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