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was about one o’clock when Susannah made her return journey. On meeting Thomas, who was still carrying the bundle but continuing his journey alone, she asked what had become of the woman he had been with. ‘I left her behind’, he replied. ‘She is about spun up. I cannot get her any further, so I left her to get on by the coach.’
    Unfortunately for him, Susannah Bird was not the sort of woman who took things at face value, and while he walked on she looked out for the coach. When it arrived she looked both inside and out but did not spot Mary. This raised her suspicions further. She saw a Mr Sell hoeing in the field next to Mr Russell’s and told him of her concerns, saying she ‘would go to the next field, and see if she could discover what betided the young woman’.
    On doing so Susannah immediately discovered that the grass was trodden down ‘as if some persons had been struggling on the ground’ and then spotted a finger and a pair of shoes protruding from a pile of grass. She called out to Mr Sell, who quickly uncovered a body. Mary Ann Weems was lying in a ditch, her face obscured by her shawl and bonnet. There was also the mark of a man’s footprint in the ground. Susannah described the body later, in court: ‘the face and neck were very black, appeared to have been caused by strangulation, as there was a coloured garter round the neck, with a slip noose drawn very tight.’
    Travelling along the same road was the Revd Mr Brown, a magistrate from Conington who drew level with the field just as the body was being uncovered. Susannah gave him an accurate description of Thomas. Brown issued an arrest warrant and dispatched the local constable, Jackson, along with an assistant. The men took a chaise and followed the fugitive south, apprehending him as he rode in a wagon between Puckeridge and High Cross.
    The county coroner opened the inquest at 8 p.m. and had barely finished swearing in the jury when the magistrate and constables arrived with Thomas in custody. The inquest continued into the night, eventually closing after 1 a.m. on Saturday 8 May. The jury returned a verdict of wilful murder against Thomas Weems, who was immediately taken to the county gaol at Cambridge to await trial at the next assizes.
    On Wednesday 4 August 1819 Thomas was brought before Mr Justice Burrough. John Beck, Susannah Bird and the inhabitants of Wendy who had been involved in the discovery of Mary’s body and the felon’s apprehension were all called as witnesses. Maria Woodward came from Edmonton to give evidence. She described how she had met Thomas Weems after he had taken up his position at the mill. He had told her he was a single man, and they had courted for nine weeks before his proposal, which she had immediately accepted. She gave her evidence but was clearly upset. At her distress Thomas reached out and they shook hands.
    The other witness of note was Mr Orridge, the Cambridge gaoler, who said that he had been present on two occasions when Thomas had received visitors. One was his father and the other his sister. It was during his sister’s visit that Orridge had overheard Thomas say that it ‘was no use denying it any longer, as he should be telling a falsehood every time, which would be only adding one sin to another’. Shortly after this, he had confessed and his confession was read out to the court:
    After I had been at work at Randall’s, of Edmonton, about a month, I formed an acquaintance with Maria Woodward, whom I told that I was single, and promised her marriage, and then made up my mind to return into Huntingdonshire to murder my wife. I thought of cutting her throat, but afterwards changed my mind; and if I could hang her I would. On the 1st of May I left Edmonton for Godmanchester, and on the 5th returned for Edmonton about 5 o’clock in the morning. After proceeding on the journey 14 or 15 miles, my wife complained of being tired. I