David Caplan

David Caplan was convicted of the murder of his wife and sons, 33-year-old Freda Caplan, 6-year-old Herman Caplan and 3-year-old Maurice Caplan and sentenced to death.

He battered them to death at 141 West Derby Road, Liverpool on 14 October 1919.

141 West Derby Road had been a millinery shop that they had run.

David Caplan had been a tailor's machinist and of Polish birth.

He came to England 20 years earlier and married Freda Caplan around 1911 and they had two children, the two he later murdered.

They had lived in Leeds for some years but returned to Liverpool in 1919 and took up the shop at 141 West Derby Road where Freda Caplan set up the small milliner's shop with money supplied by her relations.

David Caplan had been in work, but Freda Caplan complained to her brother that she had not enough money on which to keep the house.

David Caplan was said to have assaulted Freda Caplan on many occasions in Leeds and to have been summoned three times, although on each occasion the matter had been settled without going to court.

On 31 August 1919 David Caplan struck Freda Caplan in the face and again on 10 September he assaulted her, throwing plates at her and Freda Caplan summoned him for that and he was fined 10/- on 18 September and on 8 October 1919 Freda Caplan obtained a separation order with 20/- per week and her having custody of the two children.

There was also evidence that during all that time that David Caplan had threatened Freda Caplan and said that he would swing for her. As a result Freda Caplan went in fear of him and for about five weeks before the murder she slept at her mother’s house and returned to her shop in West Derby Road during the day.

However, a few days before the murder she again took to sleeping at West Derby Road because Maurice Caplan had been ill with croup.

It was noted that there seemed to have been an agreement between Freda Caplan and David Caplan that on his being paid £20 he was to leave the premises in West Derby Road no later than 20 October 1919.

On the evening of 13 October David Caplan told a workmate that he was going home as his boy was ill.

Freda Caplan appeared to have gone to sleep at the house at about 11pm.

At 6am the next morning, 14 October 1919, screams and groans were heard and later in the day the house and shop remained shut up until Freda Caplan's brother got in by a window.

When he got in he found David Caplan lying on a sofa with his throat slightly cut and in the bedroom above lay Freda Caplan, unconscious on the bed with Herman Caplan lying dead on her arm and Maurice Caplan dead in a cot.

He had battered them all about the head with a flat iron which was found in the bed.

Freda Caplan died in hospital the following day. Her skull and jaw had been fractured with no less than 18 blows and there were cuts and bruises on her hands and arms.

A bloodstained penknife and bread-knife were also found in the house.

David Caplan later said that he had no recollection of what happened.

At his trial his defence was one of insanity, based on:

1. Statements that David Caplan's mother many years ago had been two years in an asylum and that a brother had been rejected for military service in Russia on the ground that he was insane.
2. Evidence that some years ago David Caplan had been known by some of his friends as 'Mad Davy'.
3. The terrible nature of the injures and the number of blows struck, coupled with the fact that David Caplan had not only killed his wife, but had also attacked his two children of whom he was said to have been fond.
4. Questions asked by David Caplan of the police while he was in hospital that shewed, or may have been intended to show, that he had little recollection of the tragedy and didn't know whether he had killed his children or not.

However, it was heard that on the other hand, there was the evidence of the medical officers at both Liverpool and Manchester prisons to the effect that David Caplan was perfectly sane and that there was no reason to think that he was anything but sane when he committed the murders.

When David Caplan was convicted there was no recommendation to mercy and he was executed at Manchester on 6 January 1920.

He was executed on the same day at Strangeways as Hyman Perdovitch.

It's thought that 141 West Derby Road was later demolished to make way for an underpass which has itself since been filled in.