he said that he had been provocated but that he had no intention to kill. He was found guilty of manslaughter and, on 8th November 1957, was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment.

Richard Brinkley

Brinkley was hanged at Wandsworth Prison on 13th August 1907. Brinkley was a carpenter who cultivated the friendship of Johanna Maria Louisa Blume, a 77-year-old widow. She owned a house in Fulham and he had designs upon her estate. He drew up a will in which he was the sole beneficiary of all the old lady's property and savings. He induced her to sign the will by means of telling her that he was collecting names for a seaside outing. By using a similar ruse he collected the signatures of two witnesses, Henry Heard and Reginald Parker.

Mrs Blume died two days later and Brinkley promptly produced the will and claimed his inheritance. Mrs Blume's grand-daughter, who had lived with the old lady, disputed the signature and, with the help of a solicitor, demanded that Brinkley prove the validity of the will. As this meant that the witnesses would be questioned Brinkley decided that the best way forward would be to eliminate them.

He visited Parker saying that he was interested in buying a dog that Parker had for sale. He brought with him a bottle of stout. The bottle was left unattended on the kitchen table while the two men went to look at the dog. Mr Beck, Parker's landlord, with his wife and daughter entered the kitchen and, spotting the bottle, decided to sample it. All three collapsed with Mr and Mrs Beck dying. The bottle was found to have been laced with prussic acid.

Brinkley was tried at Guildford Assizes, with forensic evidence being given on the use of various inks used in the signatures on the wills. Mrs Blume's body was exhumed and no trace of poison was found.

William Brittle

The body of 42-year-old Peter Thomas was found on 28th June 1964 by two boys searching Bracknell Woods for maggots for fishing bait. Thomas had been missing from his wooden bungalow outside Lydney since the middle of June. Police enquiries showed that Thomas had lent £2,000 to William Brittle, a heating engineer of Hook, in Hampshire. Brittle maintained that he had repaid the money to Thomas the day before the dead man had disappeared. He told the police that he had raised the money by backing horses but could not remember the names of any of the winners which could account for his sudden change in fortunes.

A jury were unimpressed by his story of a windfall and found him guilty of murder. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.

The eternal triangle again. The players this time in this eighteenth-century story were Elizabeth Broadingham, her husband John and a younger man, Thomas Aikney. Thomas resisted the pressure from Elizabeth to dispose of John but, after daily pestering from the woman, finally agreed.

She slapped her husband awake on 13th February 1776 and told him that there was someone knocking at the door of their York home. He went and opened the front door. Aikney rushed in, slashing at Broadingham with a knife. He cut John' s leg and plunged the knife into his stomach before rushing off down the street.

Broadingham tottered after Aikney shouting 'Murder! Murder!' One account tells of neighbours coming to his assistance finding 'in one hand the bloody instrument which he had just drawn out of his body, and the other supporting his bowels, which were dropping to the ground.' He died the following day.

Aikney was arrested after the knife was traced to him. He confessed. Elizabeth was promptly arrest and both were tried and condemned. Aikney was hanged on 20th March 1776 and Elizabeth was burnt at the stake, after having first been strangled.

James Brodie was a 23-year-old blind man. He had as guide a young lad named Robert Selby Hancock. Around 2pm on Tuesday 24th March 1800, John Robinson, a warrener, went to check his warren near Nottingham and found Brodie lying face down. When asked what he was doing, Brodie said that he had lost his guide, who was dead, and that he had been wandering about all night. Robinson and two others went to find the boy and located him about three miles away. The lad's skull had been fractured in two places, the shoulders had been beaten to a pulp and the body had been covered by a large amount of bracken.

Brodie said that the pair had lost their way and the boy had climbed a tree to find out where they were. He had fallen from the tree and severely hurt himself. As the boy could not stand Brodie had covered him with the fern to keep him warm and stayed with him until he had died.

At his trial the jury would have none of this and they instantly found him guilty. He was swiftly hanged.

Mrs Bromley had been treated in mental hospitals three times in her 39 years. She gave barbiturates to her two sons, 13-year-old Martin John and 10-year-old Stephen, before carrying the children into the garage where she tried to kill them with the carbon monoxide fumes from the car. She then strangled the eldest son and left his body in the garage while she drowned Stephen in the bath. Just to make sure she cut the boy's throats. She followed this up by trying to commit suicide in a local pond.

When she came for trial at Surrey Assizes on 25th February 1959 she was found insane and unfit to plead. She was ordered to be detained during Her Majesty's Pleasure.

The Brown family lived in Rayliegh in Essex. They were dominated by the father, a wheel-chair invalid, who constantly bullied his wife and children. In 1942 teenager Eric decided that this had gone on long enough. One day when the father was being taken for his regular outing by his nurse the chair exploded and blew Mr Brown to bits. Eric had placed an Army land-mine under the seat of the chair.

At his trial he was found guilty but insane.

Brown was employed as a groom by Frederick Ellison Morton. Morton was a wealthy cattle factor and he lived with his wife and child at Saxton Grange, a remote Yorkshire farmhouse. Morton's wife, Dorothy, became Brown's mistress but their relationship was spoiled by Brown's raging jealousy. Brown left Saxton Grange after a disagreement over his duties but returned within days asking to have his job back. He was re-employed but was resentful about his status.

On 5th September 1933 Mr Morton went out for the day in one of his two cars. In the early evening Brown and Dorothy Morton argued and he struck her to the ground. Brown went out and a short while later Mrs Morton and her companion, Ann Houseman, heard the discharge of a shotgun outside the house. He told the two women that he was shooting at rats. The women were terrified by this time and, when they found that the telephone had gone dead, locked themselves in an upstairs room.

At 3.30am there was an explosion, followed by a fire, in the garage. The two women ran from the house and hid in fields near-by. Because of the intensity of the fire it was not possible to inspect the garage until 9am. Inside the remains of the garage were both of Morton's cars and, in one of them, was the body of Morton. He had been shot in the chest.

Brown's trial took place in Leeds. Forensic evidence showed that the telephone lines had been severed by a knife that Brown had taken from the kitchen and that the explosion had been caused by the petrol that had been spread around the garage. 35-year-old Brown was found guilty and hanged at Armley Gaol, Leeds, on 6th February 1934.

Brown, a 22-year-old labourer, had been convicted of stealing chickens. He believed that his friend, 43-year-old Joseph Alderson, had informed on him. They left a public house arguing and went to 'have it out'. The pair went to a field where Brown kicked Alderson unconscious and left him. He returned the next to find his friend still lying there. When he was unable to revive him he left again. Alderson was eventually discovered but died in hospital two weeks later.

Brown was tried at Durham Assizes where he was described as 'feeble-minded'. He was found guilty of manslaughter and, on 20th October 1960, sentenced to life imprisonment.

It was rumoured that 79-year-old Frederick 'Gossy' Gosling kept a considerable sum of money hidden in his shop at Clay Corner, near Chertsey in Surrey, where he lived. Police were called to the shop on 11th January 1951 after Mr Gosling had been attacked by two men, who had run off when some schoolgirls entered the shop. The next day the old man was found dead in his bedroom. He had been struck over one eye and had been asphyxiated. About £60 was missing.

Within days police arrested 33-year-old Joseph Brown, a general dealer, his 27-year-old brother Frederick, a labourer, and 33-year-old Edward Smith. Originally all three were charged with the assault on the 11th, but this was changed to murder in the the case of Joseph Brown and Smith, with Frederick being discharged. These two appeared before Surrey Assizes in March 1951 with Frederick giving evidence against his brother.

Frederick testified that that he had driven the other two to the shop on the 11th with the intention of robbing the old man but had to make their escape when the schoolgirls arrived. Joseph Brown and Smith had returned later and had told him that they had had to tie up the old man but that he was alright. Both men were found guilty and were hanged at Wandsworth Prison on 25th April 1951.

It was rumoured that John Brown, a carrier, had married Martha for her money. A rumour that was verified by the fact that she was some twenty years older than he was. He was also noted for his philandering. One day in 1856 Martha returned to their home in Birdsmoorgate, near Beaminster, to find John in a compromising position with another woman. Later that evening the couple had an argument. During the row John hit his wife with a whip and she retaliated by smashing him with an axe.

She attempted to pass off the demise of her husband as having been caused by the kick of a horse. The jury were not impressed and found Martha guilty. She was hanged at Dorchester on 9th August 1856. a member of the audience was one Thomas Hardy. So moved was he by the story behind the tragedy that he based part of his Tess of the d'Urbervilles on Martha.

Frederick Guy Browne

William Henry Kennedy

In the early hours of Tuesday, 27th September 1927 the body of PC George Gutteridge was found in a country lane near to Howe Green, between Romford and Ongar, in Essex. The body was propped up against a bank with the legs sticking out into the road. The policeman's helmet lay near-by as did his pocket-book. His police whistle hung loose on its chain and his pencil was held in his right hand. He had been shot four times, twice through the left cheek and once through each eye. Time of death was placed between four and five hours prior to discovery.

It was deduced that PC Gutteridge had stopped a car and was about to record details when he had been shot. A check of local crimes quickly revealed that a blue Morris-Cowley belonging to Dr Edward Lovell had been stolen from his locked garage in London Road, Billericay during the previous night. Neighbours remembered the sound of a car being started at about 2.30am and driving off down Mountnessing Road. The car had already been found in Brixton, South London. Its nearside mudguard had been torn off, there was blood on the bodywork and there was an empty cartridge case under the passenger seat. It was determined that the cartridge had been made at the Woolwich Arsenal and that it had been distinctively marked by a fault in the breech-block of the gun that had fired it.

Ballistics expert Robert Churchill determined that the weapon had been a Webley. Two Webleys were found in the mud of the Thames but neither of them proved to be the fatal weapon.

Four months passed before there were any further developments. On 20th January 1928 police arrested 46-year-old Frederick Guy Browne at his garage near Clapham Junction on a charge of stealing a Vauxhall, a car he had sold to a butcher in Sheffield in the previous November. A search of Browne's person revealed twelve .45 cartridges in his back pocket and a fully-loaded Webley revolver inside the driver's door of the car he had been driving. Police also found sixteen .45 cartridges wrapped in paper in the garage's office, twenty-three .22 cartridges, a small revolver and a fully-loaded Smith & Wesson at Browne's lodgings.

Habitual drunkard 42-year-old Kennedy had been employed by Browne as an odd-job man from June until 17th December 1927. Browne then had to sack him because he could not stop him from drinking. Both men had a history of trouble with the police. Browne had convictions for carrying firearms, stealing motorcycles and cars and for fraudulently claiming insurance on them. Because he was too violent for Parkhurst he was moved to Dartmoor Prison. It was probably here that he met Kennedy. Kennedy, born in Ayrshire, came from Irish parents and had an Irish accent. He had deserted, or been dismissed from, several Army regiments and had convictions for indecent exposure, housebreaking, theft, drunk and disorderly and larceny. Browne had driven Kennedy to Euston station on 17th December and Kennedy had gone to Liverpool. He stayed there for three weeks before returning to London and marrying on 18th January. Kennedy, who knew nothing of Browne's arrest, turned up at the garage at 2pm on Saturday 21st January. He found the garage locked with two men who he suspected were detectives inside. He returned home, collected his wife and they caught the midnight train back to Liverpool. He had three more days of freedom. At 11.40pm on Wednesday 25th January he left his home in a hurry. He had no shirt on and his trousers and boots were undone. He was trying to hide his face but was approached by DS Bill Mattinson, who knew Kennedy of old. Kennedy recognised the detective and pulled a pistol from his pocket. Kennedy shouted, 'Stand back, Bill - or I'll shoot you!' and fired at the policeman. There was only a click as the gun failed to fire. Mattinson grabbed Kennedy's gun arm with his left hand and hit him with the other. He shouted for assistance and held on to Kennedy until three of his colleagues came to his aid. It was then found that the safety catch was on.

By the following evening Kennedy had been returned to London and was in custody at New Scotland Yard. He was visited by DI Berrett who asked if he knew anything about the murder of PC Gutteridge. Kennedy asked if he could have time to think and did so for several minutes. He then asked if he could see his wife. After speaking to his wife, who had travelled down from Liverpool with him, he made a statement. In the statement, which took three hours to take down, Kennedy implicated Browne in the murder.

At their Old Bailey trial that opened on 23rd April 1928 Browne maintained his innocence of any involvement in the crime, claiming he was at home in bed that night. The trial was notable for the forensic evidence given by Robert Churchill on the marks made on the cartridge case, which proved that the gun found in Browne's car was the murder weapon and the composition of the propellant in the cartridges. Both were found guilty and sentenced to death. The pair were executed on 31st May 1928. Browne at Pentonville and Kennedy at Wandsworth.

It was thought that the reason for the deliberate shooting out of the eyes of PC Gutteridge was because of a superstition that said that the last sight a man saw was photographically imprinted on the retinas of the eyes.

Elizabeth Brownrigg

Elizabeth was born in 1720 to a family named either Hartley or Harkly. She married James Brownrigg, an apprentice plumber, at an early age and went on to produce sixteen children, only three of whom survived childhood.

By the time Elizabeth had reached her mid-40s, her husband had prospered and the family had become quite wealthy. In 1765 they moved to their new home in Fetter Lane, London. Elizabeth proved to quite an adept midwife and she was kept very busy. Her practice became so busy that she found it necessary to take on an apprentice from the local workhouse. The first apprentice that she took on was Mary Mitchell. Once the initial 'upon liking' one month period was over Elizabeth started mistreating Mary, punching, kicking and generally abusing the girl. As the months went by Elizabeth started to get the taste for maltreatment and took on another apprentice from the workhouse, Mary Jones.

Again, the poor girl was subjected to all manner of beatings and humiliations, not just by Elizabeth but also by her husband and son who also delighted in torturing the servants. But Mary Jones was made of sterner stuff. Even though she was made to sleep under a dresser in the Brownrigg's bedroom each night, she managed to escape early one morning. She was found wandering, dazed and emaciated, and was taken to a hospital. She was blind in one eye and covered in bruises. The hospital wrote to the Brownriggs demanding damages but, because they failed to reply, the matter was allowed to lapse with the hospital informing the Brownriggs that Mary's apprenticeship was terminated.

By this time Mrs Brownrigg had obtained the services of another apprentice, 14-year-old Mary Clifford. Again, the girl underwent all sorts of inhuman treatment. She was given lice-infested clothes to wear, she was beaten, she was hung naked from a hook in the ceiling, she was beaten into unconsciousness with an iron bar. On July 12th 1767 Mary Clifford's step-mother, Mrs Deacon, turned up at the house asking to see the young girl. Elizabeth refused the woman entry and denied that there were any apprentices in the house.

When Mrs Deacon heard from a neighbour that there were apprentices in the house she fetched the authorities. The Brownriggs again denied that Mary Clifford lived in the house but produced Mary Mitchell. She was rushed away to hospital to be treated. When the parish officials returned they forced their way into the house. A search of the premises found Mary Clifford in a small cupboard. She, too, was rushed to hospital. Mr Brownrigg was apprehended but, by this time, Elizabeth and her son had escaped. They made their way to Wandsworth and lay low at a local inn. On 9th August 1767, Mary Clifford died. Her body had been covered in ulcers, cuts and bruises and her mouth had been slashed so she could not speak.

The inn-keeper recognised that his two guests fitted the description of the two persons sought by the authorities and turned them in. They were arrested and taken to Newgate. The three Brownriggs were tried at the Old Bailey. The trial lasted eleven hours with the males blaming Elizabeth for all the wrong-doing. The husband and son were fined one shilling and given six month's imprisonment. Mary was found guilty and sentenced to death.

On September 14th 1767, Elizabeth Brownrigg was taken by open cart to Tyburn and hanged.

Charlotte Bryant

Charlotte McHugh was illiterate and promiscuous. She met Frederick Bryant in Ireland during the early 1920s when he was serving in the Army. They moved to Somerset and were married. He was twenty-five, she nineteen. Over the next few years, Charlotte produced five children, though it's not known how many of these were fathered by Frederick. By 1925 they had moved to a tied cottage in Over Compton, east of Yeovil, when Fred obtained a job as a farm labourer. She was a slovenly woman who neglected her family while she went in pursuit of any extra-marital pleasures that might be available. Her husband ignored his wife's nymphomania and did not even object when she brought men to the house to share her bed.

One of her numerous lovers was a crude, unwashed pedlar and horse-dealer of gypsy origin named Leonard Parsons. He started lodging in the Bryant house sometime in 1933. Parsons did not lodge on a regular basis as his occupation required him to roam, sometimes even as far as his 'wife', Prescilla Loveridge, the mother of his four children. Charlotte, however, was besotted with him and decided that she preferred him to her husband. Early in 1934 Fred was sacked, possibly because of the gossip surrounding his wife, who was known locally as 'Killarney Kate', 'Compton Bess' and 'Black Bess'. They moved to Coombe, near Sherbourne, in Dorset. In May 1935 Frederick was taken ill, with the doctor diagnosing gastro-enteritis. He recovered within a few days. He was taken ill again on 11th December, again recovering within a few days. On 22nd December he was taken violently ill and died. Four grains of arsenic was discovered in the corpse. A tin that had contained arsenical weedkiller was found amongst rubbish at the back of the Bryant house and traces of arsenic were found on shelves in the house and in one of Charlotte's coat pockets.

Charlotte was arrested on 10th February 1936 and charged with the murder of her husband. Her trial was opened at Dorset Assizes, Dorchester, on Wednesday 27th May 1936 with Charlotte seemingly unable to follow the proceedings. She protested that she had been on very good terms with her husband but a witness, Mr Tuck, testified that he had met Charlotte returning from the hospital immediately after her husband's demise. Her comment to Mr Tuck, an insurance agent with whom Charlotte had tried to insure her husband's life, that 'Nobody can say I poisoned him.' did her no good at all. Especially since no-one knew at that time he had been poisoned.

On Saturday 30th May 1936 she was found guilty and sentenced to hang. She was executed at Exeter Prison on Wednesday 15th July 1936. She was thirty-three years old.

Reginald Sidney Buckfield

This army deserter took ineptitude to new heights. On 9th October 1942 a woman was found stabbed to death in Brompton Farm Road, Strood. She was identified as Ellen Symes, a married woman. Her 4-year-old son, who was with her, and was unharmed, told police that a soldier had attacked his mother.

Gunner Buckfield was questioned by police after having been found in the area the following day. He was found to be a deserter and he volunteered information about his movements that placed him near to the murder scene at the time of the stabbing.

Known as 'Smiler', because of his continuous grin, he was handed over to the military authorities as a deserter. After being placed under close-arrest he handed a bundle of hand-written sheets to a detective. These were the basis of a story he had called 'The Mystery of Brompton Road' and contained information that could only have been known to the killer. He was charged with the murder of Mrs Symes.

He denied that his story had any bearing on the real events claiming 'Oh, that's all fiction. That's how I thought the murder might have been committed.' He was brought to trial at the Old Bailey in January 1943. He was convicted largely on the content of his 'fictional' account and was sentenced to death. He was later judged insane, reprieved and committed to Broadmoor.

Winifred Budden

It was 34-year-old Mrs Winifred Budden's intention to kill her eight-year-old son, Michael, and to then drown herself. She accomplished the first part, she floated him out to sea at Swanage, Dorset, on an inflatable mattress, but she then ran away. She was found three days later wandering in thick woods.

At her trial at Dorset Assizes she pleaded diminished responsibility and was found guilty of manslaughter. On 13th October 1960 she was put on probation for two years with a residential order for treatment in a mental hospital for the first twelve months.

James Frederick Burden

Horace Potterton Papworth was the 50-year-old landlord of Burden. Burden, 38-years-old, hit the man over the head with a poker and then stabbed him. He approached a policeman in the street and told him, 'I wish to report I've murdered my landlord, I did it this morning. I've been to the pictures.' He later told detectives 'I hit him several times. He's a 'multilith' which is a functionary of the divine father chain which makes him a subtle and powerful influence on the earth.'

Not surprisingly he was found unfit to plead at his trial and, on 19th February 1958, was ordered to be detained during Her Majesty's Pleasure.

Mary Ann Burdock

Mary was an attractive, 30-year-old landlady who fell for a young sailor called Charles Wade who was lodging in her house. He told her that, much that he would like to, he could not marry her because he lacked the wherewithall to open a shop and could not, therefore, keep them both.

Another of Mary's lodgers was Mrs Clara Smith. She was elderly but had savings of several thousand pounds which she kept in a cash box under her bed. By early 1835 Mary was becoming desperate for the funds to help Charles. She knew, of course, about the cache under the old woman's bed so decided to get rid of her. This she did with the aid of poison. Once the old lady was out of the way she gave the money to Wade and contemplated a life of marital bliss with the young man.

Unfortunately for Mary things did not go according to plan. A relative of Mrs Smith was suspicious when he heard from Mary that the old woman 'died very poor.' He knew that the old woman had a considerable amount hidden away and communicated this information to the police. The body was exhumed and arsenic was found in the corpse.

Mary was arrested, tried and found guilty of murder. Her execution, in April 1835, was not attended by her intended.

William Burgess

When Burgess's wife died he left his cottage home at White Water, Exmoor, and moved into lodgings at the Gallon House Inn, Simonsbath, Somerset. He took with him his 7-year-old daughter Anna, the youngest of his three children. As Burgess had a penchant for plenty of drink the child was a drain on his resources that he could ill-afford. In June 1858 he left the lodgings with the child on the pretext that he was taking the girl to live with her grandmother at Porlock Weir. Instead of going to Porlock he took the child up onto the moors, killed her and buried her in a shallow grave. The body was eventually uncovered and Burgess was hanged at Taunton on 4th January 1859.

William Hare

Burke and Hare were Irish labourers and lived in the grim West Port district of Edinburgh. They lived with a pair of prostitutes named Maggie Laird and Nell MacDougal. Maggie let rooms and when one of her lodgers died Burke and Hare saw their opportunity to make a few pounds by taking the corpse to Dr Knox.

There was a thriving trade in corpes in nineteenth-century Britain. Medical schools required them for anatomy classes and the demand always outstripped the supply. Bodies were invariably accepted by schools without any questions being asked. Like any other entrepreneurs in a buyer's market they knew when they were onto a good thing. The unfortunate part about the supply was the lack of 'stock.' They decided it was time to move from 'retail' in to 'manufacturing.' Over the next nine months they supplied Dr Knox with sixteen bodies. Most of these corpses were of drunken down-and-outs who they suffocated when their victims fell into an alcoholic stupour.

In the end, however, their greed got the better of them and they went 'up-market' and started to dispose of people whose disappearance was noticed. In the fullness of time the pair were apprehended. Hare and Maggie Laird turned King's Evidence and testified against Burke and MacDougal. Nell received a 'Not Proven' verdict but Burke was found guilty. He was hanged at Edinburgh in front of a full-house on 28th January 1829.

Joan Burns

Joan was a 28-year-old mother of two small daughters, Helen Lynne and Valerie Grace, four-years-old and ten-weeks-old respectively. She had a history of mental disorders including six months as an in-patient in a mental hospital. She tragically drowned both of her daughters and then tried to commit suicide.

She was found unfit to plead at Newcastle Crown Court and, on 8th October 1957, was sentenced to be detained during Her Majesty's Pleasure.

Tom Lionel Burns

Retired driver, 71-year-old, Tom Burns savagely killed and sexually assaulted two young girls when they wandered into his house while he was playing the piano. The victims were Sheila Barnes and Lavinia Murray, both aged five.

Burns cut the throat of one of the girls. He then tied up the other and mutilated her before strangling the child. Both bodies were sexually assaulted and mutilated before they were drained of blood. Parts of the bodies were then removed, cooked and eaten.

Medical evidence showed that Barnes was completely mad and had been psychotic for many years. At his trial at Lancaster Assizes, on 21st October 1958, he was found unfit to plead and was ordered to be detained during Her Majesty's Pleasure.

Kenneth Robert Leon Burrell

Mrs Burrell had been receiving driving lessons from George Henry Howard. It was not all she had been receiving. Her husband, a 32-year-old seaman, came home unexpectedly to find the pair in the bedroom, partially undressed. An enraged Burrell set upon Howard and beat and kicked him to death.

At his trial at Essex Assizes he pleaded not guilty to murder but admitted manslaughter on the grounds of provocation. The plea was accepted by the prosecution and, on 19th February 1962, Burrell was sentenced to four years' imprisonment.

Albert Edward Burrows

This 62-year-old married farm labourer took 28-year-old Hannah Calladine as his mistress in 1918. She came from Nantwich, Cheshire, and was the mother of a 4-year-old daughter. She had a son by Burrows later that year and Burrows married her bigamously. He was imprisoned for this and had a child-maintenance order made against him.

Hannah moved into the Burrows' home at Glossop, Derbyshire, and, not surprisingly, his wife took exception to this and moved out. She claimed maintenance, plunging him into a bigger financial mess.

On 11th January 1920 Burrows took Hannah and their son for a day out on Symmondley Moor. There he murdered them and threw their bodies down a disused air-shaft. The next day he took Hannah Calladine's daughter up onto the moors and threw her body down the same shaft. He patched things up with his wife and they returned to living together. For the next three years Burrows wrote to Hannah's mother pretending that she was still alive.

On 4th March 1923 police received a report of a missing 4-year-old boy. Burrows had been seen with the boy and he was questioned by police. He took them to the air-shaft out on the moor and police soon discovered the sexually assaulted body of the missing boy. Burrows was arrested and the police continued to excavate the air-shaft. Eight weeks later they discovered the remains of Hannah and her two children.

Burrows came to trial at Manchester Assizes. He called no witnesses and didn't give testimony. It took the jury just eleven minutes to find him guilty. He was hanged on 8th August 1923 at Nottingham Gaol.

David John Burton

Burton was a 31-year-old farmer. Armed with a shotgun he broke into the home of his friends and neighbours, the Weedons, at 6 o'clock in the morning. He went to the bedroom where the Weedons were asleep and fired, injuring both of them. Weedon forced Burton out of the house and he was later found wandering the streets in a dazed condition.

Medical evidence was accepted that Burton was suffering from acute schizophrenia and was certifiably insane. He had told doctors that he had seen doves flying around the bedroom and had opened fire at them. On 17th May 1960 he was found unfit to plead and was sentenced to be detained during Her Majesty's Pleasure.

One week later Mrs Patricia Weedon died in hospital from her wounds. Burton was charged with capital murder but, at Sussex Assizes, was again found unfit to plead.

William Burton

Burton was considerably older than his schoolteacher wife. They lived with their child over the post office in the Dorset village of Gussage St Michael and Burton worked as a rabbit catcher on the nearby Manor Farm. He enjoyed a reputation for pursuing the local girls and was having an affair with 24-year-old Winifred Mitchell, a cook at the farm. When Winifred told her lover that she suspected that she was pregnant he told her that he had made arrangements for them to elope to Canada. On 29th March 1913 he lured the girl to Sovel Plantation on the pretence of leaving for Canada and shot her. He buried her body in a shallow grave and it was over a month before her remains were discovered. He was hanged at Dorchester Gaol.

Edwin Bush

On 3rd March 1961, Mrs Elsie Batten was found dead with an antique dagger in her neck and another in her chest. She was an assistant in Louis Meier's Cecil Court antique shop. Other shopkeepers in the area remembered a young coloured man who had tried to sell a sword, which later proved to have been taken from Meier's shop.

It was the first time that the Identikit system was used in Britain and it had immediate success when, four days later, a policeman recognised the man and took him in for questioning.

The young man turned out to be 21-year-old Eurasian, Edwin Bush. He was picked out on an identity parade by two of the Cecil Court shopkeepers. He admitted stabbing Mrs Batten so that he could steal the antique sword. At his Old Bailey trial he claimed that he had lost his temper when Mrs Batten made an offensive remark about his colour. He was found guilty and was hanged at Pentonville on 6th July 1961.

Elizabeth Butchill

Today she would receive sympathy and counselling but in 1780 that was not something that was readily available. Elizabeth was a servant at Trinity College, Cambridge. She was unmarried but became pregnant. Only hours after delivering the baby she smashed in the baby's head and threw the corpse into a river.

The body was soon recovered and was identified by Ester Hall, the girl's aunt. Elizabeth confessed, was tried and found guilty. Her pleas for mercy fell on deaf ears with the judge telling her that since she had 'been deaf to the cries of the innocent' he would show her no mercy. She was just twenty-two years old when she was hanged on 17th March 1870.

When the body of Ernest Percival Key was discovered in his shop just before midday on Saturday 24th December 1938 it was covered in blood. The 64-year-old victim had been stabbed more than thirty times in his head and face and there were more wounds to his arms. He died before he could reach hospital.

Mr Key had been in business as a jeweller in Surbiton for over twenty years and was well-known in the area. It became obvious that robbery was the motive for the savage attack when it was discovered that jewellery was missing from the shop. The attacker had, however, left behind a bowler hat.

Less than an hour after the attack William Butler, a 29-year-old married father of two, took a taxi to Kingston hospital. He was examined by Dr Day who found blood issuing from Butler's gloves. Butler, who had given the name of Charles Jackson, said that he had been accidentally injured by a wood-cutting machine.

He was picked up by police within a fortnight and told them that his injuries came when he was knocked down by a motor-cycle and that he gave the hospital a false name and address to avoid having to pay for his treatment. Butler was charged with the murder of Mr Key and appeared at the Old Bailey on 15th February 1939. The defence tried to claim that Butler had acted in self-defence and that the charge should be reduced to one of manslaughter.

The trial only lasted into its second day and Butler was found guilty. He was hanged at Wandsworth Prison on 29th March 1939.

Edward Bertie Butts

Born in British Guiana, 32-year-old Butts said that he had acquired the bloodstains on his clothing and a wound on his face in a fight with a man. The jury at his trial at Liverpool Crown Court refused to believe him. They preferred instead to find him guilty of the stabbing of 20-year-old June Moorecroft, a woman with whom he was known to be on friendly terms. On 22nd June 1959 he was sentenced to life imprisonment for her killing.

Patrick Byrne

On 23rd December 1959 police were called the YMCA hostel in Birmingham following a report of an attack on a young woman. The woman, Margaret Brown, had been working in the laundry room when she had been attacked but she had screamed and her attacker had run off.

The rooms and grounds of the hostel were searched and, when police broke down the door to Room 4, in an annexe, they found the naked, headless, sexually assaulted body of 29-year-old Stephanie Baird lying on the floor of her room. On the bed was her severed head.

A search of the room found no significant fingerprints but did turn up a note that read 'This is the thing I thought would never come.' A full-scale search of the surrounding area failed to turn up anything of significance.

Over the next few weeks some 20,000 men were interviewed by police. Eventually police interviewed Patrick Byrne. He now lived in Warrington, but had previously lived near the YMCA hostel. He became agitated when police asked for his fingerprints and it was not long before he confessed to the killing.

He was tried at Birmingham Assizes in March 1960. He pleaded dimished responsibility and medical evidence was given that described Byrne as an aggresive psychopath with a long history of sexual abnormality. He was, however, found guilty of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. The verdict was later reduced to that of manslaughter upon appeal, but it did not alter the sentence.

Kitty Byron

Kitty Byron lived in lodgings with Arthur Reginald Baker. He had a drink problem and the couple frequently rowed. On the evening of 7th November 1902, there was a particularly rowdy quarrel with Kitty appearing on the landing in her nightdress trying to avoid Arthur's violent assaults. The next morning the landlady told the couple to leave.

Baker told the landlady that Kitty had agreed to leave if he could keep the room, but she refused. This conversation was overheard by a maid and the landlady later told Kitty what had been said. She was livid, saying 'I'll kill him before the day is out.'

On the morning of the Lord Mayor's Show, 10th November, Kitty bought a strong-bladed knife. Around 1pm she sent a telegram to Baker, at the Stock Exchange where he worked, from the Lombard Street post office. The message said 'Dear Reg, Want you immediate importantly. Kitty.'

When Baker arrived a furious argument began which spilled out onto the street. Kitty then brought out the knife and plunged it into Baker, twice. Kitty collapsed sobbing over his body.

Her trial took place in December 1902. She had the public's sympathy with her and did not testify. While the defence pleaded manslaughter the judge did not agree and summed up in favour of a murder verdict. The jury duly returned a guilty verdict on the charge of murder with a strong recommendation to mercy.

The Home Secretary received a 15,000 name petition asking for a reprieve and it was duly granted with the sentence being reduce to life imprisonment. This was, in 1907, reduced to one of ten years.

Not the poet, but his great-uncle. In 1765 he had enjoyed a heavy drinking session with a friend, a Mr Chaworth, in a tavern. The two then started to quarrel and went into the next room to 'sort things out'. A few minutes later Chaworth was dead, run through by Byron's sword.

At his trial in the House of Lords Byron was found guilty of manslaughter but he claimed 'benefit of clergy' - he could read and could, therefore, only be tried by ecclesiastical court - and was allowed to go free.

Edith Jessie Thompson

A classic case in which the verdicts were determined as much by the prevailing morals as by the crime. Edith was married to Percy, and they lived a rather staid life in Ilford, Essex. She was 28-years-old and worked as a book-keeper for a firm of milliners. Percy was 32 and was a shipping clerk.

In 1921 the Thompsons had been married for six years and had no children. They went on holiday to the Isle of Wight with Edith's sister, Avis. Percy asked Freddy along. Freddy, who was eighteen and was a mess-room steward on board ship, had been friendly with the younger members of Edith's family for several years and it was on holiday that Edith and Freddy started to take a fancy to each other. After the holiday Percy asked Freddy to lodge with them. It was shortly after this that Edith told Freddy of the problems she was having with her husband and how she wanted to part from him. It was during a quarrel between the pair that Percy threw Edith across the room badly bruising her arm. Freddy came in from the garden and broke up the argument. Percy Thompson resented the intrusion and, four days later, Freddy left the house. It seems probable that the relationship between Edith and Freddy had already been consumated by this time.

Over the next year Freddy went to sea five times and Edith wrote more than sixty letters to him. He returned to England from the Far East in September 1922, with the couple meeting immediately. On 3rd October 1992 the Thompsons were returning home from an evening at the theatre. Around midnight the Thompsons were walking back to their Ilford home along Belgrave Road. They were near the junction with Kensington Gardens when a man in an overcoat and hat overtook them in a hurry. He pushed Edith out of the way and she fell, banging her head. A struggle ensued in which Percy was stabbed. Freddy was arrested the next evening and Edith was detained later the same night.

They both came up for trial at the Old Bailey in December 1922. Edith's letters to Freddy were read out in court. These included discussions of adding ground light bulb to her husband's food to the administration of various poisons. The rather torrid content of the letters influenced the somewhat staid jury. Edith decided to give evidence and was torn to pieces by the prosecution. The judge instructed the jury that they were 'trying a vulgar, common crime.'

Both were found guilty and sentenced to death. On 9th January 1923, Edith was carried in a drugged stupor from her cell in Holloway Prison to the gallows and hanged by John Ellis. At the same time Freddy was hanged by Albert Pierrepoint half a mile away at Pentonville.

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