Catherine Hayes was born near Birmingham in the year 1690. By the time she had become a teenager, Catherine already showed signs of being a voluptuous and attractive girl, and soon discovered that she was popular with men. In due course she ran away from home and settled in Great Ombersley in Worcestershire. Now fifteen years of age, Catherine earned her living as a prostitute, being well known in the nearby army camp.
It appeared that Catherine alternated her life between periods of prostitution and domestic service, and soon she had moved on again, becoming a servant to a farmer named Hayes, who lived some four miles from Worcester city.
The Hayes family were very well off and Catherine decided to use her charms on the younger of Mr Hayes’ two sons. John Hayes was captivated by the young attractive woman, and they soon agreed to marry. Fearful that his parents would not approve, John married Catherine in secret.
For a time, they seemed happy enough but soon it became clear that this comfortable life wasn’t enough for Catherine. Some six months after they had married, she insisted that they should abandon the rural farm life and move to London. John was duly persuaded and, in 1719, set himself up as a coal-merchant, pawnbroker and money-lender, in Marylebone.
The business thrived and Catherine led a most comfortable life but this, it seems, was still not enough for her. She demanded more money and servants, but John Hayes would have none of it. Indeed, so angry did he become by her constant demands that he actually reduced her allowances. This only served to lead to fresh arguments. Still, Catherine did have at least one thing to console her. In 1725, she had persuaded John to take in a lodger, eighteen-year-old Thomas Billings. Unbeknown to John, Thomas was Catherine’s illegitimate son. Furthermore, Catherine now embarked on an incestuous relationship with Billings.
After some time, Catherine persuaded John to allow another lodger to stay with them. This man, named Thomas Wood, was a close friend of Billings. In time, however, he also grew to be rather close to Catherine and soon he too was having an affair with his landlord’s wife. Even this was not enough for Catherine who now decided that she would be better off without her husband altogether. Of course, she could simply have left him and gone to live elsewhere, with one, or both of her lovers, but Catherine decided that he had to die. At least that way she would inherit all his property. Over a number of weeks she mooted the idea to her two lovers and eventually they agreed to help.
The plan was put into action on 1 March 1726. Billings and Wood took John Hayes out drinking and, by means of betting who could drink the most, soon had him completely under the influence of alcohol. A semi-conscious John was taken home by his two lodgers and placed gently into his bed. Then, just as he was drifting off to sleep, Billings took an axe and struck John on the head.
The blow did not kill John Hayes, who immediately screamed out very loudly. Another blow from the axe was delivered and this finally finished John off. The question now was how to dispose of the body.
Wood was a butcher by trade so he found it a simple task to cut the body into pieces. The various body parts were then dumped into a pond at Marylebone, but the head, the one part which might cause the body to be identified, was thrown into the River Thames, at Millbank. Unfortunately for the killers, the head came to rest on a sandbank, in Westminster, from where it was recovered by the authorities.
In these days before photography, how could the head be identified? The authorities decided that the best way was to place it on public exhibition. So, the battered head was placed on a spike in St Margaret’s churchyard. There it was seen each day by hundreds of passers-by, and eventually no fewer than three witnesses came forward to say that they believed the head to be that of John Hayes.
As a matter of course, Catherine Hayes was now questioned and she told officers that her husband was away on business. However, one of the men who had recognised the head, a Mr Ashby, had had a business appointment with John, who he said would not simply have gone away without telling him. Once again, the authorities visited Catherine’s house where they found her in bed with Thomas Billings. They were both arrested and, a few days later, Wood too was taken into custody.
On 16 April, an inquest into John Hayes’ death concluded that he had been a victim of wilful murder and his wife, Billings and Wood were named as those responsible. Catherine and Billings maintained that they were completely innocent of any involvement in John’s death, but Wood told a completely different story.
Wood readily admitted his part in the crime and said that it had been Catherine who gave him and Billings the money to get John drunk. He also claimed that it had been Billings who struck the fatal blows but admitted that it had been he, as a butcher, who had cut the body into pieces. Catherine, apparently, had been kind enough to hold a candle so that he had enough light whilst he performed the terrible deed. Faced with this testimony, Catherine then also admitted her guilt, but claimed that the Devil had made her do it.
All three defendants faced their trial at the Old Bailey, in April. Billings and Wood were both charged with murder, but Catherine was charged with the more serious crime of petty treason. She claimed, in her defence, that she had not taken part in any of the actual murder itself, but admitted suggesting that John should be done away with, and to holding the candle whilst his body was dismembered.
Catherine also claimed that the reason she had suggested that John Hayes should be killed was partly due to the way he had treated her. He had prevented her from reading her Bible and had only ever allowed her to go to church on two or three occasions all the time they had been together. He had also offered her violence and once, when she had been pregnant, his treatment of her had caused her to lose the child.
Despite these protestations, the jury had little difficulty in adjudging all three to be guilty. Wood and Billings were sentenced to be hanged, and their bodies afterwards gibbeted. Catherine was sentenced to be burned alive, the standard punishment for treason. In fact, Wood never did face the ultimate penalty of the law as he died in prison before the sentence could be carried out. For Billings and Catherine there would be no such escape, and they were due for execution on Monday 9 May 1726, along with eight other men.
On the morning of the execution, three carts left the prison for Tyburn. In the first cart were Gabriel Lawrence, William Griffin and Thomas Wright, three men who had been sentenced to death for sodomy. In the next, rode John Gillingham, John Mapp and Henry Vigius, three highway-robbers, and in the last cart rode Billings, John Cotterell and James Dupress, two men condemned for burglary. As for Catherine, she was dragged along behind the carts, on a hurdle.
The procession duly arrived at Tyburn, where the three carts were positioned under the beams of the scaffold. The executioner, Richard Arnet, secured each man in turn, put a noose around their necks, and the carts were then removed, leaving them suspended. Catherine was able to watch the death throes of all nine men, including those of her son, Billings. Then it came to her turn to die.
Although the sentence for petty treason was to be burned alive, mercy was invariably shown to such unfortunates. A cord was fastened around the condemned woman’s neck, passed through a hole in the stake to which she was tied, and then to the executioner’s hand. The custom was that the condemned woman would be strangled before the flames could reach her. Unfortunately, on this occasion, luck was not on Catherine’s side.
As Arnet began to pull on the rope, the flames from the burning faggots blew towards his hands, burning them. He had no choice but to let go. Catherine, therefore, was still alive as the flames licked around her.
Three blood-curdling screams echoed around Tyburn as Catherine began to burn. She was seen trying to push the burning faggots away from herself but it was no use. The flames grew ever stronger and Catherine was still alive.
Contemporary reports of the execution claim that Arnet, seeing the distress that Catherine was in, threw a massive piece of wood at her head, which shattered her skull and killed her, putting her out of her misery. Whatever the truth of that, Catherine finally fell silent and, after a full hour, her body was reduced to ashes. As for Billings, his body was later taken down from the scaffold and hanged in chains on the road to Paddington.