News of the Times - Unlocking the vaults of historical crime

Spectral Evidence: The Chilling Case of Anne Walker’s Ghost | A Notorious November EpisodeNews of the Times | Episode 579 | 1631In 1630s County Durham, the dead didn’t just whisper… they testified.This is the gothic true crime story of Anne Walker — a young servant girl who vanished, only for her ghost to return, describe her murder, name her killers, and send shockwaves through a superstitious so...

A Most Inconvenient Pregnancy: Class, Murder, and the Doddinghurst Tragedy of 1850News of the Times | Episode 577 | 1850Step into the shadows of rural England, where a quiet field near a stile becomes the setting for a grim discovery.A young woman is found face-down in the grass. She was pregnant. And someone wanted her silence — permanent.As whispers ripple through the small 1850s community of Do...

The Murder of Vera Page: A Case That Science Couldn't SolveNews of the Times | Episode 576 | 1931 In 1931, the disappearance of 10-year-old Vera Page sent shockwaves through Hammersmith, West London. When her body was discovered days later, concealed in a garden mere yards from her home, public outrage erupted — and police turned to their most famous forensic expert, Sir Bernard Spilsbury, to...

Murder on Wimbledon Common: The Fireside Poker Killing | 1917 True CrimeNews of the Times | Episode 575 | 1917A quiet house. A brutal assault. And a killer hiding in plain sight.In November 1917, wartime London was still reeling from Zeppelin raids and rations — but nothing prepared the residents of Wimbledon Common for the horror inside Winkfield Lodge. When a maid opened the bedroom door that mo...

The Hay Knife Killer: Double Murder That Stunned Victorian EnglandNews of the Times | Episode 574 | 1858 Welcome to News of the Times, where we delve into the darkest corners of British history. In today’s episode, we explore the chilling 1858 double murder of John and Elizabeth Bucknell — an elderly couple slain in their Somerset home under horrific circumstances. Their grandson, recently release...

Triple Gallows at Newgate: The Shocking Crimes Behind the 1896 Hanging | Scotland Yard CasebookNews of the Times | Episode 573| 1896In June 1896, a grim crowd gathered outside Newgate Prison for a rare and chilling spectacle: three men hanged side by side, their fates sealed by two of the most brutal murder cases in Victorian London.This episode dives deep into the shocking crimes that led to that...

Too Drunk to Hang? The Brutal 1909 Murder That Changed British LawNews of the Times | Episode 572 |1909  In this gripping true crime episode, we head to the shadowy backstreets of Edwardian Leeds to uncover the harrowing case of Thomas Mead, a gasworker whose drunken, brutal attack on his partner Clara Howell shocked the nation — and forever altered British legal history.When Mead claimed he was “...

🔪 Six Failed Attempts to Kill His Mother-in-Law | The Spitalfields Hatchet Attack of 1874News of the Times | Episode 571| 1874Notorious NovemberLondon, 1874. A quiet Spitalfields lodging. A knock at the door. And a furious son-in-law armed with a pistol, a hatchet, a knife, a shoemaker’s last, a bag of stones, and — why not — some gunpowder for flair.What followed was one of the most bizarre and...

Found Headless on the Marshes: Scotland Yard Casebook 1865News of the Times | Episode 570| 1865 Welcome to another chilling episode of News of the Times.In 1865, a gruesome discovery on the Plaistow Marshes stunned Victorian London: a man’s headless body, dumped in the reeds — his head buried nearby in a shallow grave. The case would soon unravel into an international mystery of betrayal, greed, a...

The Dundry Hill Murder: The Wedmore Brothers and the Death of Sarah Waterman, 1861News of the Times | Episode 569 | 1861In the winter of 1861, a savage crime shocked the quiet hills near Bristol.George and Sarah Waterman, an elderly couple known for their quiet life and kindness, were attacked in their own cottage — ambushed by two masked men. The intruders came armed, posing as a local policeman...

The Scampston Murder | The Riverbank Crime That Shocked Edwardian England (1903) News of the Times | Episode 568 | 1903A quiet Yorkshire village. A missing maid. A borrowed revolver.When 16-year-old Annie Marshall failed to return after Sunday evensong in 1903, no one expected the tragedy that followed. Two days later, her body was found in the reeds of the River Derwent — shot twice, violated, an...

The Honeymoon Poisoning: The Chilling Case of Catherine FosterNews of the Times | Episode 566 | 1846It began as a village wedding in the golden lanes of Suffolk.Three weeks later, the bride was on trial for her husband’s murder.In 1846, Catherine Foster—just 17 years old and newly married—served her childhood sweetheart a dumpling for supper. By dawn, he was dead. What followed became one of the m...

The Limehouse Mystery — The 1867 Case That Divided Victorian London News of the Times | Episode 565 | 1867 A young woman found dead.A slashed throat.And a chilling claim from her lover — that she did it to herself.But the neighbours heard something different: a scream in the night, the unmistakable cry of murder.By the time the police arrived, her body was already cold… and the timeline didn’t mat...

The Malthouse Murder | Wolverton’s Burning Secret (1867)News of the Times | Episode 564 |1867 Welcome to News of the Times — where true crime meets smoke, suspicion, and a suspiciously well-stacked pile of coal.In the early dawn of 1867, the villagers of Wolverton awoke to smoke curling from the local malthouse — but the scent wasn’t malted barley. Beneath the flames, they uncovered a charred horr...

Sarah Chesham: The Essex Poisoner Who Changed British Law (1847–1851)News of the Times | Episode 563 | 1851 In the sleepy village of Clavering, Essex, two young boys died days apart — sudden, wrenching illness, no clear explanation. Locals whispered… but the law shrugged.Then a neighbour’s infant died.Then her husband.All had one visitor in common.Her name was Sarah Chesham — but to the press, she...

Bayonet Madness in Batley: A Victorian Double MurderNews of the Times | Episode 1865 | 562When heartbreak met a bayonet in Batley, the result was a tragedy that shook all of Yorkshire.In August 1865, 19-year-old Eli Sykes seemed the very picture of respectability — steady, polite, a proud member of Queen Victoria’s volunteer corps. But when the young woman he loved, Hannah Brook, told him no, some...

He Slept Beside His Brother… Then Butchered Him With an Axe | The 1857 Maidstone FratricideNews of the Times | Episode 561 | 1857 In March 1857, the quiet town of Maidstone was shaken by a killing so savage that even the local coroner faltered in describing it. Two brothers, one bed, one axe — and a brutal act that tore a working-class family apart.By dawn, one son was dead.The other… vanished int...

The Paris Poisoning Scandal: Madame Tiquet's Fall from Society to the Scaffold (1699)News of the Times | Episode 560 | 16999 💀 From Drawing Rooms to the Death Sentence – The Scandal That Shook Paris 🥀In 17th-century Paris, a city alive with powdered wigs, whispered gossip, and deadly ambition, one woman’s rise and fall scandalised high society. Madame Tiquet had it all — wealth, status, and...

Arsenic, Bonnets and Betrayal: The 1869 Dudley Poisoning of Joseph OliverNews of the Times | Episode 559 | 1869 It began, as so many Victorian poisonings did, with an ordinary cup of milk and a sudden sickness.In the quiet town of Hart’s Hill near Birmingham, Joseph Oliver — a healthy, hard‑working boilermaker — fell violently ill in the spring of 1869. Within weeks he was dead, and his young wife...

A Ghost Story Without a Ghost: The Chelsea Parlour Murder of 1833News of the Times | Episode 558 | 1833 In 1833, 70‑year‑old Catherine Elms lived quietly in a tiny Chelsea flat. She was well liked, friendly, and poor, with only a few modest possessions.But one winter night she was found brutally slaughtered — her face split open by repeated blows with a sword and a hatchet, her rooms ransacked — a...

The Woman in Black and the Murder of Augusta Dawes | True Crime 1894News of the Times | Episode 557 | 1894🕯️ A 19th-century mystery that begins with a murder... and spirals into urban legend.In the winter of 1894, one of London’s most refined boroughs was struck by two chilling tales — one whispered behind lace curtains, the other screamed across the front pages.First: a shocking early-morning dis...

The Nolagh House of Horror: Ireland’s 1898 Family Massacre News of the Times | Episode 556 | 1898  On a bitter January night in 1898, neighbours in rural County Cavan made a grim discovery: a silent farmhouse, a smashed-in door, and a scene of almost unspeakable horror.Inside, the bodies of Mary Reilly, her daughter Mary King, and two small children lay motionless on the straw-strewn floor. Their...

The Scissors Murder Mystery: Unsolved Brixton Crime Shocks Edwardian LondonNews of the Times | Episode 555| 1900 In May 1900, the body of Mary Waknell was discovered in a quiet Brixton basement — savagely stabbed nearly forty times, many wounds inflicted with her own sewing scissors. No forced entry. No signs of struggle. And no one was ever convicted.Was her killer a jealous husband? A man known...

The 1913 Sun Inn Pub Murders | True CrimeNews of the Times | Episode 553 | 1913 In the quiet village of Bedlington, April 1913, a dispute over beer stock and a £30 bond exploded into one of Edwardian England’s most shocking pub tragedies.Publican John Vickers Amos, recently dismissed from the Sun Inn, refused to leave quietly. Within hours, two police officers lay dead, a landlady was mortally wou...

Scottish Mystery: The Bound Woman and the Pit That Hid the Truth | True Crime 1909News of the Times | Episode 552 | 1909It’s 1909 in Musselburgh, Scotland.A woman’s body—bound, sacked, and terribly decomposed—is found deep in an abandoned coal pit. Nearby: a torn necktie, broken combs, scattered shoes, and rumours of a second attack.Who was she? How did she vanish unseen? And what links a missing...