Cambridgeshire Murders (10 page)

The execution of Reader and Lucas
. (Cambridgeshire Collection, Cambridge Central Library)

The execution was swift and, when their bodies had been taken down, they were buried within the precincts of the gaol.

As with other cases in this book it seems that prisoners made confessions in a suspiciously high number of cases, but Elias Lucas did not follow this trend. The final letters that Elias Lucas wrote appeared in
The Times
on 15 April 1850 and provoked an angry response which was printed shortly afterwards and goes a long way to explaining the motivation for these last minute confessions:

Sir, will you allow me a short space in
The Times
to point out what I and many others conceive to be a great abuse of the highest privilege of our religion – viz. the administration of the holy communion to criminals who die without confessing or expressing sorrow for their crimes? In the letter of Elias Lucas published in
The Times
of Monday there is no regret whatever expressed for the murder for which he was condemned by a jury of his fellow citizens and sentenced to death by one of the judges of his country. There is an abundance of advice to others, of expostulations with his parents, of remonstrances with his fellow prisoners, all tending to attract the pity and to pander to the feelings of the many morbid sentimentalists of the day; but there is not one expression conveying any sense of sorrow at having committed the crime of which he was found guilty, nor one word intimating his repentance nor his contrition at having taken the life of his wife. It is remarkable, indeed, that throughout his letters, in which he records his affection for his parents and child, he does not say one word of kindly allusion to her whom he had once sworn to love and to cherish, and whom he afterwards murdered; and yet this man is allowed to participate, at the eve of his execution, in an office which abounds with invitations to repentance, and which prohibits any to appear but those ‘who truly and earnestly repent of their sins'.

I do not maintain that every criminal is to be excluded from the holy communion, but certainly in no case should this sacrament be administered to a murderer, unless he prepare himself for a due participation in that rite by a confession of his crime and by expressing a deep sorrow for the perpetration of it, and a hearty and true contrition at having injured and murdered a fellow human being. This practice of admitting murderers to the holy communion, without a previous confession and repentance, is only of late adoption, and I hope you will admit this protest against it ere it become a custom, which, if once established, will prove injurious to society, revolting to pious minds, and tending to bring religion into contempt. I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

C
LERICUS
.

Clearly the clergy preferred prisoners to lie and make a false confession rather than keep their silence. Although Lucas believed in God and knew death was imminent he continued to claim that he was innocent.

Various comments that he had made while awaiting execution were printed in the
Cambridge Chronicle
: ‘The male prisoner still denies that he was aware of the intention of Mary Reeder to poison his wife. He admits that an improper intercourse had taken place between himself and his fellow prisoner, and states that it subsisted up to within about six weeks of his being taken into his custody. He adds that he had become disgusted with Mary Reeder and was determined to be rid of her; and that if he could have but succeeded in effecting that, he should have lived happier with his wife for the future. Some time before the death of his wife, Mary Reeder asked him for some arsenic to put in the water in which she said she was about to bathe her feet, and said that she thought it would cure her chilblains; he gave her some accordingly.'

And later, ‘With regard to the death of his wife, he says he believes himself morally to be as guilty as the female prisoner, as it was her connection with him that led her to the commission of the crime.'

While stopping short of admitting any responsibility for the act of planning and carrying out the murder of his wife, Elias Lucas was burdened with guilt. The
Cambridge Chronicle
printed another statement he made to Revd Roberts: ‘I do recollect what Mary said to me, “Elias, do you think there is any harm in poisoning anybody for love?”' He then recounted the rest of the conversation just as Mary had explained it. Later he said to Revd Roberts, ‘Well I might have told her to do it, but if I did, it was when I was in a passion.' He said on numerous occasions that he ought to die for having been intimate with his wife's sister, but also insisted that he had no knowledge of the crime Mary was to commit.

Clericus' letter to
The Times
complained that Elias Lucas had made no mention of his wife in his last written words, but a handbill produced in the days after the execution stated that: ‘The prisoner had never breathed one word against her, but acknowledged she had been a kind, good-hearted, and unsuspecting woman.'

It was possibly unfortunate for Lucas that he and Mary Reeder were tried jointly and shared a defence; the question of only one of them being guilty was never raised. The evidence against Reeder was substantially stronger than any evidence against Lucas but in order to defend them jointly, their counsel, Mr Couch, had to ask the jury to accept the improbable scenario that Susan Lucas had poisoned herself. In light of the scandalous relationship that had existed between the defendants, acquittal was not an outcome the jury were likely to reach.

The scenario of Lucas conducting a rash affair with Mary while his wife was alternating between illness and pregnancy is not far-fetched. Once the affair had ended his motive for murder was far more obscure than Mary's. Had he not been in possession of the poison, if Mary had acquired it from elsewhere or if it had come from an unknown source then the major part of the evidence against him would have not existed.

Notes

1 Reeder was also spelt ‘Reader' in many accounts but I have chosen the former as it appears to be the more frequently used.

2 Water mess is made from crumbled bread, water, pepper, salt and either butter or dripping.

3 Michaelmas Day, 29 September, is the feast of St Michael the Archangel, and one of four quarter-days in England.

4 Catherine Foster, née Morley, lived near Sudbury in Suffolk and was executed for poisoning her husband in 1846. She had married a man her mother had chosen but she was in love with someone else. After just three weeks of marriage her husband died from arsenic poisoning and Catherine pleaded guilty. She was the last woman to be hanged in Suffolk and was just 18 when she died.

5 John Stallon, known as the Shelford Incendiary, was executed after setting twelve out of thirteen fires that had occurred in Shelford in the early 1830s.

6 William Calcraft executed between 400 and 450 people between 1829 and 1874, making him the longest serving and most prolific of executioners. He had the reputation, however, of miscalculating the drop, so that many of the condemned were strangled to death.

N
ewmarket Road is a long road leading into Cambridge from the east, which changes its name to Maids Causeway as it nears the city centre. In the nineteenth century its local nickname was Coarse Maid's Way, as it was well known as a thoroughfare along which prostitutes would walk to the red light area. Along Maids Causeway was a junction known as Four Lamps. It was near there that two prostitutes, Emma Rolfe and Annie Pepper, met a young tailor named Robert Browning on the evening of Thursday 24 August 1876.

Browning was in his early twenties, with various reports stating that he was between 23 and 25, but was said to look much younger. He was also described as having ‘an imperfect education' and had been discharged from the 9th Regiment with a bad character reference. Since his discharge he had worked with his brother at a shop in Covent Garden in the Mill Road area of Cambridge. The brothers lived with their parents but Browning chose to spend most of his free evenings drinking and paying for the company of prostitutes.

The brothers' latest commission had been to make a pair of trousers for a local businessman named Mr Ward. This client had offered to pay them extra if they finished on time and, once their work was completed, the brothers headed off for the evening. It was about 8.30 p.m. when Browning left his brother and went home for supper. He seemed preoccupied and ate little. His mother suggested that he would be better off staying in for the rest of the evening but Browning took no notice. Instead he slipped a cut-throat razor into his coat pocket and left the house.

First he went to Fair Street and into a pub called Canham's then, at 9.30 p.m., met with the two young prostitutes, possibly by prior arrangement. He was not interested in both of them, so Pepper departed and Browning was left alone with Rolfe, who was only 16 years old but who had been living in a brothel for the previous few weeks. A Mrs Phillips owned the brothel, which was situated in Crispin Street.

With the promise of a shilling Rolfe willingly accompanied him into the darkness of Midsummer Common. Within moments he had taken out his razor and sliced open her throat. Her death was almost instantaneous but, some way across Midsummer Common, Constable Joseph Wheel heard a single shriek.

Browning left her body where it fell and returned the bloodied razor to his pocket. Despite his bloody and dishevelled state he walked to the nearby Garrick Inn and drank a quick glass of ale. On his departure he ran into PC Wheel who was searching for the source of the scream. Browning immediately handed himself over but was not taken seriously until he had taken the constable onto the Butts Green area of Midsummer Common and exposed Rolfe's body. The wound in her neck was so enormous that her head was almost severed. Browning's explanation was that she had tried to steal a shilling from him. He showed Wheel the murder weapon.

Browning said, ‘I just killed the girl. Don't let me look at her. Take me away from her. Don't look at her.' And a little later he added, ‘I hope the poor girl is in Heaven. I did not give her much time to repent.' He was also concerned about the effect his crime would have on his mother.

Mr Southall, a lodger at the Garrick Inn, joined PC Wheel and together they took Browning to the police station.

Rolfe's body was taken to the Fort St George public house where an inquest was held the following day. Her father, James Rolfe, a hawker living in Leeder's Row, identified the victim's body. He explained that she had moved out of his house and claimed not to know where she had lived since. When he explained that they no longer spoke when they saw one another it was clear that they had fallen out.

Mr Robert Roper, a surgeon of Cambridge, described the body:

On the night of Thursday, the 24th of August, a few minutes before ten, I was sent for to go to the Common where I found a woman lying on her left side with her throat cut and quite dead. In half a minute's time a policeman came up and showed us his light. It was intensely dark but I knew the woman was dead before he arrived. On examining the body, I found the head and hands cold but the arms were warm. The woman had been dead very few minutes. It was an extensive wound from the left to the right, quite down through everything to the spinal column. It was the largest wound of the kind I ever saw. It was high up in the throat under the chin. Such a wound might have been given by a razor and would cause immediate death. I believe the woman was lying on the ground. I don't believe a person would have inflicted the wound on the woman while she was standing. Great force must have been used in inflicting the wound.

After hearing other statements from police and other witnesses the jury at the inquest returned a verdict of ‘Wilful murder by Robert Browning'. On 29 August Browning was brought before the mayor of the borough and committed for trial. He was sent to Norwich Gaol to await the winter assizes, which were to take place in the city in November.

During his trial his mother testified that he had appeared ‘very gloomy and strange' since coming home after his army discharged. She also explained that:

he was very ill and went into Addenbrooke's Hospital, but I did not know with what complaint. When he came out of the hospital he appeared to be strange and gloomy. He sulked and did not take his food. This strange appearance increased up to the time of this occurrence. There was a great change in him since Midsummer Fair. My bedroom was close to his. At night I have heard him very restless and often out of bed.

It was also established that there was a history of insanity in other male members of Browning's family.

The biggest clue to the motive for the murder came from Mr James Hough, surgeon to the gaol, who stated:

I have frequently seen the prisoner, who was suffering from a contagious disease when he was taken into custody. He was in a very bad state. Under my care he has, to a certain extent, recovered. I saw the prisoner nearly every day, and I have had the opportunity of observing his conduct. I never saw anything in his mind, manner and acts to lead me to suppose that there was anything wrong in his mind. I am not aware that a chronic state of the disease from which he was suffering has a tendency to weaken the brain. The disease, so far from affecting the brain, was of a purely local nature.

When Browning eventually revealed his motive for murdering Rolfe it transpired that she had just been an unfortunate victim of circumstance. Browning had held a grudge against prostitutes since catching an incurable venereal disease from an encounter in Royston. It was in fact this girl, who he referred to as ‘Miss Bell', that he had wanted to kill.

On 29 November Browning was found guilty. Although he made very little effort to defend himself the jury showed some sympathy and asked the judge, Mr Justice Lush to consider sparing him the death penalty on the ground of his youth. Justice Lush, however, saw little reason for leniency and included the following words as he passed sentence: ‘The law, however, is more humane than you were. You felt immediately afterwards that you were taking the girl's life away without the slightest opportunity for repentance or preparation. You will have time, and I hope and pray that you will make use of the time which the law allows you, in order to prepare for that event . . . I shall take care to convey the recommendation of the jury to the proper quarter; but I cannot hold out any hope that the recommendation will have any effect.' After sentencing Browning was transferred to Cambridge Gaol.