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Ratcliff Highway murders
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Ratcliff Highway murders
The Ratcliff Highway murders (sometimes Ratcliffe Highway murders) were two attacks on two separate families – the Marr and Williamson families – that resulted in seven fatalities. The two attacks occurred twelve days apart in December 1811, in homes located half a mile apart near the East End area of Wapping, London, England, United Kingdom. The main suspect in the slayings, John Williams, killed himself before he could be put on trial.
The first attack took place on 7 December 1811 in the living quarters behind a linen draper's shop at 29 Ratcliffe Highway, on the south side of the street between Cannon Street Road and Artichoke Hill. Ratcliffe Highway was the old name for a road in the East End of London, now simply called "The Highway", then one of three main roads leaving the city. The road was in a dangerous and run-down area of seedy businesses, dark alleys and dilapidated tenements.
The victims of the first murders were the Marr family. Timothy Marr, whose age was reported as either 24 or 27, had previously served several years with the East India Company (EIC) aboard the trading ship Dover Castle, and now kept a linen draper's and hosier's shop. Marr had a young wife, Celia; a 14-week-old son, Timothy (who had been born on 29 August); an apprentice, James Gowan; and a servant girl, Margaret Jewell. All had been living at 29 Ratcliffe Highway since April of that year.
Just before midnight on 7 December 1811, the Marrs were in their shop and residence when an intruder entered their home. 7 December fell on a Saturday, then pay day for many British working people and the busiest day of the week for shopkeepers.
Jewell was not present at 29 Ratcliffe Highway because she had just been sent to purchase oysters as a late-night meal for Marr and a treat for his young wife, who was still recovering from childbirth. Jewell was then to go to a nearby bakery at John Hill and pay an outstanding bill. One report stated that as she opened the shop door she saw the figure of a man framed in the light. As the entire area was usually busy after normal business hours, Jewell took no notice and went on with her errand. Finding the oyster shop closed, she walked back past the Marrs' home, where she saw her employer through the window, still at work, and went to pay the baker's bill. Finding the baker's closed, Jewell decided to go to another shop in a final attempt to find some oysters, but, after finding that shop shuttered as well, she returned empty-handed.
Arriving at the shop at twenty minutes past midnight, Jewell found the building dark and the door locked. Thinking that the Marrs had forgotten that she was still out, she knocked, but received no answer. Jewell initially heard no movement inside, then a noise that sounded like footsteps on the stairs, so she assumed that someone was coming to let her in. She heard the baby upstairs cry out. However, no one came to the door. Hearing footsteps on the pavement behind her, Jewell became frightened and slammed the knocker against the door "with unintermitting violence", drawing attention to herself. George Olney, a night watchman who called out the time every half-hour, came to find out who she was. Olney, who knew the Marrs well, knocked at the door and called out, but noticed that the shutters were in place yet were not latched. The noise awakened John Murray, a pawnbroker and Marr's next-door neighbour. Alarmed, he jumped over the wall that divided his yard from 29 Ratcliffe Highway, and saw a light on and the back door standing open. Murray entered and went up the back steps, calling to the Marrs that they had neglected to fasten their shutters. He heard nothing.
Returning downstairs and entering the shop, Murray beheld "the carnage of the night stretched out on the floor". The "narrow premises ... so floated with gore that it was hardly possible to escape the pollution of blood in picking out a path to the front door." He first saw Gowan, the apprentice, lying on the floor about five feet from the stairs, just inside the shop door. The bones of the boy's face were smashed, his blood was dripping onto the floor, and his brains had been pulverised and cast about the walls and across the counters.
Murray went to the front door to let Olney in, but stumbled across another corpse, that of Celia Marr. She lay face down, her head battered, her wounds still emitting blood. Murray let in Olney and together they searched for Timothy Marr. They found him behind the shop counter, battered to death. Murray and Olney rushed to the living quarters, and found the infant dead in his crib, which was covered with blood. One side of the infant's face had been crushed and his throat had been slit so that his head was nearly severed from his body.
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Ratcliff Highway murders
The Ratcliff Highway murders (sometimes Ratcliffe Highway murders) were two attacks on two separate families – the Marr and Williamson families – that resulted in seven fatalities. The two attacks occurred twelve days apart in December 1811, in homes located half a mile apart near the East End area of Wapping, London, England, United Kingdom. The main suspect in the slayings, John Williams, killed himself before he could be put on trial.
The first attack took place on 7 December 1811 in the living quarters behind a linen draper's shop at 29 Ratcliffe Highway, on the south side of the street between Cannon Street Road and Artichoke Hill. Ratcliffe Highway was the old name for a road in the East End of London, now simply called "The Highway", then one of three main roads leaving the city. The road was in a dangerous and run-down area of seedy businesses, dark alleys and dilapidated tenements.
The victims of the first murders were the Marr family. Timothy Marr, whose age was reported as either 24 or 27, had previously served several years with the East India Company (EIC) aboard the trading ship Dover Castle, and now kept a linen draper's and hosier's shop. Marr had a young wife, Celia; a 14-week-old son, Timothy (who had been born on 29 August); an apprentice, James Gowan; and a servant girl, Margaret Jewell. All had been living at 29 Ratcliffe Highway since April of that year.
Just before midnight on 7 December 1811, the Marrs were in their shop and residence when an intruder entered their home. 7 December fell on a Saturday, then pay day for many British working people and the busiest day of the week for shopkeepers.
Jewell was not present at 29 Ratcliffe Highway because she had just been sent to purchase oysters as a late-night meal for Marr and a treat for his young wife, who was still recovering from childbirth. Jewell was then to go to a nearby bakery at John Hill and pay an outstanding bill. One report stated that as she opened the shop door she saw the figure of a man framed in the light. As the entire area was usually busy after normal business hours, Jewell took no notice and went on with her errand. Finding the oyster shop closed, she walked back past the Marrs' home, where she saw her employer through the window, still at work, and went to pay the baker's bill. Finding the baker's closed, Jewell decided to go to another shop in a final attempt to find some oysters, but, after finding that shop shuttered as well, she returned empty-handed.
Arriving at the shop at twenty minutes past midnight, Jewell found the building dark and the door locked. Thinking that the Marrs had forgotten that she was still out, she knocked, but received no answer. Jewell initially heard no movement inside, then a noise that sounded like footsteps on the stairs, so she assumed that someone was coming to let her in. She heard the baby upstairs cry out. However, no one came to the door. Hearing footsteps on the pavement behind her, Jewell became frightened and slammed the knocker against the door "with unintermitting violence", drawing attention to herself. George Olney, a night watchman who called out the time every half-hour, came to find out who she was. Olney, who knew the Marrs well, knocked at the door and called out, but noticed that the shutters were in place yet were not latched. The noise awakened John Murray, a pawnbroker and Marr's next-door neighbour. Alarmed, he jumped over the wall that divided his yard from 29 Ratcliffe Highway, and saw a light on and the back door standing open. Murray entered and went up the back steps, calling to the Marrs that they had neglected to fasten their shutters. He heard nothing.
Returning downstairs and entering the shop, Murray beheld "the carnage of the night stretched out on the floor". The "narrow premises ... so floated with gore that it was hardly possible to escape the pollution of blood in picking out a path to the front door." He first saw Gowan, the apprentice, lying on the floor about five feet from the stairs, just inside the shop door. The bones of the boy's face were smashed, his blood was dripping onto the floor, and his brains had been pulverised and cast about the walls and across the counters.
Murray went to the front door to let Olney in, but stumbled across another corpse, that of Celia Marr. She lay face down, her head battered, her wounds still emitting blood. Murray let in Olney and together they searched for Timothy Marr. They found him behind the shop counter, battered to death. Murray and Olney rushed to the living quarters, and found the infant dead in his crib, which was covered with blood. One side of the infant's face had been crushed and his throat had been slit so that his head was nearly severed from his body.