Walter Horsford

Age: 26

Sex: male

Crime: murder

Date Of Execution: 28 Jun 1898

Crime Location: East Street, St Neots

Execution Place: Cambridge Prison

Method: hanging

Executioner: unknown

Source: http://discovery.nationalarchives.co.uk

Walter Horsford was convicted of the murder of his 38-year-old cousin Annie Holmes with whom he had had connections and made pregnant.

Walter Horsford was a farmer at Spaldwick, Huntingdon and Annie Holmes lived in Stonely, Spaldwick with her three children.

After they found out that she was pregnant Annie Holmes asked Walter Horsford if she could help her get rid of the baby. Walter Horsford said that at first he didn't know what to do and was anxious that his wife who he married on 14 October 1897 didn't find out. However, he had bought a shilling worth of strychnine from the chemists on 28 December to poison rats and decided that the best way to get rid of the embarrassment of having had an illegitimate child would be to kill her and so he sent her some strychnine saying that it would bring about an abortion. He sent the strychnine by letter with instructions to take 'One dose. Take as told.' The empty label which was written in Walter Horsford's handwriting stated 'Take in a little water. Tis quite harmless. Will come over in a day or two'.

Annie Holmes took the strychnine in water on 7 January 1898 and soon died but not before telling her sister that Walter Horsford had done it to her.

It was first thought that she had committed suicide.

The police also had handwriting experts who stated that the letters and instructions where in Walter Horsford's hand.

Walter Horsford denied the murder in court but after he was convicted and in the cells waiting for his execution he confessed in a letter for his wife saying that he did it to save the embarrassment to himself and his family of having had an illegitimate child and lamented that all it had caused was a greater embarrassment to everyone.

However, it was noted that he also confessed to the murder of another woman in similar circumstances as well.

Walter Horsford was held at Cambridge Prison where he was to be executed. However, at the time the prison had no means to execute him. The issue was shelved until they were certain that he was going to be executed and tenders for its construction put out for its construction within three weeks. It was finished in the course of a week and Walter Horsford had asked what all the continual hammering was and was merely informed that there was a new building in the course of erection.

Annie Holmes had been residing in East Street in one of the new houses there for about three months. She had arrived from Stonely where she had lived for about two years. Her husband had been a corn and coal merchant at Denford near Threpston and her remaining family consisted of a 14-year-old daughter, a son a little older and an 11-month-old baby.

At the inquest, her daughter said:

I have been living with my mother in East Street, it would have been three months on Monday. I have brother older than myself living at home. My mother had had neuralgia all day Friday and her face was much swollen. She said she would go to bed before us, and went to bed about 9.20. She was pretty well then except for her neuralgia pain. We went at 9.30 and I went into her room. She said, 'Have you got any sweets left?'. I said, 'Yes'. She said, 'Will you give me one, I do feel sick'. I gave her one, which she ate. She was not sick. She said nothing more until I got in bed with her and was just going to sleep, that was about 9.50.

She then began to kick about. I jumped out and lit a candle and called my brother. He ran and fetched two women who are neighbours. My brother went for the doctor directly one of the neighbours came. The doctors assistant arrived about half-an-hour afterwards. She was then much worse and got worse until she died about 11.05. I saw no glass or anything out of which she had taken anything. When my brother had gone for the neighbours she said, 'Rub my hands and legs, they are so stiff'. I said, 'Mother, what is the matter with you', and she said, 'I have taken poison'. When she went to bed she took a glass of water up with her, there was a little left in it. One of the neighbours brought it down to me to fetch another glass of water in the same glass. There was a little left, and I threw that away and filled it again, but my mother would not touch it. I had never seen her take water up to bed with her before. The police constable found a paper under the bed. I had seen no paper before he brought it down.

When she had said she had taken poison I said to her, 'What was it?' and she replied, 'A powder'. I said, 'Where did you get it from?' and she replied, 'Walter Horsford, my cousin sent it'. I said, 'When did you get it?'. She replied, 'Wednesday morning in a letter'. I knew a letter came from him on Wednesday morning, but I did not see what was in it. I asked my mother to let me see what was in it but she said, 'Oh never mind', and put it back in her pocket so that I did not see it any more.

However, when she was asked whether the letter still existed, a police constable stated that it didn't.

Annie Holmes's daughter noted that Annie Holmes never ordinarily took powders or medicines.

Annie Holmes's daughter went on to say:

Since we have lived at St Neots, Walter Horsford has twice been to see us. He used to come sometimes when we lived at Stonely, but not very often. Neither time at St Neots did he stop long, less than an hour. He came one day on a bicycle to see about some calves, and next time he was driving, he came to fetch the calves from a man at Kynesbury. Before she went to bed last night she said, 'You had better get some coal in the coal hod, there is no telling what may happen in the night'. The coal hod was downstairs. When in bed she was all the time saying, 'Oh, Walter Horsford, he sent me that powder'. Except the neuralgia she seemed to be pretty well. She was ironing up to 8 o'clock and got the supper and cleared it away. She ate a good supper, better than usual. She was 38 years of age. My father has been dead nearly 11 years, I was then six weeks old.

The doctor that was called out said that he had never seen Annie Holmes before. He said that he got to the house at 10.30pm and found her in bed with spasm, gesticulating, making a noise and shouting. He said that she told him that she believed she had been poisoned and that he then immediately ordered a mustard emetic, which he believed she took, although he didn't see her take it as he returned to get some medicine.

The doctor said that she had spasms intervening with quiescence of the muscles. He added that her symptoms were very much like those of strychnine poisoning. He said that he had been in the house with her for about 15 minutes and that after he returned with the medicines she was dead, noting that she died within half-an-hour of the first time he saw her.

He said that the post mortem revealed that all her organs were healthy. He said that her stomach was cut off entire, and had never been opened, and was sealed up.

He noted that her post mortem found nothing to indicate her cause of death. He noted that there was about 3oz of pericardial fluid in the pericardium, which he said was sometimes a symptom of strychnine poisoning.

He said that he asked Annie Holmes why she took the powder, and that she told him that it was with the object of procuring an abortion, however, he noted that there was absolutely no trace of pregnancy.

At the inquest, Walter Horsford gave evidence stating that he never sent Annie Holmes any powder or anything of the sort. He added that she didn't get a letter from him on the Wednesday and that he had never written to her or sent her anything by post or messenger. He said that he had been to see her twice since she had lived in St Neots, and that there was no familiarity between him and her, and had never been.

However, at the trial a handwriting expert examined a number of letters and other examples of Walter Horsford's handwriting and compared it to that on the label and piece of paper found relating to the taking of the powder and confirmed that the items were undoubtedly his handwriting. He further added that he had examined the handwriting microscopically and determined that there was no trace of hesitancy or of deliberation in the writing that could suggest that it was the result to studied imitation, noting that the lines appeared to have been rapidly produced as though in the natural process of writing.

Following his execution it was revealed that Walter Horsford wrote a full confession, but added that he had also killed another woman under similar circumstances.

In a newspaper, a London Correspondent was reported as saying:

I have by accident learned that, several years ago, considerable sensation was caused in Northamptonshire by the death of a young woman, who had been in close relationship with the murderer Horsford. The young woman died suddenly and under circumstances that induced her relations to suspect some unusual cause of death. There was at the outset a great outcry against Horsford and rumours were freely bandied about to the effect that he was guilty of poisoning the unfortunate woman. The general supposition was that Horsford would be arraigned on a charge similar to that for which he paid the extreme penalty, but for some reason which I have not been able satisfactorily to investigate, the initial proceedings fell through and Horsford escaped. There can be no doubt that this is the murder to which he has now confessed.

It was reported that the confession to the previous murder was probably in reference to that of 21-year-old Fanny James who had been engaged to be married to Walter Horsford and who died on 30 December 1890. Fanny James had been seized with spasms, and died within a quarter of an hour, and it was further ascertained that on the very day she died that she had received a letter from Walter Horsford.

However, it was further noted that at a cousin of Fanny James, named James, had suspected the facts of Fanny James death and subsequently believed that Walter Horsford had also poisoned him. It was said that the cousin, a farm labourer, had gone to a public house with Walter Horsford where Walter Horsford handed him a mug in which beer was served and which he drank. It was said that the cousin afterwards complained of feeling queer, and went home to his cottage and soon after died in terrible agony.

It was further stated that yet another death might have been attributed to Walter Horsford, that of a servant girl who died suddenly some years earlier in Peterborough. It was said that she had died under mysterious circumstances after having received a letter from Walter Horsford.

see National Archives - HO 144/273/A59699

see Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail - Thursday 30 June 1898

see Luton Times and Advertiser - Friday 01 July 1898

see Evening News (London) - Monday 06 June 1898

see Northern Guardian (Hartlepool) - Tuesday 28 June 1898

see Weekly Dispatch (London) - Sunday 05 June 1898

see Cambridge News