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This short clipping in The Times on 1 January 1875 caught my attention. Sophia Head of respectable appearance, living at 96, Clifton-street, Finsbury, informed the magistrate  at Worship-street that her son had mysteriously disappeared. He was 25 years old and in good health. On Christmas-day he was to have been married at Haggerston Church, but…

This case started with an alarming newspaper report in the Birmingham Post on 2 January 1863. ATTEMPTED DOUBLE MURDER & SUICIDE THROUGH JEALOUSY On Wednesday evening Mr Walthew held an enquiry at Poplar respecting the death of Edward Fenterman, aged forty-five, who was alleged to have committed suicide after attempting to murder his wife and…

This case begins with this shocking newspaper clipping from the Hertford Mercury and Reformer on 27 December 1862, Charge of Attempting suicide. William Sears, aged 45, a stupid exciteable looking man, was charged with attempting to murder himself, at Harpenden, on the 28th of July. The witnesses in the case were the prisoner’s sister, a…

The case began with this dramatic article in the Daily Telegraph of 6 May  1893. MANSION HOUSE. – VITRIOL THROWING. – Annie Love, 33, was charged with throwing vitriol in the face of her husband, Acting-Sergeant Love, of the City police, with intent to do him grievous bodily harm. – The injured man appeared in…

The case first came to light through a remarkable newspaper report in the Cheltenham Chronicle and Gloucestershire Graphic on 28 March 1850. EXTRAORDINARY CASE OF BIGAMY. – UPTON ON SEVERN – The magistrates sitting in Petty Sessions there have been engaged in adjudicating on a case of bigamy committed under very peculiar circumstances as regards…

This case begins with a report in the Sheffield and Rotherham Independent on 17 December 1870. THE FICTITIOUS CHILD CASE. On Tuesday, at the Central Criminal Court, Mary Hall, 41, a married woman, was charged with unlawfully conspiring with one “Annie Agatha” to palm off upon James Lowe a certain child as the child of the…

Our starting point for this case was a short report report in the Morning Post of 30 December 1880. BURNT TO DEATH – An inquest was held yesterday at Plumstead before Mr. Carttar, on the body of Margaret Radford, aged 62, of 141, Plumstead Road, who was burnt to death on Christmas Day. The husband…

This case begins with this newspaper cutting from the Ormskirk Advertiser on 19 April 1860. DOUBLE MURDER AT PENDLEBURY – On Thursday night, William Scholes, aged seventy-five, and William Edward Scholes, aged forty-one, were murdered in the house in which they lived in Irlams-o-th’-Height, about a mile from the Pendleton toll-bar. In the same house…

The mystery began with a newspaper report I discovered in The Coventry Times and Warwickshire Journal dated 2 February 1870 and headed “A DEAD CHILD SENT AS LUGGAGE “. However, I subsequently found a report in the Sunday Dispatch of the 23 January 1870 which revealed much more about the case, and that is the one…

This case started with a dramatic newspaper report in the Winsford and Middlewich Guardian on 21 September 1889. STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE OF A BRIDEGROOM Inquiries are being made by the Lancashire police with reference to the disappearance of a Moss Side tradesman named Edward Jones, who left home a few days after his marriage and has…