Murders Committed by Partnerships
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It is much rarer for a murder to be committed by more than one person.  Sometimes a death can result from a crime such as robbery going wrong and sometimes out of carelessness.  The following cases do however show that the man and woman team can be just as ruthless as any other combination. Currently we have 32 cases listed

Beck, Martha & Fernandez, Raymond

Raymond was a 37 year old confidence trickster who seemed to have a way of persuading them to give him their savings. He married 66 year old Janet Fay and immediately went to work releiving her of her money.

During an argument Fay was murdered using a hammer and her body put in a trunk. This was shipped back to New York and then her body was buried in the cellar. Beck and Fernandez then went to Michigan where they once more put their new talent into action by murdering Dephine Downing with a gun and drowning her 20 month old child. Once they had done this they buried the bodies in the cellar and then went off to the cinema. On returning they found the police waiting for them. Their earlier murder of Janet Fay had been detected. They were both charged with murder and convicted. They were both electrocuted on 8 March 1951 at Sing Sing prison

Bianchi Kenneth & Buono, Angelo

The method would be to sometimes impersonate the police in order to pick up pick up prostitutes which they would then rape and kill. They enjoyed leaving their corpses in provocative positions in hillsides east of Hollywood. When things started to get a bit hot Angelo persuaded Kenny with threats to leave Los Angeles and go to Bellingham until things had cooled down a little. Kenny was very unhappy with this arrangement but was frightened of Angelo. Of course as soon as Kenny moved to Bellingham, Washington, the killings stopped. It did not take long before Kenny was bored with the small town life, so decided to get back to his old habits. He proceeded to kill two more women before being arrested. Bianchi is also suspected of at least three more killings in Rochester, New York, before his glory days in L.A.

While in custody Ken feigned being possessed by a violent alter ego named 'Steve Walker.' In prison he was contacted by a strange twenty-three year old woman named Veronica Lynn Comton who was seeking information for a book about a female serial killer. Together they hatched a plan to free him in which Veronica would take a sample of his sperm, kill a woman and deposit the sperm sample in her. Bianchi smuggled a rubber glove containing his semen to her during a visit. She put her plan into action and attacked another woman but she had underestimated her victim who managed to escape. Veronica Lyn Compton was quickly arrested and sentenced to life for attempted murder. Buono and Bianchi were charged with the murders of ten women. The trial which was to turn into a legal marathon started on 16 November 1981 and continued until 14 November 1983. The case involved over 1800 exhibits and nearly 400 witnesses as well as 55,000 pages of transcript. On the 9 January 1994 Ken Bianchi and Angelo Buono came before the judge for sentencing. Buono was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole while Bianchi was sent back Washington where he would serve 26 years and 8 months before being considered for parole meaning that he would be an old age pensioner before the possibility of being released.

Caldwell, George Walter & Barrett, Percy George

Lawrence Bittaker & Roy Norris

Ian Brady & Myra Hindley

Burke, William & Hare, William

There was a thriving trade in corpes in nineteenth-century Britain. Medical schools required them for anatomy classes and the demand always outstripped the supply. Bodies were invariably accepted by schools without any questions being asked. Like any other entrepreneurs in a buyer's market they knew when they were onto a good thing. The unfortunate part about the business was the lack of 'stock. They decided instead of waiting for someone to die and provide them with their stock they would speed up the process and create their own. Most of these corpses were of drunken down-and-outs who they suffocated when their victims fell into an alcoholic stupour.

In the course of nine months they delivered 16 bodies to Dr Knox for use in the dissection rooms. In the end, however, their greed got the better of them and they went 'up-market' and started to dispose of people whose disappearance was noticed. Something like this could not go on for ever and the pair were apprehended.

All four were tried for murder. The case against Nell was not proven, a sentence only available in Scotland, while Hare and Laird turned Kings evidence. This left Burke to pay the ultimate price and he was hung on 28 January 1829 in Edinburgh in front of a very large crowd.

Alton Coleman & Debra Brown

Douglas Clark & Carol Bundy

Craig, Christopher & Bentley, Derek

Unbeknown to them a young girl called Pearl Ware was getting ready for bed and saw the two men climb the drainpipe. She told her parents and her dad rang the police. As soon as police recieved the call that men had been seen entering a warehouse in Tamworth Road officers were dispatched to the scene.

Craig and Bentley saw the police arrive and hid behind the lift housing at one side of the roof. When confronted by the police Derek Bently, aged nineteen and mentally sub-normal surrendered whilst Craig decided to shoot it out.

Whilst under arrest Bentley shouted to Craig to 'Let him have it Chris' and Craig pulled out his gun and started firing. Detective Constable Frederick Fairfax was hit in the right shoulder and knocked to the ground. Craig continued to fire PC Miles who had gone to get the keyholder had entered the building and come up the internal stairwelll. When he got to the roof he opened the door and burst out right into the line of fire. A bullet hit him just above his left eye and he pitched forward onto the ground. He was killed instantly. More shots were fired this time by the police. When Criag tried to return the fire his gun misfired and then in an attempt at suicide he turned and dived off the building head first into the yard below.

His suicide attempt was not sucessful although he had not escaped scott free. He had a broken spine, breastbone and wrist. When the police searched the two mens houses they found a quantity of ammunition and the barrel of a shotgun at Craigs house but nothing incriminating at Bentleys. In the trial that followed the most incriminating evidence was the phrase ' Let him have it Chris' . Bentleys Lawyer maintained that when he said this he meant give yourself up and give them the gun. The prosecution on the other hand believed he had meant shoot them.

Both youths were tried for murder at the Old Bailey and it took the jury only 75 minutes to reach a verdict of guilty. Craig was too young to hang so was sentenced to be detained at Her Majesty's pleasure. Bentley although not the one to fire the gun was hanged on 28 January 1953 at Wandsworth Prison.

This case had more to do with the abolishing of the death penalty than perhaps any other case in history. There were many who believed that Derek Bentley should not have been hanged for the murder of PC Miles.

Christopher Craig served his time and was released on licence in 1963 and has not reoffended.

Davis, Errol & Leavy, Hugh

De Villiers, Leon & Goosen, David

They were both sentenced to death for the beating and murder of the black youth at the height of black unrest two years before. The Supreme Court, sitting in Grahamstown, on the 27 May 1988 found that Warrant Officer Leon de Villiers and Pc David Goosen had deliberately planned the murder of Mlungisi Stuurman, 18, because they had beaten him so severely that they had not dared let him go free.

Mr Justice Zeitsman said the two had gone on a 'beating expedition' between heavy bouts of drinking with other members of their anti-riot squad. According to the evidence, the squad drank heavily, conducted a blood-oath ceremony swearing themselves to secrecy, and then made unauthorised night forays into black townships during which several blacks were attacked. Mr Stuurman was one of a group of young blacks arrested at random and beaten when the squad was monitoring a township funeral in the eastern Cape Province town of Cradock, where there had been black unrest. He was so badly injured that de Villiers told Goosen he should be 'taken out'.

David Goosen took the youth to a quiet riverbank, shot him through the neck and threw him into the water, the court was told. Evidence against the two policemen was given by former members of their squad.

The judge dismissed pleas in mitigation on behalf of de Villers and Goosen, who both pleaded not guilty. Mr Chris Jansen, defending, had said that Goosen had felt rejected by his mother all his life, and had been vilified by his colleagues because his skin was dark. He was often taken for a black. Mr Jansen also said that since his arrest, de Villiers had lost weight and Goosen's hair had started turning grey. The two showed no emotion as the death sentences were pronounced, but their wives sobbed and court orderlies wept. If the death sentences were carried out, it would be the first time white policemen will have been hanged for the murder of a black.

The death sentence was later repreived, David Goosen had his sentence commuted to 15 years for doing the killing and De Villers was given 20 years for ordering it. They were both freed at the beginning of July 1991 after serving only 3 years.

Frederick Edward Francis Bywaters & Edith Jessie Thompson

In 1921 the Thompsons had been married for six years and had no children. They went on holiday to the Isle of Wight with Edith's sister, Avis. Percy asked Freddy along. Freddy, who was eighteen and was a mess-room steward on board ship, had been friendly with the younger members of Edith's family for several years and it was on holiday that Edith and Freddy started to take a fancy to each other. After the holiday Percy asked Freddy to lodge with them. It was shortly after this that Edith told Freddy of the problems she was having with her husband and how she wanted to part from him. It was during a quarrel between the pair that Percy threw Edith across the room badly bruising her arm. Freddy came in from
the garden and broke up the argument. Percy Thompson resented the intrusion and, four days later, Freddy left the house. It seems probable that the relationship between Edith and Freddy had already been consumated by this time.

Over the next year Freddy went to sea five times and Edith wrote more than sixty letters to him. He returned to England from the Far East in September 1922, with the couple meeting immediately. On 3rd October 1992 the Thompsons were returning home from an evening at the theatre. Around midnight the Thompsons were walking back to their Ilford home along Belgrave Road. They were near the junction with Kensington Gardens when a man in an overcoat and hat overtook them in a hurry. He pushed Edith out of the way and she fell, banging her head. A struggle ensued in which Percy was stabbed. Freddy was arrested the next evening and Edith was detained later the same night.

They both came up for trial at the Old Bailey in December 1922. Edith's letters to Freddy were read out in court. These included discussions of adding ground light bulb to her husband's food to the administration of various poisons. The rather torrid content of the letters influenced the somewhat staid jury. Edith decided to give evidence and was torn to pieces by the prosecution. The judge instructed the jury that they were 'trying a vulgar, common crime.'

Both were found guilty and sentenced to death. On 9th January 1923, Edith was carried in a drugged stupor from her cell in Holloway Prison to the gallows and hanged by John Ellis. At the same time Freddy was hanged by Albert Pierrepoint half a mile away at Pentonville.

Delfina & Maria de Jesus Gonzales

Zbigniew Gower & Roman Redel

The pair entered the bank and Rebel waved a gun around while Gower leapt over the counter and started to fill a bag with the spoils. Nerves got the better of him and he managed to collect just £28 and a pile of paying-in slips before the pair fled. They also omitted to immobilise the bank staff so that when the ran out of the bank and jumped on their 'getaway bus' they were followed by the bank guard. He called out to the bus-driver and he stopped the bus. The pair fled on foot pursued by a gang of outraged citizens. One man, Bob Taylor, caught up with, and tackled, Redel. During the ensuing struggle Redel shot Taylor in the head and killed him. The pair were soon apprehended and subsequently hanged.

Hosein Brothers

Even though the police had no body they were still able to get a conviction and at the Old Bailey in 1970 both Arthur and Nizamodeen were found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Arthur and Nizamodeen, aged 34 and 22 respectively, were Indian Moslems who had been born in Dow Village, Trinidad. They bought Rooks Farm, near Stocking Pelham in Hertfordshire, on a mortgage in 1967 and moved there in May 1968. It was a 17th century farm set in eleven acres and was considerably run-down. Arthur, thrown out of the army in 1960, had pretensions to grandness and was known locally as 'King Hosein'. Keeping pigs and chickens and making trousers, Arthur was a tailor by trade, would not make them the millions that they dreamed of. The apparent answer to their problems arrived when they saw newspaper owner Rupert Murdoch being interviewed by David Frost on television. Here was a very rich man who would pay a small fraction of his fortune for the return of his wife, if she happened to be kidnapped and held to ransom.

The brothers followed Murdoch's Rolls Royce to 20 Arthur Street, Wimbledon and planned the kidnap. On 29th December 1969 the two men broke into the house and abducted the woman they found there. Unfortunately for them, Rupert Murdoch was in Australia on holiday. They had kidnapped Muriel Freda McKay, the 55-year-old wife of the deputy chairman, who was using the company car while his boss was away.

Alick McKay returned home about 7.45pm and found the telephone ripped from the wall and the contents of his wife's handbag scattered on the stairs. He called the police from a neighbour's house at 8pm. At 1am the next morning the Mckays received a call demanding £1 million from a man calling himself 'M3'. Over the next few weeks eighteen telephone calls and three letters were received from 'M3', demanding money and threatening to kill Mrs McKay. There were also letters from Muriel McKay.

After a attempt to deliver the ransom was thwarted by the accidental presence of a large number of local police in the  drop area, instructions were received from 'M3'. These stated that £500,000 was to be placed in two suitcases and taken to a telephone box in Church Street, Edmonton, at 4pm, the next day, Friday 6th February. A policeman and policewoman, disguised as Mr McKay and his daughter Diane, took the suitcase to the call box. They were told to go to another call box in Bethnal Green Road. From there the trail led, by underground, to Epping. Next they were told to take a taxi to Bishop's Stortford where they were to leave the suitcases by a mini-van on a garage forecourt. The taxi arrived and the two officers set out. Just up the road they got the driver to stop. When he did so, a man leapt into the back of the taxi and
curled up on the floor. This was DS Bland They arrived at the garage in Bishop's Stortford and drove past. They dropped DS Bland up the road and returned and dropped off the cases by the mini-van before returning to Epping. By this time it was about 8pm. DS Bland kept watch on the suitcases, and the traffic on the main road. He noticed a blue Volvo with a single occupant which passed four times between 8 and 10.30pm, usually slowing as it passed. He took note of its registration number, XGO 994G. It passed again at 10.47, this time with two men inside. A couple, Mr and Mrs Abbott noticed the suitcases and became concerned. Mrs Abbott kept watch while her husband went and fetched the local police, who removed them to the local station. The operation was abandoned at 11.40pm

The recordings of the presence of the blue Volvo tallied with entries in the log from the previous attempt to deliver the ransom. At 8am the next morning the police swooped on Rooks Farm. They found an exercise book whose torn out pages matched those received in the letters from Mrs McKay. Arthur's fingerprints matched those found on the ransom demands. Police officers scoured Rooks Farm for several weeks but could find no trace of Mrs McKay or of what had happened to her.

The brothers' trial began on 14th September 1970 at the Old Bailey. They were charged with kidnapping, murder and blackmail. It ended on 6th October with guilty verdicts on all charges. Both of them received life sentences for the murder. Arthur and Nizamodeen got 25 years' and 15 years' respectively on the other charges.

Kearns, Patrick & Burns, Hugh

Leonard Lake & Charles Ng

Henry Lee Lucas & Ottis Toole

O'Sullivan, Joseph & Dunn Reginald

Porter, Thomas and Preston, Thomas

Ruth Snyder & Henry Judd Gray

Ruth hid Henry in the house so that when Albert and herself returned later from a bridge evening they could carry out their plan.  Ruth had ensured that Albert had been drinking heavily so that he would not be so aware.  When Albert was in bed Ruth and Henry sneaked into his room and attacked him with a lead sash weight.  He struggled much more than they had expected and they had to use chloroform and some picture wire on him to kill him.  Henry then tied Ruth up and left the house.  When they were found the next morning Ruth told the police that they had been attacked by a prowler.  The police were not convinced and looked deeper into the background of Ruth.

They discovered Henry’s name in her address book and soon built up a picture of what may have happened.  They then tricked Ruth by telling her that they had arrested Henry and he had confessed to the murder.  As soon as she heard this she told the police that it had all been his idea and that she had not hit her husband or helped in any way.

They were both tried in April 1927 and were found guilty of murder.  They were executed  at Sing Sing prison on 12 January 1928.  That was not quite the end of this sensational case.  As was the custom in America, when an execution takes place a number of officials would be invited along to witness the death.  This group would normally contain a number of reporters.  One such reporter acting as a witness had strapped a camera to his ankle and managed to capture the moment of death of Ruth Synder on film.

Martin Scott & Henry Mullen

Louis Staunton, Patrick & Elizabeth Staunton and  Alice Rhodes

On 8th April 1877 Elizabeth and Patrick took Harriet's son to a London hospital and left him there. The child was in an emaciated condition and soon succumbed from neglect. The pair feared that someone might make enquiries if Harriet died at home, on 12th April Louis and Elizabeth booked Harriet into accommodation in Forge Road, Penge. The next day they     conveyed Harriet to the two first-floor rooms they had rented for her and called a doctor. He  found her emaciated and filthy and weighing just over 5 stones. She died within hours. The three Stauntons and Alice Rhodes were arrested and charged with murder.

They appeared at the Old Bailey in September 1877. The medical evidence told heavily against the defendants and all were found guilty and sentenced to death. Seven hundred doctors signed a petition declaring that they did not believe that cause of death had been to death by starvation and, at the last minute, the Home Office issued a reprieve. The three men were given prison sentences while Alice Rhodes was set free.

Scandrett, Alfred & Jones, James

Stratton Brothers

This was a step out of character for the two brothers who up until now had been petty criminals with crimes such as burglary and housebreaking on their records.  Sordid though the case was it did in fact mark an important landmark in British Criminal History as being the first murder case in which the accused were convicted on Fingerprint evidence.

Thomas and his wife Ann ran a small paint shop in South East London.  They both lived in the flat above and the shop had been the focus of their lives for many years, in fact they were both quite elderly and would no doubt soon be thinking of retiring.  It was not to be however because of the greed of two men.  When the Farrow's assistant arrived as usual for work on the 27 March it was to be faced with the sort of horror normally kept for late night films.

Thomas Farrow lay on the floor of the parlour with his skull caved in.  A cashbox had been prised open and lay empty.  More horror lay upstairs where Mrs Farrow was found alive but unconscious, her injuries were serious and she died four days later.

The police did however have one major clue which was a thumbprint on the tray of the cash box.  It was a clear print and although fingerprint technology was still in its infancy this was something it could definately cut its teeth on.  Accepting that the murders had been a result of the robbery and not the intention they started checking out all known housebreakers and suspicion soon fell on the Stratton brothers who did not seem to have proper alibis.  They were arrested and brought into custody where their fingerprints were taken.

It was found that the thumbprint on Alfreds right hand was an exact match for the one found on the cash box tray.  Evidence was also given by a milkman who stated that he saw two men leaving the shop early that morning.  Armed with this evidence the police were happy they had the right men and the Stratton brothes were tried at the Old Bailey in May 1905.  The thumbprint evidence was strongly contested by the defence but was accepted by the jury and the two were found guilty.

Vickers, Robert Flockheart & William Innes

Michael Mullen & John McGrave

1927
August 3rd: James MURPHY (29)
Frederick Stephen FULLER (35)
Wandsworth
Fuller, a building worker and father of seven, along with Murphy. an Irish labourer, were jointly convicted of murdering James Staunton (42) on 17 May, a nightwatchman on a site at Sanderstead in Surrey where they employed. They attacked him while he was on duty and then robbed the site. Staunton died later in Purley hospital and the two Croydon based men fled to London, changed their clothes and then headed off to Doncaster, only to be arrested there. At the Old Bailey trial before Mr Justice Rowlatt on 5 July. the prosecution alleged that one of the men had struck Staunton with a blunt instrument during the course of the robbery. In their defence, they claimed that the victim had fallen during a struggle. Hanged by Robert Baxter, assisted by Thomas Phillips, Lionel Mann, and Henry Pollard.

1886
February 8th: James MARTIN
James BAKER
Anthony Ben RUDGE
Carlisle
Anthony Rudge was the leader of a gang of London villains, and a seasoned housebreaker. Among his gang, who specialised in robbing country houses, was James Martin, wanted for his part in the shooting of a police inspector at Romford the previous year, [see 1885, May 18th]. The gang decided to travel to Glasgow and caught a train up north. Alighting at Crookston, just outside Glasgow, they celebrated their arrival by stealing the station safe. Later, they tried to pinch a second safe, again from a railway station, and only just escaped by shooting at a pursuing policeman. On 28 October they carried out a daring robbery from Netherby House, near Gretna, stealing a large amount of jewellery while the house was occupied. The police were notified to be on the lookout for the gang and later that evening they were spotted by two officers. As they approached the thieves, James Martin fired, wounding them both in the upper body. They managed to slip through a police cordon by beating up a constable, and the following morning they entered a small suburban railway station and asked for tickets for a London train. The station master was suspicious of the men and alerted the police. The gang was next seen leaving a public house by two police officers. When they challenged them, Martin pulled out his gun which discharged during the ensuing struggle, and one of the officers, PC Byrne, fell dead. The gang escaped by jumping onto a southbound train but were captured near Crewe and charged with murder. After conviction, they were hanged by Berry and his assistant Charles Maldon, in reality one Sir Claude de Cespigny, an Essex magistrate who paid Berry for the privilege of assisting him.

1888
April 29th: Daniel MORIARTY
Daniel HAYES
Tralee
Convicted together for the murder of James Fitzsimmons, an elderly farmer from Liscnaw, who was shot dead in front of his daughter on a public road close to his home on 31 January. Moriarty, a labourer who had recently married, and Hayes a journeyman shoemaker with a chronic drink problem, both protested their innocence before they were hanged by Berry.

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