Murder Cases - Female W
*****

*****
Waddingham, Nurse Dorothea
*****
Webster, Kate
*****
Williams, Ann
*****
Williams, Jaqueline Annette
*****
Williams,  Dorothy
*****
Wilson, Catherine
*****


Waddingham, Nurse Dorothea

No details are listed for this case at this time 

Webster, Kate

Every so often a killer appears who is reviled by all. When Kate Webster went to the gallows at Wandsworth Prison on 29th July 1879 she was one such person. Kate was born in Killane, County Wexford, in 1849 of poor, but respectable, parents. Like a lot of small children she was caught stealing on numerous occasions but went on until she had a reputation for dishonesty. When in her early teens she stole a quantity of money and left home using the money to sail to Liverpool and then spent the next few years living on what she could steal. She tried picking pockets but was not very good at it and was caught and sent to prison for four years at the age of eighteen.

When she was released she travelled to London and took a job as a charwoman and supplemented this by becoming a prostitute. It was not too long before she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. Even this event failed to reform her and she took to robbing boarding houses. Her method was to take a room, sell off everything that she could lay her hands on before absconding. Over the next few years she was arrested on innumerable occasions and received a number of short prison sentences. In 1875 she was sentenced to eighteen months which she spent in Wandsworth. When released in 1877 she was free for only a short time before finding herself back inside.

In January 1879 Kate moved to Richmond. After a couple of months she obtained a job as maid to wealthy Mrs Julia Martha Thomas who lived at 2 Vine Cottages, Park Road, Richmond. Initially she worked well for Mrs Thomas but soon fell back into her old habits of spending more time in the local pubs than at work. On Sunday 2nd May 1879, Mrs Thomas had come to the end of her tether with Kate and sacked her. She then went off to church with Kate's sharp recriminations still ringing in her ears. When she returned from church she went upstairs to her bedroom. As she was removing her hat Kate, burst into the room with an axe in her hands. Before the old lady had chance to do anything Kate struck her a glancing blow on the head. In an attempt to escape from this madwoman, Mrs Thomas managed to struggle out onto the landing where Kate then pushed her down the stairs. Rushing down after he she struck the old woman again with the axe only this time with a full crushing blow. She dragged the body into the kitchen and started to chop it up. As if she was butchering a pig she hacked the corpse to pieces and putting the parts in a large copper pot set on an open fire started to boil them. She left it boiling while she went to Hayhoe's Pub for some refreshment. When she came back from the pub she drained off the liquid and packed up the remains in box and placed the whole lot inside cloth bags lined with thick, brown paper. She then started to clean the kitchen and hallway removing all evidence. The following day Kate made up another fire in the kitchen and this time put in Mrs Thomas's bones. Making sure that she kept back Mrs Thomas's gold bridgework she took this to a pawnbroker's where she was given six shillings. After all this hard work she went back to the Hayhoe's and got drunk. Never missing an opportunity to make money while she was there, she tried to sell some jars of 'best dripping', which was none other than the reduced body fat of Mrs Thomas.

Kate, now started calling herself 'Mrs Thomas' and started selling off the furniture. She obtained the name from a family that she knew of a man who might be interested. As they knew him they agreed to take Kate to see him. Henry Porter and his son, Robert, set out to visit John Church. They made their way home by way of several local pubs. In one of these, near to Hammersmith Bridge, Kate excused herself and left the pub carrying a large, black bag which when she returned a little while later she was not carrying. Kate next got Robert Porter to help her carry a large wooden chest to Richmond Bridge. When they got there Kate told the lad to leave the crate and that she would catch him up in a few minutes. Leaving her with the crate he was a little puzzled and as he left the bridge he heard the sound of a large splash. A couple of minutes later Kate appeared from out of the fog and said 'Well, that's over.' The crate was found the next day by fishermen working the banks of the Thames. When opening it they were horrified when they found the par-boiled remains of a woman.

John Church arrived at Vine Cottages and agreed to pay Kate £68 for the contents of the house, £18 of it in advance. Church came to collect the furniture on 18th March. Miss Ives who was the next-door neighbour was a little suspicious when she saw Mrs Thomas's furniture being removed and as she had not seen the old lady for a while she called the police. Seeing the authorities arrive Kate slipped out of the back door and fled back to Killane. It did not take the police long to catch up with her and she was arrested by the Royal Irish Constabulary on 28th March. When arrested she was still wearing Mrs Thomas's clothes and jewellery. She was taken back to London where she was charged with murder.

Her trial began at the Old Bailey on the 2nd July and lasted seven days. She denied having anything to do with the murder actually accusing Henry Porter and John Church of the deed. The jury would have none of this and duly found her guilty. She continued to deny any involvement in the murder up until the night before her execution, seeing no way out she decided to clear her conscience and confessed to the prison chaplain, Father McEnrey. She was hung on the 29 July 1879 by William Marwood

Williams, Ann

The following is a case that has been repeated throughout history with minor changes. Ann Williams was a woman who fell in love with her own butler. This would not have been so bad had it not been the case that she was already married. Seeing her husband as someone who was standing in the way of true happiness she decided to get rid of him. When her husband sat down to eat his tea he had no way of knowing that his wife had mixed in a quantity of white mercury. After eating it he became very ill and went to bed and called the doctor. He had been suspicious of his wife for some time and told the doctor of his thoughts. Williams died the next day and the doctor called the authorities who immediately arrested Ann.

It was a simple case and she was tried and found guilty. In 1753 the crime of murdering one's husband was still considered petty-treason, as such she was burned at the stake in Gloucester.

Williams,  Dorothy


Dorothy Williams was a coloured girl who was sentenced to death on April 18th 1991 for the robbery and murder of a black female who was ninety seven years old in Chicago on July 31st 1989
 

Williams, Jaqueline Annette


Jaqueline Annette Williams was a coloured girl who was sentenced to death on May 11th 1998 for the murder of three white females who were aged  28, 10 and 7) in Addison (Dupage county) on November 16th 1995

Wilson, Catherine

Catherine Wilson was born in 1842 and was a nurse by trade although no-one could say that her life was dedicated to making people better. Her method was to find a sick person of means and befriend them. She would then work on winning them over and try and persuade them to make out wills in her favour. Once this was done she would then feed them various poisons. For a while she lived with a man named Dixon but he began to drink heavily so she poisoned him, as well.

In 1862 she was looking after Mrs Sarah Carnell. As soon as Mrs Carnell had rewritten her will in Catherine's favour it was time to get rid of her. Shortly afterwards Sarah brought the sick woman a 'soothing draught.' Mrs Carnell took a mouthful and promptly spat it out, saying it had burnt her mouth. She called her husband who immediately noticed that what his wife had spat out had burnt a hole in the carpet. Catherine realising the mistake she had made fled.

She was arrested a couple of days later. The mixture she had given Mrs Carnell contained enough sulphuric acid to kill fifty people. Catherine was charged with attempted murder and held while the police continued with their investigations. She was cleared of the charge of attempted murder because her defence argued that the pharmacist had given her the wrong bottle and as no-one could be sure the charge was dropped. She may have breathed a sigh of relief but if so it was short lived as when she was released she was promptly re-arrested. Post-mortems carried out on people that she had nursed revealed that a variety of poisons had been found in seven of the bodies exhumed. She was tried and this time found guilty.

She may not have been all that popular before but when she was hanged a crowd of 20,000 turned out to see her last moments outside the Old Bailey on 20th October 1862.

Go to the top of the page
For more information contact:
Gregg Manning