Fatal Families - Unleashing the evil within (Infamous Murderers) by Rodney Castleden Read Free Book Online

she lay on the ground.
    Mrs Quailn got up and tried to run away, but Quailn ran after her, caught up with her and she again fell to the ground. He again kicked her violently. She managed to get to her feet and run a short distance, but Quailn followed her and kicked her yet again. An onlooker rebuked Quailn; how could he treat his wife so barbarously? Quailn replied that he would do it again – and he did. Once more Mrs Quailn managed to struggle to her feet and get away, but Quailn followed her and kicked her several times more.
    This time he did her some serious damage. Mrs Quailn clutched her side with her hand and cried, ‘Oh, Bat, now you have done for me!’ Shortly after that the poor woman died. Her spleen had been ruptured.
    When Bartholomew Quailn’s case came to court, as it did in March 1791 at Ely Assizes, there was no doubt whatever as to who had caused the poor woman’s death. She had been killed by her husband in the road in full view of several shocked onlookers. Counsel for the Crown (prosecution) discussed definitions of murder, and argued that Quailn had shown ‘his heart to be regardless of social duty, and his mind deliberately bent on mischief’. If he had killed his wife as a result of genuine provocation, that might be a mitigating circumstance, but there was no evidence of any provocation by Mrs Quailn that was sufficient to justify his kicking her to death. She had moreover made no resistance whatever to her husband; on the contrary, she had made several attempts to get away from him. He was evidently deliberately bent on mischief.
    It would be interesting to know what was in the bag, and also exactly what the quarrel was about, but all the surviving records tell us is that there were ‘high words’ exchanged.
    The trial developed into an argument between the lawyers about these technicalities. The lawyers – this was the eighteenth century – happily accepted that there was such a thing as ‘reasonable chastisement’; it was acceptable, given the social mores of the time, for husbands to go in for a certain amount of physical correction when their wives were disobedient. Men expected to be allowed to hit their wives. The point at issue was whether the level of chastisement was reasonable , and in this case it evidently was not.
    It was argued that this case was like another contemporary case where a park-keeper tied a boy to a horse’s tail, then hit the boy, which caused the horse to bolt, dragging the boy to his death. The boy’s death may not have been intended, but the method of punishment was too violent and it was also a deliberate act; what the park-keeper did could have been predicted to end in the boy being killed. The park-keeper was found guilty of murder, and so it should be, the argument ran, in this case of Bartholomew Quailn. Other parallel cases were quoted as well, supporting the idea that Quailn was guilty.
    The argument continued as to whether Quailn had committed murder or manslaughter. The jury arrived at a special verdict; they found that they were unable to choose between the two crimes of manslaughter and murder in this case. The judge stated that this amounted to finding the accused guilty of wilful murder.
    The Clerk of the Crown called upon the prisoner and, after reading the proceedings to him, he asked him what he had to say why the Court should not pass judgement on him to die according to the law. There was nothing he could say. Mr Justice Ashurst solemnly pronounced the sentence of death. Bartholomew Quailn was hanged at Ely on 7 March, 1791.

Elizabeth Marsh
    ‘who killed her grandfather’

     
     
     
    Not much is known about Elizabeth Marsh, beyond the one appalling fact that she killed her grandfather, John Nevil, for no apparent reason.
    She was a Dorset village girl, only fifteen years old, living with her grandfather. While he was asleep, she gave him two savage blows on the head, killing him outright.
    When Elizabeth Marsh was questioned