Pearcey (1866–90) was executed on 23 December 1890 for killing her lover’s wife and daughter. She was unfortunate: female killers were rare in the late 1800s and only a handful went to the gallows for their crimes. However, Pearcey excited public opinion because of the nature of her crime. Its brutality, her attempt to conceal it, her apparent indifference and the fact that she had murdered an infant child all counted against her.
A few years earlier, Pearcey had begun a relationship with Frank Hogg (dates unknown) and lived with him in Kentish Town, northwest London. Hogg was a womanizer, but when he got another lover, Phoebe Styles (1858–90), pregnant he married her. Unwilling to give him up, Pearcey persuaded Hogg to continue seeing her. Mary also became friends with Phoebe, so much so that Mrs Hogg often visited Mary, accompanied by her baby girl, Tiggy. It was a misjudgment of character that was to prove fatal. On the evening of 24 October, a body was found in Hampstead, the head crushed and throat savagely cut. A mile farther away was
a black pram, and then, in Finchley, a dead baby girl. Phoebe’s sister-in-law Clara was worried when she could not find her, and went to the police after the papers reported the discovery of an unidentified body (with the initials ‘P. H.’ stitched onto the clothes). Mary went with her. Something must have raised police suspicions, because they escorted Mary home and found evidence of the crime there. Her room was splattered with blood (which she declared was the result of her ‘killing mice’) and bloodied curtains were discovered in the washhouse. The forensics were mounting up: a button from Phoebe’s coat was fished out of Mary’s kitchen grate, and a screw from the pram was found near Phoebe’s dead body. Witnesses reported having seen Mary pushing a pram piled high with what they assumed was laundry, but turned out to have been the bodies of her victims. Mary’s trial was prejudiced by a biased judge, and the evidence presented was largely circumstantial, but she had no defence to speak of. She told the hangman: ‘My sentence is a just one, but a good deal of the evidence against me was false.’ •
Below. illustrated police news, 15 november 1890. mary pearcey in the dock at the old bailey for the murder of phoebe
hogg and her daughter.
Below. illustrated police news, 13 december 1890. sensational press coverage of the case, taken from evidence heard
at mary pearcey’s trial.
Below. illustrated police news, 29 november 1890 (top) & 1 november 1890 (bottom). mary pearcey awaiting trial in holloway prison and the
details of her alleged crime.
2 priory street, swiss cottage.
October 0.
englandlondon.
MARY PEARCEY. × Phoebe Ho. × Ti Ho.
weapon. poker & carving knife.
typology. jealousy.
policing. forensics.
5
1
2
4
3
5
4
2
1
3
1
2345
41
ENGLAND — LONDON.
141 PRINCE OF WALES ROAD.
the house where
phoebe hogg lived.
CROSSFIELD ROAD.
the road where the body of phoebe
hogg was discovered.
FINCHLEY ROAD.
the road where tiggy hogg’s body
was found.
HAMILTON TERRACE.
the location of the pram used to transport
the dead bodies.
2 PRIORY STREET.
mary pearcey’s home, where blood
stains were found.
Above. press illustrations of the key scenes in the murder of phoebe
and tiggy hogg by mary pearcey.
the numbers on these illustrations correspond to the locations
plotted onto the map below.
42
PART ONE — EUROPE.
Domestic murder was all too common in late 19th-century London. Thomas Cripps (1867–unknown) and his common-law wife Elizabeth Biles (unknown–1896) quarrelled all the time according to neighbours. So when one argument ended tragically, with Biles lying outside her door with blood draining from a wound in her throat, the police knew where to look. Cripps had been fined for hitting her previously and was quick to confess. ‘I done it,’ he told police, ‘I’ll take a bit of rope for her.’ He was spared that fate because an Old Bailey jury only found him guilty of manslaughter, not murder. He got seven years. •
When a prostitute was found dead, her throat horribly cut, it revived memories of the Jack the Ripper murders five years earlier. The victim was Jane Thompson (unknown–1893), also known as Jenny Hinks. Witnesses told police they had seen Jane drinking earlier that evening with a man whose appearance suggested he might be a sailor, so detectives targeted their inquiries to the local Surrey Commercial Docks. Two sailors were arrested: Paolo Cammarola (dates unknown) and Andrea Scotti Di Carlo (1873–unknown). Cammarola had an alibi but Di Carlo did not. He was convicted at the Old Bailey and sentenced to death, but reprieved and imprisoned for life. •
Above. illustrated police news, 8 july 1893. police discover the body of prostitute jane thompson
in rotherhithe, whose throat had been cut.
Above. illustrated police news, 8 february 1896. a heavily stylized press recreation of the discovery
of elizabeth biles’s body by neighbours in notting hill.
51 silverlock street, rotherhithe.william street, notting hill.
une .0 anuary .
englandlondon.
englandlondon.
ANDREA SCOTTI DI CARLO.× Jane Tompson.
THOMAS WILLIAM CRIPPS.× Elizabeth Biles.
weapon.knife.
weapon.knife.
typology.reckless act.
typology. domestic.
policing.n/a.
policing.n/a.
43
ENGLAND — LONDON.
Even in a district where violence was depressingly familiar, the callous murder of an elderly shopkeeper still had the power to shock. Harriet Farmer (dates unknown) was found, bound and gagged, with rags stuffed in her mouth at her newsagent’s shop in the East End of London. Local gossip rumoured that Miss Farmer was ‘worth thousands’, yet despite being attacked previously, she lived alone. This had all the hallmarks of a robbery gone wrong. Thieves had slipped in when she opened the shop, overpowering