Dorset Murders (8 page)

Trevett's skull was fractured and he died in hospital later the same day. Dethridge was tried at the Dorset Assizes before Mr Justice Lush on 22 July 1869. Known as being both sullen and insolent, Dethridge showed little emotion throughout his trial, even smiling as he was found guilty and sentenced to death.

He remained indifferent to his fate in the run-up to his execution on 12 August 1869, refusing to allow anyone to pray for his soul as he mounted the scaffold at Dorchester, where he reluctantly agreed to shake hands with Calcraft, his executioner. His death was instantaneous and, like Preedy, he was subsequently buried within the prison walls. Trevett was buried in the graveyard of St George's Church in Portland, where his headstone simply records that he was ‘murdered by a convict in 1869'.

Less than one year later, Assistant Warder Edward Love Bly met his death at the hands of prisoner Thomas Ratcliffe. Bly was in charge of a work party of seventeen convicts on 20 April 1870, also working on the fortifications. Like Dethridge before him, Ratcliffe had been reported and punished, and, on joining the gang that morning, had been heard to say that he intended to kill Officer Bly. Bly had been warned about this threat and had, as a consequence, tried to keep Ratcliffe out of reach of any tools that he might use as weapons. At about 2 p.m. Ratcliffe was given an order by Bly to move to a different part of the job, at which he picked up a shovel and moved towards Bly.

Another convict shouted out a timely warning and Bly was able to duck, so that the vicious blow aimed at his head instead caught his shoulder. Bly staggered away, but Ratcliffe followed, all the while raining blows with his shovel on any part of Bly that he could reach. One particular blow caught Bly on his shin, slicing through the flesh to the bone.

By the time other convicts had managed to subdue Ratcliffe and pin him to the ground, Bly was bleeding heavily. He managed to limp back to the prison, where he received treatment for numerous cuts and bruises, appearing to recover quickly from the assault. However, by 10 May it became evident that the wound on Bly's leg was becoming infected and he eventually died on 13 June from blood poisoning.

Ratcliffe was tried for killing Edward Bly at Dorchester in July 1870, before Mr Justice Willes. The main question at the trial was whether the charge against Ratcliffe should be one of murder or manslaughter. However, Ratcliffe rather sealed his own fate by testifying that, ‘I did assault the officer. I tried to take his life and should have succeeded had not the other prisoners prevented me.'

Ratcliffe was found guilty of wilful murder and sentenced to death. Like Preedy and Dethridge before him, he was hanged by William Calcraft at Dorchester Prison on 15 August 1870.

Portland Prison was converted into a Borstal in 1921, and in 1965 an officer named Derek Lambert was killed by an inmate, who was later sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder. The prison became a Young Offenders Institution in 1988.

[Note: In various contemporary accounts of the murders of Portland Prison, the name of convict Thomas Moore is also recorded as John Moore. Prison surgeon William Houghton is alternatively referred to as William Hawler. Joseph Trevett's surname is alternatively spelled Trevitt, while Thomas Ratcliffe's name is alternatively spelled Radcliffe.]

T
wenty-four-year-old Emma Pitt had been a schoolmistress at the National School at Hampreston for several years. She was a respectable unmarried lady from a good family, who was described as being of the most excellent moral character. Normally Emma did not live on the school premises, instead boarding with her parents in neighbouring Wimborne Minster, although there was a bedroom and sitting room over the schoolrooms which she could use if she wanted.

By May 1869, tongues were wagging in and around Wimborne with the scandalous rumour that Miss Pitt was pregnant. Eventually one of the gossips, Esther Cook, could bear the suspense no longer and went directly to Emma to ask, ‘Is it true what all the people are saying about you – that you are far gone in the family way?'

Emma was most indignant. Even though she was a slight, slender young woman and her condition was obviously visible, she categorically denied being pregnant and accused the villagers of lying and trying to blacken her character. However, just weeks later, on 15 June, she arrived at the school in the morning and, instead of going to her classroom as normal, went straight upstairs to the bedroom, saying that she felt unwell.

A neighbour of the school, Mrs Elizabeth Parsons, firmly believed that Emma was pregnant, thinking her to be about six months into her term. Hearing that morning that she was ill, she went upstairs to check on her and realised immediately that not only was Emma definitely pregnant, but she was actually about to give birth. Knowing Emma's prickly reaction to any suggestion that she might be expecting a baby, Mrs Parsons said nothing to her on the subject, although she did suggest that the school children were given a half-holiday and sent home. Emma wouldn't hear of it, knowing that any such action would only serve to fuel the gossips. Hence the students were left in the charge of a pupil-teacher, Miss Julia Guy, and, after fetching Emma a cup of tea with a tot of brandy in it, Mrs Parsons went home. She checked on Emma several more times during the day, giving her more tea and brandy. Each time, Emma maintained that her illness was nothing more than a violent attack of sickness and diarrhoea. She asked Mrs Parsons for some ginger, saying that she was suffering from wind and also told her that she had taken gin and some tincture of rhubarb, but had been unable to keep them down.

Mrs Parsons returned at about half past three in the afternoon to find Emma still in labour – and still vehemently denying the fact that she was pregnant.

After the school day had finished at four o'clock and the children had all gone home, Miss Guy herself went upstairs to check on Emma, who begged her not to let Mrs Parsons come near her again. Accordingly, when Miss Guy left the building shortly afterwards, she made sure that the front door of the school was locked behind her.

Mrs Parsons came back at about five o'clock and, having tried the front door and found it locked against her, simply walked round the building to the back door. As she entered the school she was met by Emma Pitt walking down the stairs.

Emma seemed quite put out at seeing her neighbour, asking her how she had managed to get in. Still obviously unwell and very weak, she made no protest when Mrs Parsons announced her intention of procuring a cart so that Emma could be driven home. As Mrs Parsons helped Emma into the cart, she noticed that the front of her dress was bloodstained.

It was now obvious to Mrs Parsons that Emma was no longer pregnant. As soon as she had sent Emma on her way, she rushed straight upstairs to the school bedroom, accompanied by her daughter, Sarah Newman. Noticing some bloodstains on the bedding and the bedroom floor, they began a frantic search for the baby, which they eventually found concealed in a drawer beneath a patchwork quilt. The child – a boy – was dead, although still warm. He lay on his back, heavily bloodstained, his mouth wide open. His head was very bruised and the umbilical cord had been roughly torn several inches from his body.

Mrs Parsons immediately sent for the police. The first officers to arrive were Deputy Chief Constable John Hammond and Constable Adams, who also noted the large amount of blood on the bedroom floor and the bed linen. The body of the infant was taken to the police station and placed in a locked cell until the surgeon could examine it. Meanwhile, Hammond went straight to Miss Pitt's home and arrested her. He described her as talking rationally and of being capable of understanding what was said to her, although in a much weakened physical state.

However, later that evening she was examined by a doctor, who found her to be in a very excited state and talking incoherently. There was no doubt in the doctor's mind that she had recently been confined. A female superintendent was brought in to take care of her and it was not until 2 July that Emma had recovered sufficiently to be formally charged with the wilful murder of her baby. Her only comment was, ‘I hope they will prove that I did it'.

On the day after the baby's birth, the school bedroom was searched again In the same drawer where the infant's body had been found was the child's tongue, cut from his mouth and wrapped in a piece of rag, which had then been tied up with a blue ribbon. A large stone, usually used to prop open the bedroom door, was found on the stairs leading to the bedroom, heavily stained with blood.

When the body of the baby was examined, it was discovered that the child's jaw had been broken in five places and his tongue clumsily removed with some kind of sharp instrument. Dr Druitt, the surgeon, likened the severity of the damage to the child's mouth to that which he would normally have expected to see from a shotgun wound. There was a deep cut on the side of the baby's mouth and severe bruising on its forehead. Druitt believed that the baby was full term and had not been stillborn. He determined the cause of the infant's death as suffocation due to congealed blood in the throat.

Emma Pitt stood trial for the wilful murder of her baby boy at the Summer Assizes in Dorchester on 23 July 1869, pleading ‘Not Guilty'. Mr Justice Lush presided, with Mr Ffooks and Mr Nugent Bankes prosecuting, and Mr Collins acting for the defence. Because of the delicate nature of the case, the court was cleared of women and children before the proceedings commenced.

The biggest question of the trial was whether or not the baby boy had ever had a separate existence to its mother. Two surgeons, Druitt and his assistant Mr Manning, were called to testify and it was their opinion that the wounds found on the child's body had been inflicted while the baby was alive, meaning that it had definitely existed as a separate entity from its mother. In spite of a vigorous cross-examination by the defence, during which Mr Collins cited studies made by eminent surgeons, both of the medical witnesses stuck firmly to their opinions. Collins asked whether they had removed the child's lungs to see if they would float in water, that being the test thought to prove conclusively whether or not the lungs had ever been inflated with air. Druitt maintained that he had not thought it necessary, since he believed that the bruising on the baby's forehead, the rigidity of its body when it was found and the retraction of the muscles around the cut on its mouth were sufficient proof that the child had lived and breathed independently.

At this point Mr Justice Lush addressed the jury and asked them whether or not they believed that the child had ever existed separately. If they did not believe that it had, then it would be futile to proceed with the trial.

The jury debated for a few minutes before informing the judge that they would like to hear the case out.

Mr Collins then argued strenuously for his client, telling the jury that the only evidence against his client was the opinion of the medical men, which he summarised as ‘altogether a matter of conjecture'. There was, he told them, ‘not a tittle of substantial evidence' on which they could rely.

Collins reminded them that no sharp instrument had ever been found, either in the bedroom or in Emma's possession, with which she might have removed her child's tongue and that although Emma's bedroom was directly above the schoolroom, no cry from a newborn infant had been heard. (He neglected to mention that the evidence heard in court seemed to suggest that Miss Guy and all the children had left the school by the time Emma Pitt had actually given birth!) Collins presented Emma Pitt as the pathetic victim of the unnamed man whose lust had destroyed her virtue rather than as a murderess. He pointed out that she would have suffered extreme bodily pain and shame at her condition and asked the jury to consider whether, if Emma had indeed murdered her baby, would she not have disposed of the body after doing so, rather than leaving it in the drawer as evidence of her guilt, which would inevitably lead to her detection?