Pretty Jane and the Viper of Kidbrooke Lane

by Paul Thomas Murphy

  194: “as if electrified or shot”: CC Aug. 9, 1872, 4.

  195: And when some remembered... first anniversary of Jane’s murder: PMG August 9, 1872, 4. The Pall Mall Gazette actually reported calm weather in England on the anniversary of Jane’s death—April 30, 1872—but did report of April 25, 1872, a year to the day after Jane was attacked, that “rain has been very general, and thunder and lightning were reported in several parts of England” (PMG May 1, 1872, 7; Apr. 26, 1872, 9).

  195: On November 26, 1871... Bagnigge Wells police station: MEN Dec. 1, 1871, 2.

  195: The charge of murder was dropped: GH Dec. 1, 1871, 5; SM Dec. 8, 1871, 3.

  195: Just over a year after this... carrying Edmund Pook’s child: DN Dec. 20, 1872, 3; S Dec. 20, 1872, 6.

  195: he was held for a week so that Scotland Yard could investigate: DN Dec. 20, 1872, 3; SI Dec. 30, 1872, 4.

  196: Three months later... a written confession to Jane’s killing: T March 21, 1873, 12.

  196: Several Pook supporters actually traveled down to observe Bingham’s examination: AMG March 15, 1873, 3.

  196: Mulvany traveled down as well: MP March 14, 1873, 7.

  196: evidence for Bingham’s insanity quickly grew: HA March 15, 1873, 7; L March 16, 1873, 3.

  196: Two witnesses... swore as well that they could not recognize Bingham: T March 28, 1873, 12. Neither of these witnesses had testified at trial. One was John Walker, Thomas Lazell’s Kidbrooke landlord, who professed to have seen the couple Lazell had seen that evening; the other was a man named John James Brown, never mentioned in connection with this case before or after this.

  196: Bingham then admitted he had concocted the story: MP March 28, 1873, 6.

  196: Later that year, he quit Scotland Yard—or, more likely, he was forced out: “Retirement from the Metropolitan Police: John Mulvany.”

  196: “Police Inspector Superannuated”: Census Returns of England and Wales, 1881, for John Mulvany.

  196: The next confession came seven years after Bingham’s: T June 14, 1880, 13; PMG April 14, 1880, 10.

  197: Two months later Prince made the same confession... in Wandsworth: T June 14, 1880, 13.

  197: a man who called himself Michael Carroll... seventeen years before: T April 28, 1888, 10; WW March 15, 1888, 3; BA March 22, 1888, 2; A March 23, 1888, 5.

  197: Wide dissemination... emigrants from southeast London: AS March 20, 1888, 5; QT March 20, 1888, 3; TA March 24, 1888, 8.

  197: One British newspaper... George Bingham: DC May 7, 1888, 3.

  197: Scotland Yard did, with a cable declaring his story an utter fiction: MC May 5, 1888, 11.

  197: the libel action against George Stiff: T June 15, 1872, 11.

  197: “litigious vexatiousness”: WD Oct. 29, 1871, 8.

  198: “ausis nil impossibile”: KM Oct. 14, 1871, 5.

  198: With six candidates running, Boord won easily with 4,525 votes: T Aug. 5, 1872, 5.

  199: Also, maids-of-all-work continued to come and go: Census Returns of England and Wales, 1881 for Caroline Burch; Census Returns of England and Wales, 1891 for Ada C. Burch.

  199: Ebenezer Pook... dying in 1877 of a lingering, painful illness: S May 9, 1877, 1.

  199: Alice Swabey, the daughter herself of a prosperous printer: Census Returns of England and Wales, 1881, for Thomas Swabey.

  199: Alice... then lived south of Lewisham: Census Returns of England and Wales, 1871, for Alice Maria Swabey.

  199: “lived a solitary and apparently friendless life...”: MEN April 25, 1882, 4, and a host of other newspapers.

  199: they had been “greatly pained” by the news: HC Apr. 27, 1882, 4.

  200: Alice and Edmund Pook had a son, Edmund Thomas Pook: London, England, Births and Baptisms, 1813–1906 for Edmund Thomas Pook.

  200: Three and a half years later, they lost him: England and Wales Civil Registration Indexes, death record for Edmund Thomas Pook.

  200: Cousin Harriet died in 1890: Board of Guardian Records, burial record for Harriet Chaplin.

  200: Brother Thomas died in 1897: England and Wales Civil Registration Indexes, death record for Thomas Burch Pook.

  200: And mother Mary, at age seventy-five, died in 1899: England and Wales Civil Registration Indexes, death record 1837–1915 for Mary Pook.

  200: By 1911, however, the two had taken up residence on the island of Guernsey: Census Returns of England and Wales, 1911 (Channel Islands Census), for Edmund Walter Pook and Alice Maria Pook.

  200: By 1915 they had moved to the neighboring island of Jersey: Principal Probate Registry for Alice Maria Pook.

  200: Emma, who had married a man by the name of Thomas Linforth Spiller: Census Returns of England and Wales, 1911, for Thomas Linforth Spiller and Emma Nellie Spiller.

  200: Edmund Pook died, age seventy, at Croydon Union Hospital: Principal Probate Registry for Edmund Walter Pook.

  200: “It would be difficult... flagrant breach of good taste...”: DN Oct. 31, 1871, 5.

  201: “Was there ever such a display of idiocy outside of Bedlam?”: NYT Nov. 20, 1871, 4.

  201: commissioning a Deptford stonemason, Samuel Hobbs: MP Oct. 8, 1872, 7.

  201: the committee dropped him and engaged yet another Deptford stonemason: “Tomb of Jane Mary Clouston” [sic]. The sculpture was based upon Luigi Pampaloni’s Samuel in Prayer (Freidus).

  202: a farrago of sixteen parts: Pretty Jane: or, the Viper of Kidbrook Lane.

  202: “her footsteps unhappily led her to Greenwich...”: Pretty Jane: or, the Viper of Kidbrook Lane 136.

  203: Inspector Percy Neame began to assemble exhibits: “The Crime Museum.”

  203: He described seeing on a little wooden shelf “a dirty Prayer-book...”: SP Oct. 6, 1877, 11; T Oct. 8, 1877, 10.

  203: at some point after that, Jane’s clothing... disappeared altogether: Paul Bickley, Curator at the Crime Museum, confirms their disappearance. [Private correspondence.]

  204: “Coleridge and I... had no doubt about the guilt of the prisoner”: Bowen-Rowlands 95.

  205: “No one seems... to have called attention to the difficulty...”: Crosland, Eltham Tragedy Reviewed 28.

  206: he set up his own identification parade: OB, testimony of Joseph Ambrose Eagle [sic] and Mary Ann Eagle [sic].

  206: the Eagleses sent their lodger William Douglas to Tudor House: OB, testimony of William Douglas.

  206: “I was born in Greenwich”: OB, testimony of Eliza Ann Merritt [sic].

  206: Later, he remembered that he had seen someone: T May 31, 1871, 2; TE May 2, 1871, 2.

  208: “hearsay provides the only information”: Zuckerman 201.

  208: “the idle tittle-tattle of one woman to another”: MP May 8, 1871, 7.

  209: “Charlotte, you must not be surprised if I am missing for some weeks...”: MEN May 5, 1871, 2. Other transcriptions of this testimony have Jane meeting Edmund on Monday, not on Monday or Tuesday.

  209: “I am going up to Croom-hill to see Mr. Edmund Pook...”: MP May 5, 1871, 8.

  209: “Till within the last few weeks [she] was very cheerful”: KM May 6, 1871, 5.

  209: she appeared “very low spirited”: S July 13, 1871, 6.

  209: Jane was “happier than she had been...”: BM May 5, 1871, 3.

  210: Emily Wolledge witnessed... Jane’s elation: L May 14, 1871, 10.

  210: Jane was “in good spirits,”... “much excited”: KM May 6, 1871, 5; TE May 5, 1871, 3.

  211: “I told Edmund... to his mother”: DN May 5, 1871, 6.

  211: “I am not to tell anyone... for some time...”: MEN May 5, 1871, 2.

  212: It was a “trifling and insignificant” amount: DN July 15, 1871, 6.

  213: enough “to cover a threepenny bit”: DN Oct. 5, 1871, 6.

  213: “so small as to be almost imperceptible,” S July 13, 1871, 6.

  213: there were six distinct spots there: T July 15, 1871, 11.

  213: The coroner at Jane’s inquest noted their “minuteness”: PMG M
ay 13, 1871, 8.

  213: Chief Justice Bovill scoffed... “the size of pin’s heads”: DN July 15, 1871, 5.

  213: “The minute spots of blood on clothes... apt to imagine...”: Crosland, Eltham Tragedy Reviewed 19. Crosland demonstrates a remarkable prescience here; the first significant study of bloodstain pattern analysis would not appear for another twenty-four years. [James et al., 3]

  214: “A person standing and striking at the deceased... in a forward state...”: PMG May 13, 1871, 8.

  214: And all of the bloodstains... none on the left: T July 15, 1871, 11. Superintendent Griffin claimed at trial that there was blood on both cuffs, but Chief Justice Bovill both corrected him and censured him for making that claim [S July 17, 1871, 5].

  215: At the commencement of such a seizure: For the physiology of tonic-clonic seizures, see Appleton and Marson, 10–12, and Eadie and Bladin, 8.

  216: Both Henry Letheby and Michael Harris testified: DN May 20, 1871, 4; OB testimony of Michael Harris. Their point about partially and wholly severed arteries is still understood to be valid [James et al. 13].

  216: the direction of force would have been away from him: James et al. 127–8 describes just such a scenario.

  217: Griffin testified that “every facility” had been given him: T July 31, 1871, 12.

  219: “She was a dirty girl”: S July 13, 6; T May 3, 1871, 7.

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