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PART ONE — EUROPE.

Mary Pearcey (1866–90) was executed on 23 December 1890 for killing her lover’s wife and daughter. She was unfortunate: female killers were rare in the late 1800s and only a handful went to the gallows for their crimes. However, Pearcey excited public opinion because of the nature of her crime. Its brutality, her attempt to conceal it, her apparent indifference and the fact that she had murdered an infant child all counted against her.

A few years earlier, Pearcey had begun a relationship with Frank Hogg (dates unknown) and lived with him in Kentish Town, northwest London. Hogg was a womanizer, but when he got another lover, Phoebe Styles (1858–90), pregnant he married her. Unwilling to give him up, Pearcey persuaded Hogg to continue seeing her. Mary also became friends with Phoebe, so much so that Mrs Hogg often visited Mary, accompanied by her baby girl, Tiggy. It was a misjudgment of character that was to prove fatal. On the evening of 24 October, a body was found in Hampstead, the head crushed and throat savagely cut. A mile farther away was

a black pram, and then, in Finchley, a dead baby girl. Phoebe’s sister-in-law Clara was worried when she could not find her, and went to the police after the papers reported the discovery of an unidentified body (with the initials ‘P. H.’ stitched onto the clothes). Mary went with her. Something must have raised police suspicions, because they escorted Mary home and found evidence of the crime there. Her room was splattered with blood (which she declared was the result of her ‘killing mice’) and bloodied curtains were discovered in the washhouse. The forensics were mounting up: a button from Phoebe’s coat was fished out of Mary’s kitchen grate, and a screw from the pram was found near Phoebe’s dead body. Witnesses reported having seen Mary pushing a pram piled high with what they assumed was laundry, but turned out to have been the bodies of her victims. Mary’s trial was prejudiced by a biased judge, and the evidence presented was largely circumstantial, but she had no defence to speak of. She told the hangman: ‘My sentence is a just one, but a good deal of the evidence against me was false.’ •

Below. illustrated police news, 15 november 1890. mary pearcey in the dock at the old bailey for the murder of phoebe

hogg and her daughter.

Below. illustrated police news, 13 december 1890. sensational press coverage of the case, taken from evidence heard

at mary pearcey’s trial.

Below. illustrated police news, 29 november 1890 (top) & 1 november 1890 (bottom). mary pearcey awaiting trial in holloway prison and the

details of her alleged crime.

2 priory street, swiss cottage.

 October 0.

englandlondon.

MARY PEARCEY. × Phoebe Ho. × Ti Ho.

weapon. poker & carving knife.

typology. jealousy.

policing. forensics.