CHAPTER 5

Murder or Suicide?
1872

The deceased died from the mortal effects of having her throat cut, but the how the injury was inflicted, there is no evidence to show.

Thomas Martin, an elderly hurdle-maker (he made fences and wooden goods), lived in a two-storey house on the High Street, New Hampton. He had lived there since the 1830s. He was born in Buckinghamshire in about 1786. By 1871, he was a widower, his wife, Frances, dying in the 1860s. They had married in about 1814 and had at least four children. By 1851, all had left the family home, but the eldest, his unmarried daughter, Sarah Hooper Martin, who was aged fifty-two in 1872, had by then returned to live with him and carried on a laundry business on the premises. They were the sole residents.

Not much is known about Sarah. She had worked in domestic service at one time. Currently, she did some charring and sold fish as well as taking in washing. She was very poor and had pledged most of her clothes. Her neighbours knew of her poverty which was something she often complained about. The police report about her character stated that she was, ‘a woman of loose habits, and frequently got intoxicated and when she did she got so that she did some very eccentric things’. One of these was to jump out of moving carriages.

On Monday 2 December 1872, Martin returned home at 4 pm and stayed there for an hour. His daughter had company: one Mrs Mitchell and her daughter. Martin then went out for a walk, returning at six. By this time his daughter’s visitors had left. It was also said that Sarah James, of North Road, Teddington, saw her, leaving at 6.40. He had his supper and then, just after 7 pm, went upstairs to bed.

As he was retiring for the night, his daughter was entertaining another female guest. The two women seemed to be having an amicable conversation about a place where the two of them had lived together in the past. Martin did not know the strange woman, but thought that she was from Kingston. He didn’t know why the woman had come to see Sarah, either. The two stayed together for some time (over two hours). They clearly had a lot to talk about.

Martin did not fall asleep at once. In any case, the sounds he heard below began to occupy his mind. He thought he could hear a scuffling noise, as if chairs and tables were being knocked about and his daughter’s voice rang out; or was it a scream? So he called out, ‘What’s the matter?’ He then believed his daughter replied, ‘Do you hear me?’ When he got out of the bed, he went to the top of the stairs and called out, but heard no reply. Everything was in darkness.

The old man then lit a candle and went downstairs. He found that the front door was open, but no one was about. He assumed that the spring latch had swung open, so he closed the door, fastening it firmly shut. He then went back upstairs to bed. He was not left undisturbed for long. The front door was forced open and a man came up the stairs to see him. It was a police sergeant and he had bad news about his daughter, who he initially said had been taken ill.

It appeared that Sarah and her guest had left the house sometime before 9.40 pm. It was at that latter time that Fanny Nash, a neighbour, heard the sound of something like a chair falling over and Sarah shouting, ‘Murder!’ She was then indoors. Edward Reddick, a fourteen-year-old plasterer, was actually outside and he heard Sarah shout, ‘Police!’ and ‘Help!’ More to the point, he claimed he saw a man jump over the gate of Martin’s house and run up the road towards Twickenham. The man was tall, dressed in dark clothes and wore a cap. As a description of a man seen momentarily in the dark, it was not too bad, but as a description of a wanted man it was nigh on useless.

Meanwhile, all attention focussed on Sarah. Mrs Nash had run out into the road, but terrified by Sarah’s screams, she quickly went to a nearby beer house, the Rising Sun, only returning when others came with her. She then approached Sarah and asked what was amiss. Her neighbour replied, ‘Oh! Mrs Nash, I’m murdered.’ She then staggered and fell onto the road. By this time, Edward Barnes, the publican of the aforesaid place, had arrived. He later said that Sarah had been briefly into this pub just before 10, and said, ‘Oh! Mr Barnes, I’m being murdered.’ Barnes did not pay much attention and failed to ask her who was responsible. Sarah then staggered out into the night when Mrs Nash had then seen her.