Read Fatal Families - Unleashing the evil within (Infamous Murderers) for Free Online Page A

his family going on his own, but must have realised that his children needed a mother. He then met a simple-minded young woman. It was said that she ‘bordered on idiocy’, but she did have an income. She had had sufficient money left to her to maintain her without any need for her to work. It was the money alone that made Williamson propose marriage. She accepted the proposals, but when the banns were read in church her guardian blocked the marriage; his reason is not known.
    Williamson managed to get a licence to marry the young woman in spite of the guardian’s opposition. As a result he was able to get hold of the income due to his new wife.
    Only three weeks into the marriage, Williamson began to abuse his wife. He beat her. He threw water over her. Then he pulled her hands behind her back, secured them with handcuffs, passed a roped through a staple and pulled her hands up so high that only the tips of her toes were touching the ground – a medieval form of torture. She was confined in a closet and fed on small amounts of bread and butter; she was allowed a small amount of water each day. She was subjected to this appalling treatment repeatedly and was once kept like this for a whole month.
    Luckily there were other people in the house, and she occasionally got help from a woman lodger and a little girl, Williamson’s daughter by his first wife, who felt sorry for her. The little girl once released her stepmother, and Williamson gave her a beating for it. While the father was out, the little girl frequently gave her stepmother a stool to stand on to relieve her suffering. Again, when Williamson found out he beat the child without mercy.
    Williamson released his wife a few days before she died. At dinner he gave her some meat, though she was only able to eat a small amount because of her very low state. Williamson expected that by showing his wife this consideration he would be treated more kindly when she died. He clearly intended her to die. Her hands were now very swollen, partly because of the cold, mainly because of the handcuffs, and she asked to be allowed to sit near the fire. The little girl asked Williamson on her behalf as well. Williamson agreed. After a few minutes, he noticed that she was picking off the vermin that swarmed on her clothes and throwing them into the fire. In disgust, he ordered her to go back to her kennel.
    The poor woman went back into her closet, where she was locked in until the next day. She was then found to be delirious, and she remained so for about twenty-four hours until she died.
    At the coroner’s inquest, evidence emerged that incriminated Williamson, and he was committed to Newgate Prison. He was brought to trial before Lord Chief Justice Parker and sentenced to death. From this point on, Williamson reverted to behaving like a normal, decent human being, showing regret for what he had done. He was hanged in Moorfields on 19 January, 1767. Just before he was executed, he sang a psalm and said some prayers, showing every sign of being a law-abiding and God-fearing citizen. There was no explanation for his systematic cruelty to a wife who had done nothing whatever to provoke this maltreatment.
    Even Williamson’s children suffered. They were placed in the Cripplegate Workhouse.

Revd James Hackman
    ‘and his dangerous obsession’

     
     
     
    James Hackman was born in Gosport in Hampshire and his early intentions were to go into trade, but his temperament was against this line of work. He was too impatient and too volatile to put up with the routine work of a shop or counting-house. His parents were sufficiently well off to buy an ensign’s commission in the army, in the 68th Regiment of Foot.
    He had not been in the army very long when he was put in charge of a recruiting party at the town of Huntingdon. While there, he was often invited to dine with Lord Sandwich, who had a house nearby. It was at Lord Sandwich’s house that the volatile James Hackman first set