Victorian Murder Cases:
15/12/1856
Robert Marley – London
A murder almost at the seat of government occurred on October 20th, 1856, when a robber bludgeoned to death Robert Cope, manager of a jeweller’s and “curiosity” shop in Parliament Street, London.
A passer-by was alerted when he heard moaning from inside the shop A group of men gathered on the pavement told him dismissively: “Don’t worry. It’s just a couple in there quarrelling with each other.”
Not satisfied, the passer-by went into the shop and found Robert Marley, 39, beating Mr. Cope over the head with a 14-inch long life preserver. He rushed outside shouting for help, only to find that the group of men had vanished.
Marley ran from the shop but was caught by other passers-by and was charged with assault and robbery. A fortnight later Mr Cope died from his injuries and Marley was tried at the Old Bailey for his murder.
The court was told that the murder weapon was found alongside George Canning’s statue in Parliament Square. Marley had been transported in 1853 for burglary, and had only recently returned to London.
The accused agreed that he had struck Mr. Cope during the course of the robbery, but claimed that his victim actually died of lung disease. The jury didn’t accept that, and he was hanged on Monday, December 15th, 1856, outside Newgate Prison, before “an unusually large concourse of persons.”
No one ever discovered the identities of the men on the pavement for, expecting to be executed, Marley refused to name any of his accomplices.
Victorian Murder Cases:
11/12/1876
Charles O’Donnell – Chelsea, west London
The dinner guest was in a jaunty mood. He sat down at the table apologising for his wife’s absence, but remarking how pleased he was to be among the company. As the dinner went on, the guest, Charles O’Donnell, 57, said a few more things too, and from the way the conversation was going one or two of the other guests got the impression that there might be a sinister reason why Mrs. Elizabeth O’Donnell wasn’t there that night.
The O’Donnells, they remembered, were not the average sort of people you invited to dinner. O’Donnell had recently been released from a mental asylum. After that the couple had separated for a short time, then come together again, renting a room in Rawlings Street, Chelsea.
When the dinner was over one of the guests decided to call in at Chelsea police station. What he told officers there prompted them to call on O’Donnell. They found his room splattered with blood, and his wife lying dead on the bed. She had been battered to death with a pair of tongs that still lay bloodstained on the floor.
Charles O’Donnell, the man who came to dinner and had too much to say, was tried at the Old Bailey in November 1876, and was hanged on Monday, December 11th, 1876, at Newgate Prison.
Victorian Murder Cases:
16/12/1839
William Lees – London
“I am a murderer!” declared William Lees, a 35-year-old hairdresser, when he arrived at his sister’s house in Islington. When he told her how and why, she went with him by coach to his hairdressing salon in Chapman Street, Shadwell, in east London, where he lived with his wife Elizabeth.
There, just as he had said, was Elizabeth, 30, lying dead on the shop floor in a pool of blood. Her head had been almost severed by slashes from a razor.
Lees told his sister that he struck Elizabeth first with a piece of wood when they began to quarrel. He added that he had hidden a piece of rope inside his shirt because he intended hanging himself.
He had been an alcoholic from the age of 18. When he married he became very jealous of Elizabeth – once when she stayed out all night with friends he threatened to beat out her brains.
At his trial at the Old Bailey defence witnesses said that Elizabeth was often drunk too, and would frequently hit her husband. That plea failed to save him, and he was hanged on Monday, December 16th, 1839, outside Newgate Prison, before a crowd said to be “more numerous than normal but with fewer women present.”
November 13th
13/11/1849
Frederick and Marie Manning – Bermondsy, London
John Massey, a medical student, looked aghast when his landlord asked him: “Can a man under the effects of narcotics be induced to sign cheques?” What was going on, young Massey wondered? Surely the landlord wasn’t planning on robbing someone?
Before he could think of an answer, more questions came thick and fast: “What happens to someone when they are chloroformed?” and “What happens to someone who gets shot by an air gun?”
Massey had an inkling of the purport of the questions – he knew that Marie, the wife of the landlord, Frederick Manning, was having an affair with another man, and he knew that Manning knew about the affair. He didn’t want to be around if murder was going to happen, so he gave in his notice and left.
Murder, indeed, was what Frederick Manning, 30, owner of a beer shop, had in mind. He was tired of being cuckolded by Patrick O’Connor, an elderly Irishman of some means, and it seems that Marie, 28, was tired of her lover too. So on August 9th, 1849, they invited O’Connor to dinner at their home in Bermondsey, London, and Marie shot him through the head. Manning was to say later: “I heard him moaning in the kitchen. I never liked him very much, so I finished him off with a ripping chisel.”
They buried O’Connor under the slabs of the kitchen floor, and next day Marie went to her ex-lover’s house and took away bonds, shares, money and two gold watches. Manning was sent off to sell the shares, and raised £110. Next day Marie went back to the house to collect more securities, but this time Manning’s nerve failed, and he declined to sell the shares.
Marie, who was born in Switzerland, was furious. “You wimp!” she stormed. “What do I need a man like you for?” So saying, she stormed out of the house with all the stolen money, went to Euston station and took a train to Edinburgh.
O’Connor’s relatives, meanwhile, raised a hue and cry. The police went to the murder house, and discovered the body under the kitchen slabs. Marie was arrested in Edinburgh, and her husband, who had fled to the Channel Islands, was arrested in a village near St. Helier, Jersey.
At their trial the Mannings refused to look at each other, each blaming the other for the murder. Both were found guilty, and hanged on Tuesday, November 13th, 1849, in front of a vast crowd outside Horsemonger Lane Prison. In a moving letter to The Times, Charles Dickens, who was one of the spectators, denounced the levity of the crowd and the ritual of capital punishment.
Marie Manning wore black satin for her execution – a fact that caused black satin dresses to go out of fashion.
All nabbed from the website: http://www.truecrimelibrary.com/
These stories are really handy. They have tons more on ther as well, from differant parts of the UK.
Tish x
