Crime Chronicles: Rage on Ratcliffe Highway

There are many crime stories centered on murders, some of the more well-known stories include: Jeff Dahmer, Ted Bundy, and, of course, Jack the Ripper. Of course, there are many other stories that are seldom told. This is one of those stories. Join me as we look at the story of the gruesome killings on Ratcliffe Highway in 1811.

A Late Night Errand

Our tale begins on the night of December 7th, 1811, at a little fabric shop at 29 Ratcliffe Highway. The shop was owned by a 24-year-old man named Timothy Marr. He lived there with his wife Celia, his son Timothy Jr., his apprentice James Gowan, and a servant girl named Margaret Jewell.

Towards 11:30 pm that night, as Timothy Marr and James Gowan set about closing the store, Margaret Jewell was sent out on an errand to settle a debt with the local baker and to pick up some oysters for the night's meal. That late-night errand likely saved her life.

If you're wondering why a bakery would be open at that hour, well, Ratcliffe Highway was packed with sailors coming ashore. That night, however, when Jewell arrived at the bakery, she found it closed. She also was unable to get any oysters and had to return to the Marr's empty-handed.

Horror at Midnight

Upon returning to the store around midnight, Margaret found the lights turned out and the doors locked. She knocked and rang the bell but, despite hearing movement, she got no response. She subsequently got the attention of George Olney, a night watchman.

Olney had checked the store earlier and everything had seemed fine. Still, after hearing Ms. Jewell's story, he joined her efforts to rouse the family. The ruckus they caused caught the attention of the Marr's neighbor, a pawnbroker named John Murray. He had heard a commotion earlier in the evening from the Marr's shop but had ignored it. Now, he joined Olney and Jewell. Going to the back of the shop and finding the rear entrance open, he went in, calling out as he did so, but got no reply.

It wasn't long before he found the reason for the eerie silence. As he made his way downstairs to open the front door, John Murray made a grisly discovery. The bodies of James Gowan and Celia Marr lay with their skulls violently caved in from repeated blows to the head from a heavy object. As the shock of the gruesome scene wore off, Murray rushed to open the door and raised the alarm.

"Murder, murder, come see what murder is here!"

At this point, a crowd had gathered and word of the horrific scene and the discovery of Timothy Marr's body caused absolute pandemonium - made worse by the reminder of the Marr's young son. A group of panicked onlookers rushed to the family's living quarters and discovered something that would no doubt plague their nightmares for the rest of their lives.

Still in his crib, was 3-month-0ld Timothy Jr. The left side of his head had been battered and, as if that wasn't bad enough, his throat had been slit. The cut was so deep that the infant's head had almost been severed.

The Investigation Begins

The horror at 29 Ratcliffe Highway caused panic and caught the attention of one Charles Horton, a police officer from the nearby station. Horton secured the scene and began the grim task of searching the premesis. On the first floor, he found loose change in the till and five pounds - a fair amount of money at the time - in Timothy Marr's pockets.

He also found a bloody sailor's maul - a type of hammer - in the Marr's bedroom along with a sizable 152 pounds in one of the drawers. By the time he was done, and had returned to the police station with the evidence he'd taken from the scene, Charles Horton was likely exhausted but his work was far from over.

Death at the King's Arms

While the investigation was going on, it wasn't making much in the way of progress. That is, of course, until December 19 when the initials J.P. were found stamped on the head of the maul. Sadly, that wouldn't be the only discovery to be made.

Some time during the night a watchman was passing the King's Arms Tavern when he saw something peculiar. A man scrambling out of the window down an improvised rope made of bedsheets. His name was John Turner and he was yelling all the way down to the road that murder was being committed inside the establishment.

A group of men forced their way into the tavern where they discovered the bodies of the proprietors John and Elizabeth Williamson, and a maid, Bridget Harrington. There were a number of similarities between these and the Marr killings; including that their throats had been cut and the method of the killer's escape.

Apart from John Turner, the only other survivor of this incident was the Williamsons' fourteen year old granddaughter, Kitty Stillwell, who had slept through the incident.

The Arrest and Trial of John Williams

Following the murders at the King's Arms Tavern, there was immense pressure to arrest someone for the murders.

John Williams was a sailor residing at the Pear Tree Tavern, not far from the two crime scenes. He was a slightly built man of medium height and was a patron of the Kings Arms Tavern. He was almost completely ignored during the investigation until he was arrested on the 21st of December, 1811.

Williams was remanded to custody at Cold Bath Fields prison in Clerkenwell until an interview could be done. The interviews were done at the Shadwell Magistrate's office on Boxing Day. On December 27th, John Williams was meant to be brought in for further questioning. However, instead of Williams coming in, a prison officer entered and told the magistrates that their suspect, John Williams, was dead. He had apparently hanged himself in his cell.

Convicted in Absentia and Put on Show

With John Williams dead, the magistrates decided to hear the evidence anyways. The result, as you can imagine, was a guilty verdict - in spite of the evidence being largely circumstantial. What is that evidence? Well, let's go over that evidence now.

1. A torn, bloodied shirt.
2. Extra money in his pocket following the murders of the Williamsons.
3. He'd been seen drinking at the King's Arms Tavern shortly before the Williamsons were killed.

The other piece of evidence presented was the ship's maul found in Timothy Marr's bedroom with the initials J.P. on its head. The owner of the maul was identified as one John Petersen. Petersen was added to the suspect list but was quickly removed when it was found that he was at sea at the time of the killings.

How does John Williams connect to the maul? Well, the maul and a few other tools had been left either in his care or the care of another colleague of Petersen's.

John Williams' body was subsequently paraded down the highway to prove that the killer was, in fact, dead.

Was John Williams actually the Killer?

So, that's that, the killer was caught and committed suicide. There were no more killings after that - at least as far as I could find - but was John Williams really the killer? This is something that's been discussed for years, particularly as there were two other people of interest in the case who took an interest in Williams' arrest.

The first man was a carpenter named Cornelius Hart who had done some work for the Marrs some time before their murders. He told police that he'd lost a chisel in the shop at some point. That chisel was subsequently found and removed as evidence from the shop by the police. Hart was interviewed a couple of times, but he always denied any connection to John Williams. That, of course, was proven by witnesses to be false.

John Williams, as we said earlier, was a slightly built man of medium height. He didn't match John Turner's description of the killer at all: A large man in a coat. Which brings us to the other man.

The other man was William Ablass, a sailor who'd sailed with John Williams and was seen on the night of the killings at the King's Arms drinking with him. He also fit the description of the killer given by John Turner better than John Williams did.

We'll Never Know who Really did the Deed

In the 212 years since the murders on Ratcliffe Highway, the case has been analysed a few times, but unfortunately, there's no evidence left to determine who the killer really was. There was no DNA testing at the time and evidence preservation wasn't a thing.

All this means that we'll never know if John Williams was the actual killer or just a fall-guy for Will Ablass.

This is one of the cases that really interested me when I read about the case in The Chronicle of Crime (the book I mentioned in the first article in this series). There wasn't a lot of info on the case and, much like the story of Mary Robinson, I had to do a bit of digging to find details.

So, I hope you guys enjoyed this one. I'll see you for the next one.