Warwickshire has seen its fair share of murder down the centuries. This latest collection explores notorious crimes from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, using contemporary documents, trial transcripts and newspaper accounts to examine cases that gripped both the county and the nation. Among the stories included here are the case of Edwin James Moore, who set fire to his mother after an argument over supper at Leamington Spa in 1907; the Coventry bombings in 1939, for which two men were executed in 1940; and the case of Thomas Ball, who was poisoned by his wife in 1848. She was later tried and executed in Coventry and was the last woman to be executed in public.
Discover the shadier side of Warwick's history with this collection of true-life crimes from the town's past. Featuring all factions of the criminal underworld, this chilling selection include cases of murder, kidnap, poaching, theft, assault and infanticide, as well as the punishments and executions that were carried out. Cases featured here includes a daring robbery at a country house in 1846, the brutal murder of a woman in 1819, and the drowning of a wife by her husband in 1870. Vanessa Morgan's well-illustrated and enthralling text will appeal to everyone interested in true crime and the history of the town.
Foul Deeds and Suspicious Deaths Around Crewe - True Crime BookFoul Deeds Around Crewe takes the reader on a fascinating journey through centuries of local crime and conspiracy, meeting villains of all sorts along the way - casual killers and robbers, murderous husbands and lovers, prostitutes and poisoners. This revealing book recalls many grisly events and sad or unsavoury individuals whose conduct throws a harsh light on the history of Crewe and the surrounding countryside. Among the many acts of wickedness the authors recall are shocking crimes from the recent past - the daughter who poisoned her father, a murder in a stately home, two brothers who conspired to kill their father, a mysterious ritual drowning and the killing of a policeman. But they also cover in vivid detail the early criminal history of the area - the theft of sheep, cattle and horses, crop-wrecking, rural assaults, land-disputes, poaching and highway robbery. The ruthless punishments meted out to convicted criminals - public humiliation, imprisonment, the death penalty - are an essential part of the story.This chronicle of Crewe's hidden history - the history the town would prefer to forget - will be compelling reading for anyone who is interested in the dark side of human nature.Peter Ollerhead started working at Rolls-Royce, then became a teacher and a second-hand bookseller. He broadcasts regularly on Premier Christian Radio, is secretary of the Crewe Historical Society and chair of the district's Historical Association. He has lived in Crewe for most of his life and has researched deeply into the town's origins and development. In addition to writing many articles for journals, he has published Making Cars at Crewe, a social history of Rolls-Royce in Crewe, and Crewe: A History and Guide. Susan Chambers is a keen student of the history of Cheshire and the Crewe area in particular, and she is the author of Crewe: A History.
Astonishingly, The Hagley Wood Murder is the first book solely on the subject (other than a selection of privately printed/self published offerings) ever written on this murder, which too place eighty years ago. In April 1943, four teenaged boys discovered a corpse stuffed into the bole of a wych elm in a wood in the industrial Midlands. The body was merely bones and had been in the tree for up to two years. The pathologist determined that she was female, probably in her thirties, had given birth and was just under five feet tall. The cause of death was probably suffocation. Six months after the discovery, mysterious messages began to appear on walls in the area, variants of ‘Who Put Bella Down the Wych Elm – Hagley Wood’. And the name Bella has stuck ever since. Local newspapers, then the national press, took up the story and ran with it, but not until 1968 was there a book on the case – Donald McCormick’s Murder by Witchcraft – and that, like others that followed, tied Bella in with another supposedly occult murder, that of Charles Walton on Meon Hill in 1945. Any unsolved murder brings out the oddballs – the police files, only recently released, are full of them – and the nonsense still continues. The online versions are woeful – inaccuracy piled on supposition, laced with fiction. It did not help that a professional occultist, Dr Margaret Murray, expressed her belief, as early as 1953, that witchcraft was involved in Bella’s murder. And ill-informed nonsense has been cobbled together to ‘prove’ that Dr Murray was right. McCormick’s own involvement was in espionage and his book, slavishly copied by later privately printed efforts, have followed this tack too. It was wartime, so the anonymous woman in the wych elm had to be a spy, parachuted in by the Abwehr, the Nazi secret service. The Hagley Wood Murder is the first book to unravel the fiction of McCormick and others. It names Bella and her probable murderer. And if the conclusion is less over-the-top than the fabrications referred to above, it is still an intriguing tale of the world’s oldest profession and the world’s oldest crime!
Nostalgic recollections of wartime Britain often forget that when the blackout was enforced at night in an attempt to foil Nazi bombers a crime wave, cloaked by the inky black darkness, ensued on many of our streets. There were petty crimes, robberies, sexual assaults and, as The Blackout Murders reveals, some horrific murders took place on our home front during the Second World War. Some of them still rank among the most shocking crimes in modern British history. Some of the murders recounted within the pages of this book remain infamous, others are almost forgotten and some remain unsolved to this day. Several cases have new light shed on them from recently released archives and records uncovered by the author. Every case has been carefully selected for its reflection of wartime conditions and each one has a powerful, poignant and tragic story to tell. Readers will gain insights into the darker narrative of our home front and learn about some of the men and women who strove to maintain law and order under the most challenging circumstances. Others innovated and developed ground-breaking forensic techniques to identify bodies, recognize if foul play had occurred and as a direct result brought murderers to justice who may otherwise have gone undetected and unpunished. Anyone reading The Blackout Murders will never look at Britain's Home Front during the Second World War in the same way again.
True-life tales of bloody killings and brutal crimes wind through the dark past of this historic town on the Thames. John J. Eddleston’s latest selection of notorious criminal cases takes the reader through a sequence of sensational episodes that have marred the history of Reading. His book, based on original research, recalls many grisly events and sad or unsavory individuals whose fate has hitherto been forgotten. Among the shocking crimes he reconstructs are those of the baby-farmer Amelia Dyer, the unsolved murder of Alfred Oliver, the suffocation of Beatrice Cox, the red Mini murder of June Cook, and the attempted murder of a family of five. This chronicle of the dark side of Reading’s long history will be fascinating reading for anyone who is interested in the town’s rich—and sometimes gruesome—past.
Discover the darker side of this scenic destination with over twenty true-crime tales, accompanied by photos and illustrations. Its natural beauty attracts countless visitors—but notorious cases of murder, deceit, and pure malice have marked the long history of this apparently peaceful island. From crimes of passion to opportunistic killings and coldly premeditated acts of murder, the full spectrum of criminality is recounted here. For this journey into a bloody, neglected aspect of the past, Isle of Wight historian and crime writer M.J. Trow has selected over twenty notorious episodes that give a fascinating insight into criminal acts and the criminal mind. He throws light into the shadowy world of the smugglers, pirates, and robbers who plagued the island’s early history. He recalls the escape attempts of Charles I from Carisbrooke Castle, the mysterious loss of the Mary Rose and HMS Royal George, and the scandalous conduct of Lady Worsley. In vivid, sometimes shocking detail, he reconstructs notable criminal cases, including the brutal murders that have marked the island’s more recent past. In addition, he delves into the history of the island’s three prisons—Albany, Parkhurst, and Camp Hill—which have housed many of Britain’s most violent criminals.
A riveting history of true crimes in the area over the centuries, with photos and illustrations. From Islington to Finsbury Park to Hackney Wick, the North London area has been the setting of countless crimes from the notorious to the obscure. In this book, Geoffrey Howse delves into the files covering hundreds of years of the area’s darkest past. Events covered include long forgotten cases that made the headlines in their day as well as others more famous: the seventeenth-century murder of a magistrate for which three innocent men were hanged Britain’s first railway murder the first criminal to be caught via wireless telegraphy the anarchists who left a trail of murder and mayhem following a raid on a Tottenham factory and many more that will fascinate those with an interest in the local and social history of London
The Missing Monument Murders is a veiled story of power, wealth, dark deeds and intrigue. In 1806, Jane Austen’s relative, the Reverend Thomas Leigh, came into vast estates and the mood in the extended Leigh/Austen family was jubilant. But within a few years, bizarre events were the talk of the district: the removal and destruction of monuments in the village church, cheating, blackmail, and the eviction of tenants who dared speak of events. It would even be alleged that the family engaged in murder to protect their inheritance. Judy Stove’s painstaking research pieces together for the first time in detail the full story, in which whistle blower Charles Griffin, a local solicitor, ended up in gaol. Whether scandal-mongering or clever and powerful suppression at a time when criminal investigations were all but non-existent, the truth remains a mystery. One that touched on Austen’s own world and in which connections not just to the great and the good but to some of her characters, plots and personal life unfold. Author Judy Stove is an academic based at the University of New South Wales, a role she balances with working in school administration. After studying classics at the University of Sydney, she worked for the Australian Commonwealth Departments of Defence and Finance. She is married with two adult sons, and is an active member of the Jane Austen Society of Australia.
Discover this coastal plain in England—and the crimes that have taken place there over the centuries. The Fens of England, thinly populated with isolated farmsteads, has been the setting for a number of popular crime novels—but it has also been the actual site of many horrific, bloody, and bizarre incidents. This book takes a gripping look at the darker side of the area’s history—from crimes of callous premeditation to those born of passion or despair. Included are tales of conspiracy, robbery, violence, cruelty, and murder that reveal a previously neglected side of Fenland society. Unforgettable cases are featured—a mother who murdered her son, a police officer who hid the body of his mother, a farmer brutally slain for his money, a dustman who killed a local girl, and the headless body of a woman who has never been identified. Covering a wide range of human weakness and wickedness, this chronicle of the hidden side of the Fens will be compelling reading for anyone who is interested in the sinister side of human nature and the social conditions that nurture it.
