Once his wife was dead Samuel soon married Miss Pratt. By 1860 his second wife had managed to produce three more offspring and had another on the way. One of these was three-year-old Francis Savile, a precocious favourite of his father. Because of his wife's pregnancy Samuel felt it was once more necessary to employ a nurse, Elizabeth Gough, to look after the smaller members of the family.
Mr and Mrs Kent slept in a second-floor room with a small daughter in a crib. Across the landing was the nursery occupied by Francis, a one-year-old daughter and Elizabeth Gough. Also on the same floor were 16-year-old Constance and 15-year-old William, in separate rooms. Rooms on the top floor were occupied by the housemaid and the cook.
Miss Gough awoke at about 5am on June 30th 1860. She looked in to check on the baby and then into the cot where Francis slept. He was not there. Miss Gough was not unduly alarmed as Mrs Kent often came and collected her son during the night, so she went back to bed. An hour later she got up, dressed and went to the Kent's room to enquire of her mistress if she should take Francis. But Mrs Kent hadn't been in to fetch the child. A frantic search ensued. There was no sign of the child in the house but a window was found open in the drawing room. Samuel Kent, fearing that his son had been kidnapped, hurriedly dressed and rode off to the police station in Trowbridge.
Soon the alarm was raised in the village all of the villagers gathered and started to conduct a search for the missing child. Two of the villagers found a disused servant's outhouse and, on looking inside, found the child's body. There was a deep wound in his side and his throat had been slashed so severely that the head was almost severed. By the time that the body had been recovered back to the house Samuel Kent had returned from Trowbridge with the police.
An inquest returned a verdict of murder by some person, or persons, unknown. The police inspector now decided that he had a suspect and arrested Elizabeth Gough but soon had to release her through lack of evidence. On 15th July Scotland Yard stepped in and sent Inspector Jonathon Whicher to investigate. Whicher was hindered more than helped by the local force. While carrying out his investigation he found out that the household had an unusually large turnover of servants. He decided to interview them all in order to get a bit of background on the household. He learnt from them that the two older children did not receive the same favour from their parents as their younger siblings.
This especially applied to Constance, who it had to be said bore a great deal of resentment. After interviewing Constance he became more and more convinced that she had more to do with the death than she was saying. The problem was finding enough hard evidence to prove it.
Whicher re-interviewed the servants and found out from the maid that, on the Monday following the murder, Constance had approached her while she was preparing the laundry to go to the local washerwoman. Constance had asked for her night-gown, telling the girl that she may have left her purse in the pocket. Once they had established that the gown was in the laundry Constance asked the maid to fetch her a glass of water. By the time that the maid had returned the night-gown had gone. Whicher surmised that Constance had distracted the maid's attention so that she could remove the gown to her room, having once established its presence in the laundry. If the gown had gone missing while it was away being washed, then it wasn't her fault, she could account for all her gowns. This would cover up the fact that, in reality, she was missing a gown, a bloodstained one.
It was not a lot of evidence to go on but Whicher had decided that it would have to be enough. He arrestedd her on the 20 July. If he was expecting her to be overawed and break down under questioning he was to be disapointed. She may have only been a young girl but Constance was made of sterner stuff and maintained her denial of any involvement in the killing.
When the case came before the magistrates on 27 July the evidence was so thin that many in the audience openly laughed at it. Whicher was reviled by many and Constance was released on bail. Although she had not been acquitted it was obvious that the charge would not stand up against her.
Whicher returned to London and, shortly after, retired on the grounds of 'ill health'. Nurse Gough, who had moved to a neighbouring town and taken a job as a seamstress, was again arrested and brought before the magistrates. Again, there was no evidence and she was released. Because of the attention that his family had been receiving, Samuel Kent moved his family to Wales and Constance was sent to a convent in France in early 1861.
In August 1863 Constance returned to England and went to St Mary's Home in Brighton. This was a religious retreat where she was a paying guest. It would seem that Constance was not all bad and perhaps being unable to put up with something like murder on her concious she decided she could go on with the deception no longer. On 25 April 1864 Constance, accompanied by Reverend Wagner, the director of the home, walked into the magistrate's office on Bow Street and confessed to the murder to Sir Thomas Henry, the Chief Magistrate.
She was brought to trial on July 21 1865 at Salisbury Assizes and pleaded guilty. No witnesses were called and she was sentenced to death. Because of her age at the time of the crime her sentence was commuted to penal servitude for life. She was released from Millbank Prison in 1885, after serving twenty years, and died in 1944.
Later that day when his older, nine-year-old, brother asked to play with Roger he went to the pantry only to find that his brother was dead. Running back he told his mother who went to the lifeless corpse and wrapped the dead child in her apron, she took the body outside and threw it down a well. Scared of being found out she picked up the stick she had used to beat the child and threw it on the fire.
Unbeknown to her she had been observed by her neighbours who recovered
the body and then going into the cottage were able to retrieve the stick
from the fire. Her trial at Warwick did not last long and she was soon
found guilty and sentenced to death. She was hanged on 24th August 1778.