Mary’s audaciously fraudulent career knew no bounds. She would order new gowns and robes, invite the dressmaker to bring them to a big party she was having, then by getting the woman hopelessly drunk, would abscond with every garment that had been delivered. She often changed her lodgings
and would visit Taverns and Alehouses, stealing silver Tankards, Bowls, and other drinking Vessels in abundance, but for some of these Offences she was detected and found Guilty, and exiled to Jamaica, from whence she returned, unlawfully, in a little more than a year, heavy with child, and was delivered soon after, of a fine boy, in her cell in Newgate, it being intimated that the child saved her life, because that way she evaded the Execution of her Sentence of her Death, by pleading her Belly.
Among later fraudulent activities, she took lodgings at Charing Cross, where a rich watchmaker also lodged, and invited him, the landlady and her daughter to see a play, then took them all to the Green Dragon Tavern on Fleet Street. Under the pretext of joining a party of friends in another room in the hostelry, she sped back to the house and stole £200 and thirty expensive watches to the value of £400 or more. Her maid, meanwhile, was stealing everything she could from the party in the tavern, and then met her mistress at a pre-arranged rendezvous.
Despite disguising herself, such was her reputation that the finger of suspicion pointed at her. Seventeenth-century documents described her decline by saying:
This was her last Project, her appointed time was drawing nigh, her Glass had but few more Sands to run. She fled across town and lodged in St George’s Fields, where one named Fisher, a bailiff, searching after a felon called Lancaster, came across Her Highness, who was walking in her Chamber in a rich Night Gown, with a Letter upon her table addressed to an accomplice, one Mr Hyde, a notorious Robber.
Mary was arrested and brought to Newgate Prison. On 17 January 1678 she was tried at the Old Bailey on one charge of stealing a piece of valuable plate from a tavern in Chancery Lane and, being found guilty, was sentenced to death.
Mary Moders was executed at Tyburn on her thirtieth birthday, 22 January 1678. Before being noosed she drank a glass of gin and appeared unconcerned at her fate. It was said that she died penitent, and that on the scaffold she carried a small picture of her husband John Carleton pinned to her wrist, ‘which she put in her Bosom when she was going to be turned off, requesting that it might be buried with her, which was complied with accordingly, at St-Martin-in-the-Fields churchyard’.
Had Mary’s claim to royalty been authentic she would have been interred in Westminster Abbey; as it was, a humble grave in St Martin’s Churchyard, received the coffin, an engraver possessing a sense of humour carving her epitaph:
‘The German Princess, here against her will, Lies underneath and yet, oh strange, lies still.’
N
Newell, Susan (England)
A woman who committed an inexplicable murder in 1923, and the hangman who executed her attempting to commit suicide ten months later, proved to be the news headlines of the decade. Susan was charged with murdering John Johnstone, a 12-year-old schoolboy who delivered newspapers for pocket money, a crime that seemed totally motiveless.
It all started in June 1923 when Mrs Helen Elliott was about to leave her house to go shopping. A lorry had pulled up a little further along the road and she noticed the driver climb out and help a woman lift a small handcart out of his vehicle. He then drove away, but as the woman manoeuvred the cart on to the pavement, Mrs Elliot noticed something else, something that made her gasp in disbelief, for from the wrapped-up bundle in the cart protruded a head and a foot. Hardly believing her eyes, she called to her sister who was nearby and, at a discreet distance, they followed the woman as she went down a narrow alleyway, to see her dump the bundle in a corner. Fortunately a policeman was passing by and, summoned by the two sisters, he proceeded to arrest the woman, a Mrs Susan Newell. On unwrapping the contents of the bundle he found that it contained the doubled-up and mutilated body of the aforementioned newsboy. Subsequent forensic examination showed that the boy’s body had been burned while he was still alive, and then violently throttled.
Susan, her husband John and their eight-year-old daughter Janet, lived in a Glasgow lodging house, and on the morning of 21 June 1923 the landlady not only noticed that the front door was open, but also that the handcart she owned was missing. At about the same time, a lorry driver along the street had noticed a woman pushing what was obviously a heavy cart and offered to give her a lift; further into town she asked him to stop, saying that she did not have much further to go. Had she waited a mile or so before speaking, Helen Elliott would not have had such a horrific story with which to regale her neighbours for months to come, and the police would have been faced with an unsolvable crime. As it was, Susan was questioned, her only explanation being that she was disposing of the body to protect her husband, who had actually committed the murder. That this was a falsehood became clear when John was able to prove that he had been away in another town during the two days previous to his wife’s arrest.
The prosecution at this stage faltered for the lack of evidence; Susan Newell could have been charged with being an accessory to a murder, but nothing more serious than that. But then Susan’s young daughter provided the evidence, if not the motive, for she recounted how she had seen the boy arrive to deliver the papers but had not seen him leave. She had then been taken by her mother to a nearby public house, and on returning with her later, saw him lying in a chair. Little realising, at her age, that what she was saying virtually condemned her mother to death, the girl described how she had helped to wrap up the body, and had watched her mother lift it into the cart.
Despite a plea of insanity, Susan Newell was found guilty by the jury on a majority verdict, albeit with a recommendation for mercy. The judge agreed with the first decision but rejected the adjunct, and sentenced her to death.
Susan made no confession and gave no reason why the boy had to die, and on 10 October 1923 in Duke Street Prison, not far from where she had attempted to leave the corpse of her victim, she came face to face with John Ellis, the executioner, as he drew the hood down over her head and positioned the noose. Unresisting, her hands and ankles pinioned, she stood motionless as he moved to the lever, her body falling through the aperture, death coming within minutes.
As for the hangman himself, although he always denied that that particular execution had affected him in any way, in the following December he resigned, having been executioner for 23 years. Shortly afterwards, apparently suffering from depression, he attempted to commit suicide by shooting himself. In the years that followed he appeared on the stage in the role of a hangman and also gave talks about his experiences on the scaffold, but in September 1932, by then a sick man, he killed himself by cutting his throat.
The profession of executioner was generally regarded with revulsion and disgust, hangmen being frequently abused, even violently assaulted. This irrational attitude of the public was challenged by the late French executioner Henri Anatole Deibler, who wrote sarcastically: ‘To kill in the name of one’s country is a glorious feat, one rewarded by medals. But to kill in the name of the law, that is a gruesome, horrible function, rewarded with scorn, contempt and loathing by the public.’
P
Pearcey, Mary Eleanor (England)
Mary Eleanor was another woman who pushed a small cart, a pram in this case, into which she had crammed her victims, one being that of a woman, the other of the woman’s baby, in an attempt to dispose of them. The dead woman’s body, covered in blood, the head almost severed, was discovered on a building site in a street in Hampstead, London, by a policeman. A search for clues was immediately instituted but it was not until the following day that, some distance away, a small child’s corpse was found together with a heavily bloodstained pram.
Descriptions of the victim’s clothing were circulated, a young woman by the name of Clara Hogg coming forward to claim that they resembled those sometimes worn by her
aunt, Mrs Phoebe Hogg. When asked to come and identify the body she persuaded a friend of her aunt’s, 24-year-old Mrs Mary Pearcey, to accompany her. The friend was very reluctant to do so; so reluctant that, on seeing the corpse, she exclaimed that it was not that of Phoebe. However, Clara, on seeing the face of the dead woman, confirmed that the body was indeed that of her aunt.
The police visited the murdered woman’s house and interviewed her husband Frank, who told them that his wife had taken Jeffrey, their 18-month-old son, out in the pram for a walk. As Frank did not appear to be as upset over his wife’s gruesome death as would have been expected, they searched the premises for any clues and discovered a key which they ascertained to be the door key to Mary Pearcey’s house nearby. Following this up, the police then visited Mrs Pearcey herself, to be greeted by a ghastly sight, for the kitchen resembled a slaughter-house, the walls and floor splashed with blood, furniture overturned and shards of crockery scattered around the room. When asked to account for the scene of devastation Mary blandly replied that she had been chasing mice, accompanying her words by playing on the piano! The weapons used, a bloodstained chopper and a poker, were found among the debris, hairs on the latter matching those found on the cushions in the pram.
The truth then emerged that although Mary entertained other gentlemen of the neighbourhood, and Phoebe’s husband had the reputation of being a womaniser, nevertheless she and Frank had been having a long-term intense and clandestine love affair. The relationship was known to and accepted by Phoebe, and the two women remained firm friends, at least until Mary invited her friend to visit her in October 1890. Accordingly, Phoebe washed and dressed the baby and wheeled it in the pram to Mary’s house. What happened there between the two was never discovered. Mary could have been suddenly overwhelmed with uncontrollable jealousy; Phoebe may have finally resented some possessive comment inadvertently made by her friend.
The attack, seemingly one-sided, was brutal and savage, Mary wielding the chopper and poker, then cutting her victim’s throat, almost severing her head. After ascertaining that Phoebe was dead, Mary then put the body on top of the baby in the pram, its mother’s weight eventually suffocating it. Draping a raincoat over the bodies, she pushed the pram out of the house, passing neighbours as she did so, even speaking to some of them as she headed through the streets, first to deposit Phoebe’s body where it was eventually found, then continuing to the wasteland, where she abandoned the baby and the pram.
Arrested and charged, there was no mercy shown towards her, any vestiges of compassion vanishing when it was learned that, when taken into custody, she wore two wedding rings on her finger – but only the impression of one remained on the finger of the murdered Phoebe. In court she pleaded not guilty on the grounds of circumstantial evidence, the defence also claiming insanity, but the jury did not hesitate and nor did the judge. Finding her guilty, he sentenced her to death.
Mary showed no reaction on being taken away, her icy composure only finally breaking down when, from the condemned cell, she wrote to her lover asking him to come and visit her; her letters were returned unanswered. However, she soon resumed her self-assured attitude, outwardly at least; needing to assess her weight in order to decide on the length of ‘drop’ to give her, hangman James Berry walked past the cell and quickly glanced in, whereupon she said casually, ‘Oh, was that the executioner? He’s in good time, isn’t he – is it usual for him to arrive on the Saturday for the Monday?’ And when Berry came to collect his prisoner on that day, 23 December 1890, she shook hands with him. He then asked whether she had any last statement to make, to which she cryptically replied, ‘The sentence was just, but some of the evidence was false.’ Requiring to prepare her for execution, Berry then said politely, ‘If you are ready, madam, I will get these straps round you.’ Without any hesitation she said, ‘I am quite ready, Mr Berry.’ When the female warders moved to walk each side of her in the macabre procession, she remarked, ‘I need no one to assist me; I can walk by myself and there is no need for you to come.’ One of the officers said that they didn’t mind in the least accompanying her, to which she answered, ‘Oh well, if you don’t mind coming, I shall be glad to have you.’ On arriving at the scaffold she kissed the women goodbye, surely a highly emotional moment for the officers.
On the trapdoors, supported by two male warders standing on the planks that bridged the gap, and holding the ropes suspended from the overhead beam with their free hands, she maintained her almost uncanny air of complete composure as Berry hooded and noosed her. The end came rapidly as he operated the drop, the rope straightening taut and spinning slightly as she dropped into the pit.
One mystery still remains unsolved. On her instructions Mary’s solicitor caused a message to be published in a Spanish newspaper, reading: ‘M.E.C.P. Last wish of M.E.W. Have not betrayed.’ The latter three initials were those of her real name, Mary Eleanor Wheeler, Pearcey being the surname of a man, John Charles Pearcey, with whom she had lived for some years. But who was M.E.C.P? Why Spain? Who was it she had not betrayed? And of doing what?
Did she in fact commit the murder? There were no reported signs of any injuries she might, indeed should have sustained during the violent struggle in the kitchen, so was M.E.C.P. one of her men friends who was so enamoured with her that at her request he killed her rival for Frank’s affections and then fled to Spain? And knowing that, in his absence, she could neither prove his existence, nor have him extradited from abroad, was that why she affected insanity by playing the piano and claiming that she had been killing mice, in the last final hope of a reprieve? We will never know.
The saying that ‘Mother knows best’ was never more true than in the case of the woman who said to her son, who was shortly to be executed, ‘Well, be a good boy; the hangman will claim your clothes, so don’t wear your best ones, but let me have them. I had better have your red waistcoat now.’
Perry, Joan (England)
There have been many miscarriages of justice in the past, but surely none so weird or far-fetched as the one called the ‘Camden Wonder’ of 1660, involving as it did a titled lady, an outright liar, Turkish pirates, a doctor’s slave, and three people hanged although completely innocent!
It all started when Viscountess Camden, Lady of that manor, sent her 70-year-old steward William Harrison around the estate to collect the rents from the tenants. When he failed to return, his wife, fearing that he might have met with an accident, asked another servant, John Perry, to go and look for him, but he too failed to come back that day. The mystery deepened when, on the following day, one of the women who lived in the village found a bloodstained hat and scarf which belonged to Harrison. Some time later John Perry returned, and when taxed to explain his absence he said that a mist had come down and, losing his way, he sheltered beneath a hedge overnight.
The police were called in to investigate, and it became obvious to them that Perry knew the old steward would have collected a large sum of money, and so they arrested him. When questioned, whether through sheer panic or seeking to shift the blame in order to save his own skin, he blurted out that William Harrison had indeed been murdered – by John’s own mother Joan and his brother Richard! He even alleged that he had seen them killing the old man, had tried to protect him but had been pushed aside by Richard, the latter then strangling the steward with some cord and throwing the body into a local pool known as the Great Sink.
The pond was searched, with negative results, but Mrs Joan Perry and Richard were arrested. Both were charged with murder, John with being an accessory to murder; the jury did not hesitate to find them guilty, and despite their pitiful protestations of innocence, all three were sentenced to death. In the hopes that Richard would make a full confession, the executioner hanged Joan Perry first, but the youth continued to insist that he and his mother had nothing to do with the crime, so he too was hanged. And when it came to John’s turn, he struggled frantically, swearing that he had lied, that he didn’t know what he was saying when he
accused the others. It didn’t make any difference, because he also swung from the gallows.
Eventually the village gossip subsided and the inhabitants got on with their work, toiling in the fields, grinding the corn, and duly paying their tithes to the Lord of the Manor. Then two years later, from out of the blue, suddenly appeared the old steward, William Harrison, with an almost unbelievable tale to tell. He claimed that while walking down the lane leading to the village that day, three horsemen had suddenly appeared and had attacked him, then carried him away, minus his hat and scarf, to Deal, in Kent, where he was sold to the captain of a ship. He alleged that the vessel had then sailed for foreign parts, eventually docking in Smyrna, where he was sold as a slave to a doctor. To a rapt and incredulous audience, he then described how he had later managed to escape by stowing away on a ship sailing to Portugal where, in Lisbon, a kind-hearted Englishman had given him sufficient money to return to England.
Female Executions: Martyrs, Murderesses and Madwomen Page 16