GEORGE HUTCHINSON

two murderous dustman enter or exit the premises, and they did not seem
to have left any tracks in the snow. Had they existed at all? An axe with
blood and grey hairs on it was found in the kitchen, and this was obviously
the murder weapon. When the room of Elizabeth Laws was searched, a
quantity of pawn tickets were found, and when the police tracked down
the pawnshops, they discovered that Elizabeth had for some time been
stealing Mrs Bacon’s clothes and other belongings. She had been in the habit
of letting herself out of the house after her mistress had retired to bed,
to revel in various low public houses. She used to tell people that she was
companion to a wealthy aunt, and once gave her drinking companions odd
volumes of Barclay’s Dictionary, stolen at No. 11 Ordnance Terrace. Then
there was the matter of the ring and brooch stolen from the deceased after
the murder, which Elizabeth had tried to secrete. A blood-stained purse
containing more than £2 in silver was found buried in a pot of sand in the
cellar. A locked strong-box in the house was found to contain £100. When
the murder house was searched by the police, one of Elizabeth’s dresses
was found, severely stained with blood. Superintendent Everist suspected
that this had been the dress she had worn when she beat Mrs Bacon to death
with the axe in the cellar, before dragging the body up to the bedroom,
changing her blood-stained dress, and inflicting a shallow wound to her
throat in order to evade suspicion. A kettle and some bloody water found in
the cellar indicated that prior to dragging the body up to the bedroom, she
had made an attempt to clean off some of the blood.
Elizabeth Laws is found sitting by the stairs,
from Famous Crimes Past & Present.
The coroner’s inquest returned a verdict of wilful murder against Elizabeth Laws, and she was committed to stand
trial at the Maidstone Spring Assizes on March 16. The evidence against her was entirely circumstantial, but it appeared
to be very strong indeed. Her defending barrister Mr Ribton speculated that two experienced London thieves might have
entered No. 11 Ordnance Terrace, knowing that the feeble old Mrs Bacon had hoarded money in the house. Perhaps
doubting whether the jury would believe this yarn, he then went on to emphasize the youth and small stature of the
prisoner: was it really credible that such an innocent-looking creature could have committed a brutal axe murder? And
why, if she was the guilty party, had she not stolen the £100 in the strong-box? He also asked the jury to consider the
possibility that Mrs Bacon had complained of or chastised Elizabeth Laws, who had been holding the axe at the time,
provoking the fatal blows, struck under the influence of sudden excitement. In that case, the prisoner should surely
be found guilty of manslaughter only, and her life would be spared, so that the town of Maidstone would be spared the
disgrace of a public execution, which was an outrage upon every feeling of humanity and civilisation.
The Unitarian Church in Chatham, and right, the grave monument to the Bacon family in its cemetery
Ripperologist 146 October 2015 56