Dorset Murders (2 page)

The police began investigations into the murder and soon had a prime suspect. Everyone in the village knew that Priscilla Brown was pregnant and the father of her unborn child was rumoured to be John Gallop, a twenty-nine-year-old labourer who had recently married and now lived in lodgings just outside the village with his new wife.

In the course of their enquiries, police found a lot of villagers who had something to tell them about Gallop. Farmer Thomas Homer had seen John Gallop walk past his house at between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. on the night of 14 May, heading in the direction of Priscilla's house, which was about 100 yards away. Gallop had been walking at a steady pace, swinging a walking stick and wearing a rough, long brown greatcoat. Homer had seen Gallop pass by again on his return journey some fifteen minutes later, again walking at the same unhurried pace. Another witness, John Sexey, who lived nearby had also seen Gallop going towards, and then later away from Priscilla Brown's cottage on the night of the murder.

Gallop's landlord, Benjamin Romain, told police that Gallop had left his house at about 8 p.m. on the night of 14 May and walked off in the direction of Bere Regis village. Romain went to bed at about 10.30 p.m. but did not fall asleep immediately. He had not heard Gallop returning.

As the prime suspect – and in fact the only suspect – police wasted no time in arresting John Gallop and charging him with the wilful murder of Priscilla Brown. As he was taken away, Romain later testified in court that Gallop had whispered to him, ‘Say I was in bed for ten o'clock'.

Tried for the murder at the Dorset Assizes, before Mr Justice Burrough, John Gallop pleaded ‘Not Guilty', denying all knowledge of the murder and also denying being the father of Priscilla Brown's unborn child.

The first witness to be called was eight-year-old Charles Brown who, after being tested on his ability to differentiate between the truth and lies, identified John Gallop by pointing to him in the courtroom. He testified that he knew the accused because he had often visited his mother's house. On the night of the murder, he told the court that stones had been thrown against the cottage doors three times. His mother had gone first to the front door, then to the back, to try and establish where the noise was coming from. At the back door she spoke to Gallop, then, without pausing to put on her bonnet, she went out into the back garden and walked towards Back Lane. She hadn't come back until she was brought back dead. Charles talked of hearing Gallop's voice calling him out into the garden, but said that he hadn't gone because he couldn't tell what Gallop had said.

At this, Gallop interjected, saying that the boy had said before that he had never heard any voice, and that Thomas Clinch had heard him say this. Mr Justice Burrough asked Charles about what he had heard several times, but he continued to insist that he had recognised Gallop's voice calling him. Eventually the judge decided to ask Thomas Clinch for his version of events.

However, the decision to name Clinch as a witness backfired for John Gallop, since Clinch promptly testified that he had indeed heard young Charles say that someone had flung stones at the door and that he had later heard Gallop's voice. Far from contradicting Charles Brown's testimony, Clinch's evidence actually corroborated it.

The arguments by Gallop against Charles Brown's testimony set a pattern that was to be repeated again and again as different witnesses gave evidence.

Gallop disputed the testimony of Romain, his landlord, saying that Romain had spoken false of him and that he had never asked him to say that he was in bed by ten o'clock.

Several people came forward to say that Gallop had spoken about murdering Priscilla Brown before the event. Page Ross, a servant, spoke of meeting Gallop in Homer's barn on 1 May and of Gallop asking him if he had heard any rumours. When Ross said he hadn't, Gallop told him, ‘They have got it about town that Cil Brown is with child by me, but I will be damned if I know her a man from a woman. And if she swears it to me, damn my eyes if I will not murder her the next minute.'

Predictably, Gallop immediately protested. ‘He has sworn false against me. I never said I would murder her and you may depend on it, my Lord'. Yet if Ross had lied, so too did Thomas Strickland, for he had also heard Gallop's threats and his statement matched Ross's word for word.

Elizabeth Harris was another witness who, according to Gallop, ‘swore false'. She had been working in the fields with Gallop during the previous year when Gallop had bragged before her and several other witnesses that he could kill a person in five minutes without being discovered. Harris asked him how he would do that and Gallop responded by placing one hand around her throat and the other across her nose and mouth, pinching her nostrils closed.

‘Did he hurt you materially?' asked the judge.

‘Oh yes, my Lord', replied Harris, adding somewhat unnecessarily, ‘But he didn't kill me.'

Gallop protested once more. ‘She has a spite against me, and every word she has spoken is false.'

The court heard from Thomas Homer, John Sexey and another witness, Sarah Welch, who had all seen John Gallop walking either towards or away from Priscilla Brown's home on the night of 14 May. Perhaps not surprisingly, according to Gallop all were lying.

Finally, Gallop himself took the witness stand. He made a great show of dismissing almost every word of evidence given in court so far as lies and gave a detailed account of his movements on the night of 14 May, which, of course, did not include being anywhere near the home of Priscilla Brown. Yet although he insisted that he had an alibi for the entire evening, Gallop was unable to name any person who might have corroborated his story.

It was left to his defence counsel to try and repair some of the damage caused by Gallop's testimony, which he attempted to do by calling two or three character witnesses for his client. In hindsight, this was perhaps not such a good idea, since none of the witnesses seemed to know Gallop too well and had very little good to say about him.

The jury retired for only a few minutes before returning with a verdict of ‘Guilty', leaving the judge to pronounce the prescribed sentence of death. Calling the murder one of the foulest crimes he had heard, he urged John Gallop to fall to his knees after leaving court and endeavour by prayer and supplication to obtain forgiveness from a merciful God.

Gallop accepted the sentence with apparent indifference and, after leaving the dock, continued to protest that he was as innocent of the murder as a newborn baby. It is not known whether or not he heeded the judge's advice to pray for forgiveness, but regardless, he did not have long to wait before meeting his maker. He was hanged at Dorchester on 27 July 1818 and his body was then anatomised.

N
earing her fortieth birthday, Elizabeth Martha Brown was, by nineteenth-century standards, well past her prime. Yet she was still an attractive looking woman, with a head of beautiful curly hair, sufficiently so to attract the attentions of a much younger man. The fact that she had also managed to save almost £50 – the equivalent of more than £3,000 today – could, of course, have added to her appeal.

Martha, as she was usually known, met nineteen-year-old John Anthony Brown when he came to work on the farm where she was employed as a servant. The couple soon became lovers and eventually married, leaving their employ to live in a small cottage in Birdsmoorgate near Beaminster. John set himself up as a carrier while Martha ran a small grocery shop from her home and looked after their one child. However, the marriage was not a happy one. John spent long hours away on business, frequently arriving home drunk very late at night. In addition, Martha was suspicious that his relationship with Mary Davies, the wife of the village butcher, was an improper one, and, according to some contemporary newspaper reports, she once actually caught the couple in bed together. Whether or not these reports are accurate, Martha was certainly a jealous woman.

On 5 July 1856, George Fooks, a carrier from nearby Blackdown and a long-term acquaintance of John's, joined him at home for breakfast. Having eaten, the two men loaded their horse-drawn wagons and, at nine o‘clock, set off to deliver their loads to Beaminster. Within half a mile, Mary Davies joined them and walked alongside the carts for a short while before leaving to go to her job as a washerwoman.

The two carriers arrived at Beaminster, unloaded their carts and began the return journey. When they reached Broadwindsor, they stopped for refreshments at an inn. While there, they divided some money they had earned together, then went into the skittle alley, where they stayed drinking beer and playing skittles until half-past eleven at night.

They resumed their journey, with Brown calling at a saddler's in Broadwindsor to collect a mill belt, which he placed on his wagon. The two men came to Mount Corner, where their routes home parted, shortly before midnight. According to Fooks, Brown was ‘a little in liquor', but not obviously drunk and certainly capable of taking care of himself.

What happened next is uncertain, since the only account of the following few hours is that given by Martha Brown. She claimed that she found her husband lying unconscious on the doorstep at two o'clock the following morning and had, with difficulty, dragged him into the cottage, where he had clutched tightly at her skirts for several hours and refused to let her go to summon a doctor.

She finally managed to escape her husband's grasp at five o'clock in the morning and ran to the home of John's cousin, Richard Damon, who lived nearby. Banging on Damon's door, she had begged him to come to her house as the horse had kicked John and injured him.

Damon found Brown lying on the floor of his cottage, a handkerchief bound round his head. There was a pool of blood on the floor behind him and his hair was matted with blood and brain tissue. Damon picked up his cousin's limp hand and found it cold – John Brown was dead. When he broke this news to Martha, her only response was to ask, ‘Is he?' Moments later she asked Damon to go and call Harriet Knight.

Damon did as she asked, then went straight to the field where he knew that Brown normally kept his horse. There he found the horse safely locked in its stable. His cousin's hat was standing against the gatepost on its crown. There was a little vomit on the ground near to where the hat was found and marks in the roadside dust, which seemed to indicate that a man had fallen to his knees there. The gate was closed and latched and the horse's halter lay just inside it, beneath the rail of a hayrick.

Having picked up the hat and noticed that it was undamaged and unmarked by blood, Damon returned to his cousin's home, stopping on the way to summon help from numerous villagers. He arrived back in the company of the village publican, Mr Stanton, Joseph Davies (husband of Mary) and Francis Turner, Brown's next-door neighbour. They were greeted by Martha, who told them, ‘The horse have kicked poor John and killed 'ee' [
sic
].