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Grasmere, in the Lake District.

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In 1811, the writer
Thomas De Quincey

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was renting a cottage from his
friend, the poet William Wordsworth,

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when something happened

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to shatter the tranquillity
of this lakeside village.

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A young family had been murdered -

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not here, but 300 miles
away in the docklands of London.

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Yet the news shocked Grasmere,
because this was something new,

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a senseless and motiveless murder
by a stranger

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of four people, all at once.

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In the preceding year, 1810,

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there had only been 15 convictions
for murder in the whole of Britain.

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De Quincey was struck by the effect
this crime had

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on the good people of Grasmere.

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"One lady, my next door neighbour,

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"never rested until she had placed
18 doors,

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"each secured by ponderous bolts
and bars and chains,

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"between her own bedroom
and any intruder of human build.

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"At every sixth step, one was stopped
by a sort of portcullis."

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But De Quincey noticed
something else besides fear

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in the reaction to this murder.

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There was an element
of ghoulish enjoyment.

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He felt that the British

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were turning into a nation of
what he called murder-fanciers.

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De Quincey began to define
what made a good murder,

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breathlessly describing
the ultra-fiendishness of the crime

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and revelling in the murderer's
"tiger's heart".

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The murder that repulsed
and gripped in equal measure

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took place in December,

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near the church
of St George's in the East,

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at 29, the Ratcliff Highway,
Wapping.

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The family who lived here
were terribly young.

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Timothy Marr was a former sailor.
He was just 25.

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His wife, Celia, had recently given
birth to their baby boy,

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and they also had an apprentice,
James, who was 14.

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On the evening of 7th December,
just before midnight,

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the Marr family sent
out their servant, Margaret Jewell,

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into the poorly-lit
neighbourhood to buy oysters,

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not then a luxury, but a cheap
and nutritious type of street food.

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Her journey was fruitless.

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There were no oysters
to be had at this late hour.

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On her return, she found
that she had been locked out.

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Margaret banged on the front door

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and called out for the Marrs
to open up.

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While Margaret the maid
was waiting to be let in,

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she heard a sound inside the house.

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She heard footsteps,
and the crying of the baby.

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But nobody came to let her in.

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She was still waiting
outside at half past midnight

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when the night watchman came by.

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Their conversation
and Margaret's banging

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woke up the next door neighbour,
a pawnbroker,

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and it was he who eventually got
access to the house

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by climbing over the wall
and coming in through the back door.

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The Marrs' next door neighbour
now started to search the house,

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and very soon, he came across
the body of James, the apprentice.

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His head had been bashed in,

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so much so that his brains
were splattered on the ceiling.

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Then he found Mrs Marr, Celia.

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She was face down, crushed up
against the front door.

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Then behind the shop counter,
there was Mr Marr, also face down,

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just as dead as the rest of them.

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A little crowd had gathered
outside the front door,

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so the neighbour now went running
out. He shouted "Murder! Murder!"

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These people outside knew the Marr
family, and they had a question.

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Where was the baby?

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The baby was still in his cradle...

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but his throat had been slit.

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Into this scene of slaughter
came Constable Charles Horton,

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from the nearby
marine police office at Wapping.

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After searching the shop,

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Horton concluded that no money
had been taken.

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He then explored
the rest of the house.

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When he reached the bedroom,
he discovered the murder weapon,

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a maul, leaning against a chair.

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A maul is a special type of mallet
used by ships' carpenters.

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It was covered with blood.

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To discover more about the problems
faced by the authorities

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in a case like
the killing of the Marrs,

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I've come to meet Rosalind Crone

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at the Marine Police Museum
in Wapping,

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still located in its original
1811 building.

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What have you got
there in that big book?

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This is what we call a register,

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which lists all the constables
who were working

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for the Thames River Police,
or the Marine Police,

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in the early 19th century.

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So if we look down the ledger here,

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we can see the name
of Charles Horton.

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And he's the man who responds
to the Marrs' murder?  He is.

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He's the first constable
on the scene.

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The Marine Police were employed
specifically

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to protect the docks and ships'
cargoes from light-fingered locals.

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It was just by chance
that their man, Horton,

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was near to the Marrs' shop.

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You've picked up the cutlass
that men would have carried for...

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Defence?  Protection, yes.

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And he would have had
a little set of handcuffs, too.

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I don't think they were expecting

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to capture too many female criminals
through those.

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No, you'd slip out of those easily.
Straight on and off.

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And they were only one of many.

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There were thousands of these small
proto-police forces across London?

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Yes. What we've got to remember about
the early 19th century is,

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we are dealing with
old policing structures,

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as opposed to a police force, which
comes in in about the late 1820s.

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So we have, basically,
policing at a local level,

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often the parish level,

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with the employment
of a small number of constables

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and then a larger force of
night watchmen.

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We've got to remember that these
constables are mainly reactive.

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They're not active.
They're not detectives.

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And we are dealing with a murder here
that was particularly horrendous

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and pretty much unheard of
among the local community.

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This is a really shocking act.

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Though deep in mourning, the East
End was chilled by the realisation

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that a brutal murderer remained
at large, and might strike again.

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And then, only 12 days
after the killing of the Marrs,

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it seemed that the same murderer
visited Wapping a second time.

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On 19th December,
a very strange sight was seen

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outside the King's Arms pub
in New Gravel Lane.

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The lodger who lived
on the top floor of the pub

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started climbing out of the window.

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He came down a rope
that was made by his bed sheets.

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People passing by in the streets
stopped and stared at him,

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wondering what was going on.

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It became clear
when they heard what he was saying.

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He was shouting "Murder! Murder!"

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A crowd soon gathered
and forced its way in.

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Inside, they found the bodies
of the publican, John Williams,

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his wife and his servant.

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Like the Marrs, they had been hacked
and beaten to death.

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That night, there was pandemonium.

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Fire bells were rung
and drums were beaten in alarm.

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Volunteers armed with cutlasses
and pistols

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searched houses and boats moored
on the Thames.

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Even London Bridge was closed.

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The desperate magistrates
now demanded

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that anyone at all suspicious
be picked up -

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foreigners, vagrants,
all the usual suspects.

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Valuable time was
wasted on false leads.

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And people were starting to grow
angry with the authorities,

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who failed to protect
their community

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from what now looked like
a serial killer.

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But at last, there was
a breakthrough.

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A sharp-eyed police constable

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noticed a clue on the murder weapon
itself,

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not before time, you might think.

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He spotted initials on the handle,
JP,

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and a woman came forward
to say that she knew who JP was.

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It was John Peterson,
a sailor from Hamburg.

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But, it has to be said,
he had the perfect alibi.

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On the night of the killings,
he had been away at sea.

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Another lodger, a 27-year-old seaman
called John Williams,

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quickly became the prime suspect,

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from no other evidence than
that he'd had access to the maul.

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Williams was arrested

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and taken to Cold Bath Fields
prison for questioning.

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Two days after Christmas,

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the prison guards found
his lifeless body

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hanging from an iron bar
in his cell.

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Because John Williams had committed
suicide,

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everybody instantly jumped
to the conclusion

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that this was an admission of guilt.

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He killed himself
to cheat the hangman.

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The police and the magistrates
were delighted with this outcome.

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They'd really needed to reassure
Londoners

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that the killer was off the streets
and that the case had been solved.

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At the same time, though, they had
been denied the proper trial

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and execution to provide
a sense of closure.

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On New Year's Eve, 1811,

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a cart bearing John Williams'
body left the prison

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and made its way through the streets
of Wapping.

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It was a very public display

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that the authorities had at last
got their man.

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The horror in Wapping reached
all corners of the country

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through illustrated, one-sheet
publications called broadsides.

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These sold in their hundreds
of thousands.

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Newspaper proprietors realised
that sensational killings

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could boost circulation enormously.

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But fact and fiction became blurred.

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By the time the Ratcliff Highway
story reached the Lake District,

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the murders had taken on
an almost mythic quality,

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a process that did not go unnoticed

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by Grasmere's most curious
resident, Thomas De Quincey.

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Thomas de Quincey
was a complete oddball.

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He was addicted to opium,

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and spent a lot of his time
in a sort of crazy, creative dream.

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He was an unconventional,
but rather brilliant writer.

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Some people think the two
things are connected.

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When he was living here
at Dove Cottage, he would produce

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the best-known piece of writing
about the Ratcliff Highway killings.

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Thomas De Quincey's essay on murder
was basically a great, big tease.

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He was setting out to provoke
all the newspaper readers

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who had sucked up the details of the
real-life crimes and relished them.

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De Quincey claimed that there
was this imaginary murder club

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for people who took things
even further.

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They were connoisseurs of crime,

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and they believed that murder
ought to be elevated

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into one of the fine arts.
This was all satirical, of course.

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At their meetings, they talked
about their favourite murderers,

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and top of the tree
was John Williams,

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the most accomplished practitioner
yet of this new art.

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Drug-inspired or not, De Quincey
gives us a fundamental insight

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that we all enjoy a good murder,

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although sometimes
we're reluctant to admit it.

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De Quincey skewered this idea
that we consume murder,

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that we judge them, that we like a
good one, with vulnerable characters

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and interesting developments.

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But if a crime is dull and brutish,
as he said, we damn it unanimously.

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And this sense that we enjoy murder

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runs from De Quincey's time
right until the present day.

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20 years after the murder
in Wapping,

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another killing was turned

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into one of the 19th century's
most potent stories.

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It would be mythologized

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and transformed into popular
entertainment

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within weeks of the murder itself.

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This story played to the growing
obsession with violent crime.

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It would be acted out
not in the turbulent East End,

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but in the sleepy Suffolk
village of Polstead.

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It was here, in 1827,

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that a crime took place
that still resonates today.

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Maria Marten
and the murder in the red barn.

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Maria Marten was the daughter
of the local mole catcher.

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She lived on the edge of the village
with her family

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and her illegitimate child.

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In a much grander house
at the centre of Polstead

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lived the man who would kill her.

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This is the much grander house
lived in by William Corder.

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His father was a prosperous
and God-fearing yeoman farmer.

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In some of the stories that later
sprang up around this case,

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William Corder was described
as the squire of the village,

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but this actually makes him
sound straighter than he really was.

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He did have criminal
contacts in London,

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and when he'd been at school,

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his friends had given him a nickname
that reflected his sneaky ways.

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They called him Foxy.

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The third character in the story
was the red barn itself,

240
00:15:46,120 --> 00:15:48,840
which stood in a field
just outside Polstead.

241
00:15:53,000 --> 00:15:55,520
There is a very melodramatic
explanation

242
00:15:55,560 --> 00:15:57,400
of the name of the red barn.

243
00:15:57,440 --> 00:16:00,600
As the sun set,
the evening light is supposed

244
00:16:00,640 --> 00:16:03,000
to have turned the barn
the colour of blood,

245
00:16:03,040 --> 00:16:06,480
giving it the reputation amongst
the locals as a place of evil.

246
00:16:09,640 --> 00:16:11,080
So it was an ideal place

247
00:16:11,120 --> 00:16:14,920
for secret meetings between
William Corder and his lover.

248
00:16:14,960 --> 00:16:18,600
They weren't going to be observed.

249
00:16:20,280 --> 00:16:22,760
Friday, 18th May was the last time

250
00:16:22,800 --> 00:16:25,880
that anyone in Polstead
saw Maria alive.

251
00:16:25,920 --> 00:16:29,080
That night, she had a secret
rendezvous with William Corder

252
00:16:29,120 --> 00:16:32,120
under the cover of darkness
at the red barn.

253
00:16:32,160 --> 00:16:34,880
She thought that they were planning
to run off together.

254
00:16:43,000 --> 00:16:47,480
For a whole year, as far as Maria's
parents knew, she really had eloped.

255
00:16:48,600 --> 00:16:52,720
William Corder even wrote to them
saying "I have left her at Ipswich".

256
00:16:52,760 --> 00:16:54,440
Maria couldn't write herself,
he said,

257
00:16:54,480 --> 00:16:55,840
because she had hurt her wrist.

258
00:16:58,200 --> 00:17:02,880
In April 1828, Maria's stepmother
began to have nightmares.

259
00:17:04,280 --> 00:17:07,200
"I have dreamt on three nights
that she was murdered

260
00:17:07,240 --> 00:17:09,560
"and buried in the red barn",
she said.

261
00:17:11,200 --> 00:17:13,640
This apparent intervention by
providence

262
00:17:13,680 --> 00:17:16,040
in the form of Maria's stepmother's
dream

263
00:17:16,080 --> 00:17:18,600
would become an important part
of the story.

264
00:17:19,960 --> 00:17:22,360
Her father now began a search,

265
00:17:22,400 --> 00:17:25,520
and soon found Maria's
decomposing body

266
00:17:25,560 --> 00:17:28,520
in the exact spot
the dream predicted.

267
00:17:33,960 --> 00:17:37,680
The prime suspect was, of course,
William Corder.

268
00:17:37,720 --> 00:17:41,560
He was arrested by the constables
in Brentford, outside London,

269
00:17:41,600 --> 00:17:44,280
where he had set up home
with a new wife.

270
00:17:45,800 --> 00:17:48,960
In the phenomenon De Quincey had
identified,

271
00:17:49,000 --> 00:17:50,840
the sordid red barn murder

272
00:17:50,880 --> 00:17:54,920
now provided excellent raw material
for entertainment.

273
00:17:58,960 --> 00:18:01,400
And in the 1820s,
the most theatrical way

274
00:18:01,440 --> 00:18:04,960
of telling the story of
notorious murders was melodrama.

275
00:18:06,320 --> 00:18:09,480
This stylised form of theatre was
performed here

276
00:18:09,520 --> 00:18:11,040
at the Old Vic in London,

277
00:18:11,080 --> 00:18:14,360
which had opened ten years
before the events in Polstead.

278
00:18:15,600 --> 00:18:17,440
To learn how real-life murder

279
00:18:17,480 --> 00:18:21,160
was turned into this wildly
popular form of entertainment,

280
00:18:21,200 --> 00:18:23,720
I've come to meet the actor
Michael Kirk.

281
00:18:23,760 --> 00:18:26,680
Michael, what exactly is melodrama?

282
00:18:26,720 --> 00:18:30,520
I suppose if we were
describing melodrama nowadays,

283
00:18:30,560 --> 00:18:32,920
we would probably describe
it as over the top.

284
00:18:32,960 --> 00:18:38,400
A story of great love,
great passion...and they meant it.

285
00:18:38,440 --> 00:18:41,160
It was very, very important.

286
00:18:41,200 --> 00:18:45,760
The story of a melodrama is,
"If we don't do this, we die."

287
00:18:45,800 --> 00:18:47,000
It's that important.

288
00:18:48,200 --> 00:18:51,600
And did the audience not mind
the basic implausibility?

289
00:18:51,640 --> 00:18:53,840
Because we get coincidences,

290
00:18:53,880 --> 00:18:57,320
we get people seeing things
in dreams, ghosts.

291
00:18:57,360 --> 00:19:00,480
I think they loved it,
because it was so popular.

292
00:19:00,520 --> 00:19:04,160
And they loved to know
what was going on.

293
00:19:04,200 --> 00:19:06,440
They didn't want mystery
or anything like that.

294
00:19:06,480 --> 00:19:10,760
They wanted to know who the villain
was, who the heroine was,

295
00:19:10,800 --> 00:19:13,760
and that was very important to them.

296
00:19:15,760 --> 00:19:18,160
It wasn't only in cities and towns

297
00:19:18,200 --> 00:19:21,640
that people could enjoy
murderous melodramas.

298
00:19:21,680 --> 00:19:26,360
They also appeared in the repertoire
of travelling marionette theatres.

299
00:19:26,400 --> 00:19:29,520
The story of the red barn
was being performed at country fairs

300
00:19:29,560 --> 00:19:33,480
even before William Corder
stood trial.

301
00:19:33,520 --> 00:19:37,960
Oh, Maria, hello!
You've come! You've come!

302
00:19:38,000 --> 00:19:41,440
And these belonged to a company
that actually toured East Anglia?

303
00:19:41,480 --> 00:19:45,680
Yes, so we know that this company
performed Maria Marten.

304
00:19:45,720 --> 00:19:49,680
What was it like to go and see
a puppet show?

305
00:19:49,720 --> 00:19:51,960
Oh, incredibly exciting.

306
00:19:52,000 --> 00:19:54,720
Not only was it exciting to see
the characters,

307
00:19:54,760 --> 00:19:57,040
it was also exciting to see
the scenery,

308
00:19:57,080 --> 00:19:59,520
because they had
proper puppet scenery.

309
00:19:59,560 --> 00:20:04,120
It was a miniature version
of being in any theatre.

310
00:20:04,160 --> 00:20:06,600
So this is not for children
and it's not just funny,

311
00:20:06,640 --> 00:20:10,520
these are important points?
Absolutely.

312
00:20:10,560 --> 00:20:14,720
They did a whole range
of different types of plays.

313
00:20:14,760 --> 00:20:19,200
They did everything that was
exciting or amusing the people.

314
00:20:19,240 --> 00:20:22,120
So they did the melodramas
and the murders.

315
00:20:22,160 --> 00:20:24,440
People in outlying rural areas

316
00:20:24,480 --> 00:20:29,160
would have really looked forward
to the marionette theatre coming.

317
00:20:30,360 --> 00:20:31,640
Even from a distance,

318
00:20:31,680 --> 00:20:34,880
you can tell that William Corder
here is the villain.

319
00:20:34,920 --> 00:20:37,600
He's got a very villainous
moustache.

320
00:20:37,640 --> 00:20:41,600
Yes, and he's got glassy,
staring eyes.

321
00:20:43,720 --> 00:20:47,720
Oh, William!
I cannot wait until we are together.

322
00:20:47,760 --> 00:20:51,640
Well, that's what you think, but
I haven't brought you here for love.

323
00:20:51,680 --> 00:20:55,640
I've brought you here,
my girl, to kill you!

324
00:20:55,680 --> 00:20:58,480
Oh, William! Do not treat me so!

325
00:20:58,520 --> 00:21:01,760
Die, woman!

326
00:21:05,320 --> 00:21:08,520
Back in real life, once
William Corder had been captured,

327
00:21:08,560 --> 00:21:12,680
his story continued. He was brought
back to Bury St Edmunds,

328
00:21:12,720 --> 00:21:15,400
the nearest assize town to Polstead.

329
00:21:18,280 --> 00:21:21,840
The trial began on 7th August 1828,

330
00:21:21,880 --> 00:21:24,920
in the Shire Hall
of Bury St Edmunds.

331
00:21:24,960 --> 00:21:27,880
William Corder
initially pleaded not guilty,

332
00:21:27,920 --> 00:21:30,040
but later on, he did confess.

333
00:21:30,080 --> 00:21:33,440
He claimed that he had shot her
in the eye by accident,

334
00:21:33,480 --> 00:21:36,680
and that the gun had gone off
in his trembling hands.

335
00:21:39,760 --> 00:21:41,880
The trial lasted just two days,

336
00:21:41,920 --> 00:21:45,200
and the jury took only 35 minutes
to reach their decision.

337
00:21:47,520 --> 00:21:48,800
Guilty.

338
00:21:50,480 --> 00:21:52,160
On the day of his hanging,

339
00:21:52,200 --> 00:21:54,800
a huge crowd gathered outside
the jail,

340
00:21:54,840 --> 00:21:58,040
in the hope of catching
a glimpse of the villain.

341
00:21:59,600 --> 00:22:04,200
It took William Corder a long time
to die, around ten minutes,

342
00:22:04,240 --> 00:22:07,680
and that was with the hangman
pulling down on his legs.

343
00:22:07,720 --> 00:22:11,240
As the newspapers said,
he died hard.

344
00:22:14,480 --> 00:22:16,520
His body was barely cold

345
00:22:16,560 --> 00:22:19,520
before the story of William Corder

346
00:22:19,560 --> 00:22:21,800
was featuring in street ballads
and alehouse songs.

347
00:22:25,760 --> 00:22:29,040
At the Cock Inn in Polstead,
I'm meeting Vic Gammon

348
00:22:29,080 --> 00:22:33,520
to hear how the story of Murder In
The Red Barn was turned into music.

349
00:22:38,960 --> 00:22:43,520


350
00:22:43,560 --> 00:22:47,640

and shame

351
00:22:47,680 --> 00:22:52,080


352
00:22:52,120 --> 00:22:56,760


353
00:22:58,280 --> 00:23:02,040
Now, there's a whole lot of William
Corder songs, aren't there,
that's not the only one?

354
00:23:02,080 --> 00:23:03,600
No, I've found about four of them.

355
00:23:03,640 --> 00:23:07,000
There's one really famous one.
The Murder Of Maria Marten

356
00:23:07,040 --> 00:23:09,840
is the one that really circulated
in a large way.

357
00:23:09,880 --> 00:23:11,560
It was a national hit, then?

358
00:23:11,600 --> 00:23:15,360
It was a national hit,
that's a good way to put it.

359
00:23:15,400 --> 00:23:17,920
It's really the interest
in the case,

360
00:23:17,960 --> 00:23:21,480
plus the fact that there
was at that time, the 1820s,

361
00:23:21,520 --> 00:23:24,080
a strong popular singing tradition -

362
00:23:24,120 --> 00:23:26,560
people singing for themselves,
for recreation, for fun.

363
00:23:26,600 --> 00:23:29,560
Supposing I was
a servant in London in 1928

364
00:23:29,600 --> 00:23:32,200
and I wanted to learn this song,
how would I go about doing it?

365
00:23:32,240 --> 00:23:34,560
The most likely way
you would learn it

366
00:23:34,600 --> 00:23:36,560
is from a street ballad singer.

367
00:23:36,600 --> 00:23:38,520
There were hundreds of these people,

368
00:23:38,560 --> 00:23:40,680
even in the mid-19th century
in London.

369
00:23:41,920 --> 00:23:43,680
They're not just buskers,

370
00:23:43,720 --> 00:23:48,120
because they would both sing and sell
the ballad at the same time,

371
00:23:48,160 --> 00:23:51,120
and that's the way
you would learn the tune.

372
00:23:52,280 --> 00:23:55,440
We have accounts of large crowds
of people standing

373
00:23:55,480 --> 00:23:57,360
listening to ballad singers.

374
00:23:57,400 --> 00:23:58,560
It's a really good idea,

375
00:23:58,600 --> 00:24:01,400
because if everybody
across Britain is singing this,

376
00:24:01,440 --> 00:24:03,960
it's like a massive
public safety warning,

377
00:24:04,000 --> 00:24:07,600
saying "Don't go murdering ladies
and burying them in barns.

378
00:24:07,640 --> 00:24:09,880
"It will be bad for you.
You will die".

379
00:24:09,920 --> 00:24:12,280
Yes! You can look at it that way,

380
00:24:12,320 --> 00:24:15,680
or you can look at it on the way
that the popular press

381
00:24:15,720 --> 00:24:20,520
both delights in and takes
a sort of distanced view

382
00:24:20,560 --> 00:24:22,840
of gory happenings and so on.

383
00:24:22,880 --> 00:24:26,320
There's both the fascination
and the warning element in there.

384
00:24:26,360 --> 00:24:27,880
They're both quite strong.

385
00:24:27,920 --> 00:24:30,280
The lesson of the song is,
though, don't do it, isn't it?

386
00:24:30,320 --> 00:24:33,320
Although they are taking
a bit of pleasure

387
00:24:33,360 --> 00:24:34,800
in the "bleeding, mangled body".

388
00:24:34,840 --> 00:24:37,600
Shall we try the "bleeding, mangled"
verse?  Yeah, I like that one.

389
00:24:37,640 --> 00:24:42,080

she thought no harm

390
00:24:42,120 --> 00:24:45,360


391
00:24:45,400 --> 00:24:52,560

and laid her body low

392
00:24:52,600 --> 00:24:55,680

was done

393
00:24:55,720 --> 00:24:59,720


394
00:24:59,760 --> 00:25:03,360

he buried

395
00:25:03,400 --> 00:25:06,840


396
00:25:06,880 --> 00:25:09,320
That's ridiculously ghoulish!

397
00:25:09,360 --> 00:25:12,360
The blood, the body, the mangling,
ugh!

398
00:25:12,400 --> 00:25:15,520
Murder is not a nice thing, and this
is relishing in that detail.

399
00:25:15,560 --> 00:25:16,960
The voice of an angel.

400
00:25:17,000 --> 00:25:18,000
GLASSES CLINK

401
00:25:30,880 --> 00:25:34,160
Melodramas and broadsides
and ballads

402
00:25:34,200 --> 00:25:36,600
had made Polstead infamous.

403
00:25:36,640 --> 00:25:40,440
Murder tourists arrived,
wanting to visit the village

404
00:25:40,480 --> 00:25:44,560
to see the red barn, and even
to touch the grave of poor Maria.

405
00:25:46,440 --> 00:25:51,720
This board here tells us
that Maria Marten is buried nearby.

406
00:25:51,760 --> 00:25:55,080
She was aged just 25 years.

407
00:25:55,120 --> 00:25:57,160
We can't see her actual gravestone

408
00:25:57,200 --> 00:26:00,240
because it was chipped to
pieces by souvenir hunters,

409
00:26:00,280 --> 00:26:02,200
and there isn't a trace of it left.

410
00:26:06,120 --> 00:26:08,400
As in many a crime story,

411
00:26:08,440 --> 00:26:11,720
the murder in the red barn
shows that we are more interested

412
00:26:11,760 --> 00:26:14,320
in the character and the deeds
of the murderer

413
00:26:14,360 --> 00:26:15,800
than those of the victim.

414
00:26:17,320 --> 00:26:20,600
William Corder's crime
created a weird industry

415
00:26:20,640 --> 00:26:24,040
in what we might call
murder souvenirs.

416
00:26:24,080 --> 00:26:25,600
Anyone who had the cash

417
00:26:25,640 --> 00:26:29,360
could buy one of these ceramic
models of the red barn,

418
00:26:29,400 --> 00:26:32,320
take it home
and have it on your own mantelpiece.

419
00:26:32,360 --> 00:26:34,040
Slightly more exclusive

420
00:26:34,080 --> 00:26:38,280
were knick-knacks made out of
the timbers of the red barn itself.

421
00:26:38,320 --> 00:26:42,240
This is a little snuffbox
in the shape of a shoe.

422
00:26:42,280 --> 00:26:46,960
The items associated with the crime
were more valuable.

423
00:26:47,000 --> 00:26:51,640
These were the actual pistols.
These are what he used to shoot her.

424
00:26:52,920 --> 00:26:55,320
Ascending up the scale
of gruesomeness,

425
00:26:55,360 --> 00:26:57,480
this is a book about William Corder,

426
00:26:57,520 --> 00:26:59,920
written by a journalist
from The Times.

427
00:26:59,960 --> 00:27:03,880
You'd think it was just a book,
until you open up the cover

428
00:27:03,920 --> 00:27:07,760
and you read that
the leather binding is made

429
00:27:07,800 --> 00:27:10,400
from the skin of the murderer,

430
00:27:10,440 --> 00:27:14,040
taken from his body
and tanned by a surgeon

431
00:27:14,080 --> 00:27:16,480
from the Suffolk Hospital.

432
00:27:16,520 --> 00:27:21,080
But top of the tree,
absolutely most gruesome of all,

433
00:27:21,120 --> 00:27:24,920
this is the back
of William Corder's head.

434
00:27:24,960 --> 00:27:27,480
It's the skin from his scalp.

435
00:27:27,520 --> 00:27:30,560
You can see on it the little hairs,

436
00:27:30,600 --> 00:27:33,560
and just over here
is the murderer's ear.

437
00:27:35,400 --> 00:27:39,200
Phrenologists were also keen
to study Corder's head,

438
00:27:39,240 --> 00:27:41,800
because they thought
the lumps and bumps on it

439
00:27:41,840 --> 00:27:45,040
represented the homicidal
aspects of his personality.

440
00:27:46,560 --> 00:27:48,320
What is this?

441
00:27:48,360 --> 00:27:53,600
This is a full 3-D bust
of William Corder, taken from death.

442
00:27:53,640 --> 00:27:55,920
It does bear some of the grim
signs

443
00:27:55,960 --> 00:27:59,640
of his death by strangulation
and asphyxiation.

444
00:27:59,680 --> 00:28:00,840
If you look at the front

445
00:28:00,880 --> 00:28:03,360
where you can see the lips
and the nose are swollen,

446
00:28:03,400 --> 00:28:07,880
that is where all the blood
vessels are bursting in his face.

447
00:28:07,920 --> 00:28:10,760
Here, you can see someone
struggling through death.

448
00:28:12,600 --> 00:28:15,920
Tell me what happened to
William Corder's body afterwards.

449
00:28:15,960 --> 00:28:18,480
He would have probably been left
to hang for about an hour,

450
00:28:18,520 --> 00:28:21,000
just to make sure
he was certainly dead.

451
00:28:21,040 --> 00:28:23,200
Then he would have been
taken down to the Shire Hall,

452
00:28:23,240 --> 00:28:25,800
where basically, they would
have publicly anatomised him.

453
00:28:25,840 --> 00:28:28,200
So I'm getting an impression
of this dead body

454
00:28:28,240 --> 00:28:30,960
being brought into the Shire Hall
over there,

455
00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:36,720
and swarms of people coming to
examine it, all in public?  Yes.

456
00:28:36,760 --> 00:28:38,680
Presumably, it would have been

457
00:28:38,720 --> 00:28:41,680
the same sort of grand day out
as the execution.

458
00:28:41,720 --> 00:28:43,240
If you missed the execution,

459
00:28:43,280 --> 00:28:45,880
you could go along
and watch the body being cut up.

460
00:28:45,920 --> 00:28:47,000
It was, in essence,

461
00:28:47,040 --> 00:28:51,320
your chance to see a celebrity
of the nefarious sort.

462
00:28:51,360 --> 00:28:53,440
Would you say that he has
contributed

463
00:28:53,480 --> 00:28:56,000
to the local tourist industry?
Absolutely.

464
00:28:56,040 --> 00:28:59,480
Since he's been on display
here for the last hundred years,

465
00:28:59,520 --> 00:29:01,280
people come in every day saying,

466
00:29:01,320 --> 00:29:03,640
"Have you still got the book
bound in skin?

467
00:29:03,680 --> 00:29:05,160
"Have you got the bit of skin?" etc.

468
00:29:05,200 --> 00:29:06,440
And to be honest,

469
00:29:06,480 --> 00:29:08,560
the likes of the community
of Polstead

470
00:29:08,600 --> 00:29:11,000
still celebrate the story
of William Corder

471
00:29:11,040 --> 00:29:12,880
and the murder in the red barn.

472
00:29:12,920 --> 00:29:17,560
It's really funny to hear you saying
"We celebrate our local murderer"!

473
00:29:17,600 --> 00:29:22,520
I think it's because the story
has gone under so many transitions

474
00:29:22,560 --> 00:29:26,400
to become basically so fabricated
that it is a story.

475
00:29:26,440 --> 00:29:29,200
And I think we're celebrating
the story,

476
00:29:29,240 --> 00:29:33,320
as opposed to the reality
of the nastiness of the crime.

477
00:29:33,360 --> 00:29:37,320
And it has all the bearings
of a great, entertaining play.

478
00:29:39,800 --> 00:29:41,880
The tale of Maria Marten showed

479
00:29:41,920 --> 00:29:44,480
how a crime of passion in rural
Suffolk

480
00:29:44,520 --> 00:29:47,880
could become a national source
of entertainment.

481
00:29:47,920 --> 00:29:49,680
It elevated William Corder

482
00:29:49,720 --> 00:29:53,360
into one of the most notorious
murderers of the century.

483
00:29:53,400 --> 00:29:56,920
20 years later, it would be
a famous murderess

484
00:29:56,960 --> 00:30:00,240
who would similarly enthral
the public.

485
00:30:00,280 --> 00:30:03,800
This attractive
and apparently cold-hearted woman

486
00:30:03,840 --> 00:30:05,800
became infamous for her part

487
00:30:05,840 --> 00:30:08,880
in the crime known as
the Bermondsey Horror.

488
00:30:11,760 --> 00:30:13,320
Maria Manning was living

489
00:30:13,360 --> 00:30:17,000
at No.3, Miniver Place,
Bermondsey, South London,

490
00:30:17,040 --> 00:30:18,880
with her husband, Frederick.

491
00:30:18,920 --> 00:30:21,200
The year was 1849.

492
00:30:23,000 --> 00:30:24,880
Frederick and Maria Manning

493
00:30:24,920 --> 00:30:27,960
were a newly married
couple in their late twenties.

494
00:30:28,000 --> 00:30:31,200
Frederick had been
a guard on the railways,

495
00:30:31,240 --> 00:30:34,680
and then he had failed in business
as a publican

496
00:30:34,720 --> 00:30:36,680
and now he was unemployed.

497
00:30:36,720 --> 00:30:40,360
His wife, Maria,
was much more exotic.

498
00:30:40,400 --> 00:30:43,200
She was Swiss, and she had lived
the high life as a lady's maid.

499
00:30:43,240 --> 00:30:46,800
She had travelled abroad
and stayed in stately homes.

500
00:30:46,840 --> 00:30:49,320
But she too had fallen
on hard times.

501
00:30:49,360 --> 00:30:52,520
Now she was making ends meet
as a dressmaker.

502
00:30:52,560 --> 00:30:56,600
A frequent visitor to the Mannings'
house in Miniver Place

503
00:30:56,640 --> 00:31:00,080
was Patrick O'Connor.
He worked for the Customs,

504
00:31:00,120 --> 00:31:02,880
and he was rumoured to be
a very wealthy man.

505
00:31:04,160 --> 00:31:07,560
The three of them certainly
had a curious relationship.

506
00:31:07,600 --> 00:31:11,760
In fact, it was scandalous. This was
almost certainly a love triangle.

507
00:31:14,240 --> 00:31:17,840
On Thursday, 9th August, Patrick
O'Connor told friends

508
00:31:17,880 --> 00:31:21,560
that he had been invited
to have dinner with the Mannings.

509
00:31:21,600 --> 00:31:24,800
This was the last time he was seen
alive.

510
00:31:26,560 --> 00:31:31,160
Sometime during that evening,
he was ruthlessly killed.

511
00:31:31,200 --> 00:31:34,720
Then, using his keys,
Maria went to his lodgings

512
00:31:34,760 --> 00:31:39,760
and stole his valuables, including
his stock and share certificates.

513
00:31:39,800 --> 00:31:41,120
Four days later,

514
00:31:41,160 --> 00:31:46,240
O'Connor was reported missing to a
now centralised Metropolitan Police.

515
00:31:48,160 --> 00:31:50,720
On Friday the 17th of August,

516
00:31:50,760 --> 00:31:55,880
two police constables got access
to 3 Miniver Place.

517
00:31:55,920 --> 00:31:58,600
They were PC Barnes of the
K Division

518
00:31:58,640 --> 00:32:02,360
and PC Burson of the M Division,
both for the Metropolitan Police.

519
00:32:02,400 --> 00:32:05,760
Inside the house,
they found a state of confusion.

520
00:32:05,800 --> 00:32:08,560
Whatever furniture had been
here had disappeared

521
00:32:08,600 --> 00:32:10,120
and the Mannings were gone.

522
00:32:10,160 --> 00:32:13,760
The constables reported back
that the nest were still here

523
00:32:13,800 --> 00:32:15,040
but the birds had flown.

524
00:32:16,360 --> 00:32:19,480
Their search then took them
into the back kitchen.

525
00:32:20,760 --> 00:32:23,480
The two police constables
had eagle eyes.

526
00:32:23,520 --> 00:32:24,760
In the kitchen,

527
00:32:24,800 --> 00:32:28,600
they noticed that one of
the flagstones was loose
near the hearth.

528
00:32:28,640 --> 00:32:31,640
They soon had it up
and there was O'Connor.

529
00:32:31,680 --> 00:32:36,560
He was naked, he's been trussed up,
he'd been tossed in quicklime

530
00:32:36,600 --> 00:32:38,720
and his dead body was now blue.

531
00:32:40,720 --> 00:32:43,680
The hunt for the murderers
was now on,

532
00:32:43,720 --> 00:32:48,360
led by the newly formed detective
branch of the Metropolitan Police

533
00:32:48,400 --> 00:32:50,680
under inspector Charles Field.

534
00:32:50,720 --> 00:32:55,400
The Bermondsey horror was a chance
for them to prove themselves.

535
00:32:55,440 --> 00:32:59,560
First, Field's men had to
track the Mannings down.

536
00:32:59,600 --> 00:33:00,760
But where were they?

537
00:33:00,800 --> 00:33:05,640
The Mannings had split up
and run in different directions.

538
00:33:05,680 --> 00:33:08,080
It seems that Maria had
gone off first without

539
00:33:08,120 --> 00:33:12,360
the knowledge of her husband,
but with the couple's stolen wealth.

540
00:33:12,400 --> 00:33:15,480
The Mannings had robbed O'Connor
and they'd killed him,

541
00:33:15,520 --> 00:33:18,760
and on top of that, Maria had
double-crossed her husband.

542
00:33:20,520 --> 00:33:22,360
Maria fled north to Scotland

543
00:33:22,400 --> 00:33:26,280
while the hapless Fredrick caught
a steamer to the Channel Islands.

544
00:33:27,400 --> 00:33:30,760
To discover more about how the
detectives were able to trace

545
00:33:30,800 --> 00:33:34,920
the Mannings, I met up again with
Rosalind Crone in south London.

546
00:33:38,040 --> 00:33:41,000
In 1811, when we have the
Ratcliff Highway murders,

547
00:33:41,040 --> 00:33:43,520
there's a slightly chaotic
response from the authorities

548
00:33:43,560 --> 00:33:46,800
but things are very different by the
times of the Mannings, aren't they?

549
00:33:46,840 --> 00:33:50,120
Yes. What we see is a much more
joined-up system of policing,

550
00:33:50,160 --> 00:33:53,480
but more significantly they're
joined by a new detective force.

551
00:33:53,520 --> 00:33:57,720
Now, the Metropolitan Police force
in 1829 are meant to be very much

552
00:33:57,760 --> 00:34:00,240
a preventing crime force,

553
00:34:00,280 --> 00:34:03,920
so they patrol beats and keep a watch
over people and property.

554
00:34:03,960 --> 00:34:07,880
The detective force, founded
in 1842, is meant to detect crime.

555
00:34:07,920 --> 00:34:09,800
It's a slightly different function.

556
00:34:09,840 --> 00:34:11,840
But they're only a small
office at this stage -

557
00:34:11,880 --> 00:34:15,440
about eight man in total in their
office in Scotland Yard.

558
00:34:15,480 --> 00:34:18,440
So we've got this new detective
squad and they're allowed, actually,

559
00:34:18,480 --> 00:34:20,600
to go after the criminals
for the first time.

560
00:34:20,640 --> 00:34:22,720
How did they actually catch Maria?

561
00:34:22,760 --> 00:34:26,200
First of all, the detective sergeant
who's sent out to have a

562
00:34:26,240 --> 00:34:29,560
look at the house, is able to
track down the cab driver who takes

563
00:34:29,600 --> 00:34:31,080
Maria to the station.

564
00:34:36,640 --> 00:34:39,560
He's able to figure out that she
goes to Euston station

565
00:34:39,600 --> 00:34:41,840
and gets on a train
bound for Edinburgh.

566
00:34:44,840 --> 00:34:48,120
Then he's able to use telegraphic
communications to wire up

567
00:34:48,160 --> 00:34:51,040
a message to his colleagues
in the Edinburgh police,

568
00:34:51,080 --> 00:34:54,600
putting out a description of Maria
which they circulate

569
00:34:54,640 --> 00:34:56,320
and are able to track her down.

570
00:34:59,040 --> 00:35:01,880
Maria was arrested in Edinburgh.

571
00:35:01,920 --> 00:35:05,840
Shortly afterwards, Frederick was
apprehended in St Helier.

572
00:35:07,240 --> 00:35:10,840
This was a coup for the new
team at Scotland Yard.

573
00:35:10,880 --> 00:35:14,320
Their success in capturing
the Mannings was the first time

574
00:35:14,360 --> 00:35:17,440
the public became conscious of their
emerging role

575
00:35:17,480 --> 00:35:19,080
investigating homicide.

576
00:35:25,680 --> 00:35:29,320
Beside this square was
the site of Horsemonger Lane Gaol

577
00:35:29,360 --> 00:35:31,280
where the Mannings
spent their last days.

578
00:35:33,440 --> 00:35:36,320
The Mannings became national
celebrities,

579
00:35:36,360 --> 00:35:39,320
especially the dark,
bewitching Maria.

580
00:35:40,600 --> 00:35:45,560
The Times newspaper alone
ran 72 articles on the case, and an

581
00:35:45,600 --> 00:35:50,520
illustrated book about the couple
sold a colossal 2.5 million copies.

582
00:35:53,600 --> 00:35:57,240
What was it that made Maria Manning
so fascinating?

583
00:35:57,280 --> 00:35:59,920
Now, Maria Manning - well,
part of her fascination is,

584
00:35:59,960 --> 00:36:03,560
of course, because she's a woman
and the idea of a female murderess

585
00:36:03,600 --> 00:36:06,600
flies in the face of Victorian
notions of femininity.

586
00:36:06,640 --> 00:36:09,760
But it's also because
she's foreign, and also

587
00:36:09,800 --> 00:36:13,120
because she has been a lady's maid
in some of the grand houses

588
00:36:13,160 --> 00:36:16,120
and dresses beautifully in these
black silk gowns

589
00:36:16,160 --> 00:36:17,800
and she's very attractive.

590
00:36:17,840 --> 00:36:21,800
It seems to me that she's
unacceptably ambitious -

591
00:36:21,840 --> 00:36:24,000
she's not happy to just be
a servant,

592
00:36:24,040 --> 00:36:27,040
she wants to get married to a rich
man, and even better than that

593
00:36:27,080 --> 00:36:29,680
she wants to marry another man that
she didn't actually hook.

594
00:36:29,720 --> 00:36:32,560
She's got two men on the go.
Yes, yes, that's right.

595
00:36:38,560 --> 00:36:43,400
On 25th October 1849, the Mannings,
husband and wife,

596
00:36:43,440 --> 00:36:47,240
were brought to the greatest
theatre in the land.

597
00:36:47,280 --> 00:36:51,640
The Central Criminal Court,
better known as the Old Bailey.

598
00:36:56,640 --> 00:36:58,960
For the ever curious British public,

599
00:36:59,000 --> 00:37:01,880
this latest melodrama was
reaching its climax.

600
00:37:03,000 --> 00:37:05,440
They'd met a new hero,
the detective,

601
00:37:05,480 --> 00:37:08,600
who could hunt down
and capture the killer.

602
00:37:08,640 --> 00:37:11,440
And murder itself had entered
the modern age.

603
00:37:11,480 --> 00:37:13,560
The perpetrators fleeing by train,

604
00:37:13,600 --> 00:37:17,400
the sleuths tracking them
down by telegraph.

605
00:37:17,440 --> 00:37:21,280
The stage was set for the finale
the nation had been waiting for.

606
00:37:23,680 --> 00:37:28,240
Numerous distinguished visitors
would now turn up to watch the show.

607
00:37:28,280 --> 00:37:30,240
There are members
of the House of Lords

608
00:37:30,280 --> 00:37:32,640
and some very grand foreign
diplomats

609
00:37:32,680 --> 00:37:34,520
like the Austrian Ambassador

610
00:37:34,560 --> 00:37:37,880
and the first secretary to the
Prussian delegation.

611
00:37:37,920 --> 00:37:41,200
All the action would
happen in Court Number One.

612
00:37:55,120 --> 00:37:58,080
Maria made the fateful climb
from the cells below

613
00:37:58,120 --> 00:38:02,440
to put in her
most important public appearance.

614
00:38:02,480 --> 00:38:06,960
She was dressed to kill in her usual
close-fitting dress

615
00:38:07,000 --> 00:38:08,800
of fine, black satin.

616
00:38:14,400 --> 00:38:16,120
The charges are read out.

617
00:38:16,160 --> 00:38:20,480
Frederick George Manning is accused
of murdering Patrick O'Connor,

618
00:38:20,520 --> 00:38:22,960
aided by his wife, Maria Manning.

619
00:38:23,000 --> 00:38:24,920
Both of them plead not guilty.

620
00:38:30,440 --> 00:38:33,600
The court heard that O'Connor had
been shot through the eye

621
00:38:33,640 --> 00:38:38,840
and received 17 blows to the head
that had smashed his skull.

622
00:38:38,880 --> 00:38:43,240
There were details to suggest
that this was a premeditated crime.

623
00:38:43,280 --> 00:38:45,720
In the weeks before O'Connor's
disappearance,

624
00:38:45,760 --> 00:38:48,440
the Mannings had bought
a crowbar from an ironmonger

625
00:38:48,480 --> 00:38:53,480
in King William Street, a shovel
from a shop in Tooley Street

626
00:38:53,520 --> 00:38:56,440
and quicklime from a builder
in Bermondsey Square.

627
00:38:57,640 --> 00:39:01,320
And it wasn't the only damning
evidence that Maria faced.

628
00:39:01,360 --> 00:39:04,720
By the second day, she seemed to
be on trial not only for being

629
00:39:04,760 --> 00:39:07,440
a killer, but also for being
a woman.

630
00:39:09,360 --> 00:39:11,400
To save his client from the gallows,

631
00:39:11,440 --> 00:39:16,160
Frederick's defence barrister chose
to blame Maria for the crime.

632
00:39:16,200 --> 00:39:19,800
He demonised her as that most
terrible of creatures,

633
00:39:19,840 --> 00:39:21,720
a female of loose morals,

634
00:39:21,760 --> 00:39:25,160
quite capable of doing
the foul deed on her own.

635
00:39:26,760 --> 00:39:30,200
We're all in the habit,
he says, of associating the female

636
00:39:30,240 --> 00:39:35,160
character with the idea of mildness
and obedience.

637
00:39:35,200 --> 00:39:39,320
The female is capable of reaching
a higher point in virtue than

638
00:39:39,360 --> 00:39:44,800
the male, but when she gives way to
vice, she sinks far lower.

639
00:39:46,600 --> 00:39:48,840
The court deliberated for two days

640
00:39:48,880 --> 00:39:53,040
and then the jury
withdrew for 45 minutes.

641
00:39:53,080 --> 00:39:57,080
When they came back,
it was with a verdict of guilty.

642
00:40:02,720 --> 00:40:05,160
Frederick Manning is given
the opportunity to address

643
00:40:05,200 --> 00:40:08,880
the whole court
but he turns it down.

644
00:40:08,920 --> 00:40:13,280
Maria is given the same chance
and she takes it. She lets rip.

645
00:40:13,320 --> 00:40:18,160
There is no justice
for a foreigner in this country.

646
00:40:18,200 --> 00:40:22,920
I have no protection from the judges
or my husband.

647
00:40:24,800 --> 00:40:28,880
In the middle of this explosive
rant, Maria grabs the herbs,

648
00:40:28,920 --> 00:40:33,520
used as air fresheners in the court,
and hurls them at the judge.

649
00:40:33,560 --> 00:40:36,680
I am unjustly condemned
by the court.

650
00:40:38,440 --> 00:40:40,480
Shameful England.

651
00:40:43,160 --> 00:40:46,080
Maria Manning and her black satin
dress

652
00:40:46,120 --> 00:40:49,480
would cast a really long shadow
over years to come.

653
00:40:49,520 --> 00:40:53,200
She became known
as the Lady Macbeth of Bermondsey

654
00:40:53,240 --> 00:40:55,240
and she inspired Charles Dickens.

655
00:40:55,280 --> 00:40:59,480
He refashioned her as Hortense
the lady's maid, who turns out to

656
00:40:59,520 --> 00:41:02,120
be the killer in Bleak House.

657
00:41:02,160 --> 00:41:04,800
She was immortalised in wax.

658
00:41:04,840 --> 00:41:08,880
Her figure at Madame Tussauds
became so popular that it was

659
00:41:08,920 --> 00:41:13,440
still on display there when I first
visited the gallery in the 1970s.

660
00:41:18,720 --> 00:41:21,920
The case was a sensation of the age.

661
00:41:21,960 --> 00:41:27,480
Yes, there was sex, greed and
treachery, but there was much more.

662
00:41:27,520 --> 00:41:31,800
There was detection by methodical
police work, bringing with it

663
00:41:31,840 --> 00:41:35,760
a new and satisfying
kind of resolution for the public.

664
00:41:49,560 --> 00:41:53,400
The execution of the Mannings
took place on 13th November,

665
00:41:53,440 --> 00:41:56,720
up on the roof of the
Horsemonger Lane Gaol.

666
00:41:56,760 --> 00:42:00,840
This was pure theatre -
a huge crowd was expected,

667
00:42:00,880 --> 00:42:02,320
so three days beforehand,

668
00:42:02,360 --> 00:42:07,040
the surrounding streets were all
cleared and barricades were erected.

669
00:42:07,080 --> 00:42:11,200
On the day, it was estimated
that 50,000 people turned up,

670
00:42:11,240 --> 00:42:14,160
with 500 policemen to
maintain order.

671
00:42:14,200 --> 00:42:16,800
Hangings were getting
increasingly scarce,

672
00:42:16,840 --> 00:42:19,920
particularly for females,
so this double dose of husband

673
00:42:19,960 --> 00:42:23,000
and wife was a complete treat
for execution lovers.

674
00:42:25,320 --> 00:42:29,240
Changes in the law back in the 1820s
meant that the death penalty

675
00:42:29,280 --> 00:42:32,680
was now reserved
only for treason or murder.

676
00:42:32,720 --> 00:42:36,600
Previously, it had been applied to
a whole range of crimes.

677
00:42:36,640 --> 00:42:41,880
So by 1849, a public hanging was
a real occasion,

678
00:42:41,920 --> 00:42:45,040
which is why Charles Dickens chose
to observe this one.

679
00:42:48,840 --> 00:42:52,280
He and a group of his friends rented
a room overlooking the jail

680
00:42:52,320 --> 00:42:56,680
and they held a sort of party
as events unfolded.

681
00:42:56,720 --> 00:43:00,400
Now, Dickens was fascinated by
murder and murderers.

682
00:43:00,440 --> 00:43:02,560
He was also in favour of capital
punishment.

683
00:43:02,600 --> 00:43:05,640
He believed that they should
hang for their crimes.

684
00:43:05,680 --> 00:43:09,920
But what really upset him
on this occasion was the ghoulish

685
00:43:09,960 --> 00:43:12,480
and disrespectful
behaviour of the crowd.

686
00:43:16,600 --> 00:43:20,480
Outside the jail,
the crowd waited for showtime.

687
00:43:20,520 --> 00:43:24,160
They sang mocking songs
and ate commemorative biscuits.

688
00:43:26,960 --> 00:43:30,240
We hear that inside,
in private, there was

689
00:43:30,280 --> 00:43:33,960
a final reconciliation
between Frederick and Maria.

690
00:43:34,000 --> 00:43:37,080
They ascended to the
gallows as husband and wife.

691
00:43:42,720 --> 00:43:47,080
The Mannings were hanged
side by side, on a scaffold

692
00:43:47,120 --> 00:43:50,720
that had been lifted up to give
maximum visibility

693
00:43:50,760 --> 00:43:54,680
and theatricality to the
grim business.

694
00:43:54,720 --> 00:43:58,960
Maria was defiant
and stylish to the end,

695
00:43:59,000 --> 00:44:03,280
wearing her black satin dress
and gloves for her final appearance.

696
00:44:05,000 --> 00:44:07,040
She died with dignity.

697
00:44:15,720 --> 00:44:18,200
The case of the Mannings
was a turning point

698
00:44:18,240 --> 00:44:20,560
in the history of crime.

699
00:44:20,600 --> 00:44:22,920
It had been a case played
out in public,

700
00:44:22,960 --> 00:44:28,960
a ghastly melodrama with the nation
sucking up every gory detail.

701
00:44:29,000 --> 00:44:31,640
But it was also a case
that had been solved

702
00:44:31,680 --> 00:44:34,240
by the new Metropolitan
Police force,

703
00:44:34,280 --> 00:44:38,040
its constables
and especially its detectives.

704
00:44:38,080 --> 00:44:42,080
A new chapter in the history
of murder was about to begin.

705
00:45:07,560 --> 00:45:09,720
Subtitles by Ericsson