Julia Thomas
She was murdered in her house in Richmond Upon Thames, England, in 1879.
Personal life
Julia was born as Julia Martha Batterbee, on 16 April 1823 in St. James parish, Westminster, to Barnabas Batterbee, a painter (b. abt. 1796) and his wife Martha (b. abt. 1797). Julia married James Murray in St. James Church in 1847. She was a widow in 1851, then living with her housemaid in St. Pancras. Julia was a schoolmistress living with her mother and two nieces in 1861. She re-married in 1862 to James Thomas, a printers reader (Born abt. 1824 in Christchurch, Surrey). The couple moved to 2 Hazelville Road, Hornsey Lane, Middlesex, where he died in 1873. After the husband died, she moved to a rented house, 2 Mayfield Cottages in Richmond.
Thomas was described by her doctor, George Henry Rudd, as "a small, well-dressed lady" who was about fifty-four years old. According to Elliot O'Donnell, summing up contemporary accounts in his introduction to a transcript of Webster's trial, Thomas was said to have an "excitable temperament" and was regarded by her neighbours as eccentric. She frequently travelled, leaving her friends and relatives unaware of her whereabouts for weeks or months at a time. She was a member of the lower middle class and as such was not wealthy, but she habitually dressed up and wore jewellery to give the impression of prosperity. Her desire to employ a live-in domestic servant probably had as much to do with status as with practicality. However, she had a reputation for being a harsh employer and her irregular habits meant that she had difficulty finding and retaining servants. Before 1879 she had only been able to keep one maid for any length of time.
On 29 January 1879, Thomas took on Kate Webster as her servant
The murder
Webster persuaded Thomas to keep her on for a further three days, until Sunday 2 March. She had Sunday afternoons off as a half-day and was expected to return in time to help Thomas prepare for evening service at the local Presbyterian church. On this occasion, however, Webster visited the local alehouse and returned late, delaying Thomas' departure. The two women quarrelled and several members of the congregation later reported that Thomas had appeared "very agitated" on arriving at the church. She told a fellow congregant that she had been delayed by "the neglect of her servant to return home at the proper time", and said that Webster had "flown into a terrible passion" upon being rebuked. Thomas returned home from church early, about 9 pm, and confronted Webster. According to Webster's eventual confession:
Mrs. Thomas came in and went upstairs. I went up after her, and we had an argument, which ripened into a quarrel, and in the height of my anger and rage I threw her from the top of the stairs to the ground floor. She had a heavy fall, and I became agitated at what had occurred, lost all control of myself, and, to prevent her screaming and getting me into trouble, I caught her by the throat, and in the struggle she was choked, and I threw her on the floor.
The neighbours, a woman named Ives (who was Thomas' landlady) and her mother, heard a single thump like that of a chair falling over but paid no heed to it at the time. Next door, Webster began disposing of the body by dismembering it and boiling it in the laundry copper and burning the bones in the hearth. She later described her actions:
I determined to do away with the body as best I could. I chopped the head from the body with the assistance of a razor which I used to cut through the flesh afterwards. I also used the meat saw and the carving knife to cut the body up with. I prepared the copper with water to boil the body to prevent identity; and as soon as I had succeeded in cutting it up I placed it in the copper and boiled it. I opened the stomach with the carving knife, and burned up as much of the parts as I could.
The neighbours noticed an unusual, unpleasant smell. Webster spoke later of how she was "greatly overcome, both from the horrible sight before me and the smell". However, the activity at 2 Mayfield Cottages did not seem to be out of the ordinary, as it was customary in many households for the washing to begin early on Monday morning. Over the next couple of days Webster continued to clean the house and Thomas' clothes and put on a show of normality for people who called for orders. Behind the scenes she was packing Thomas' dismembered remains into a black Gladstone bag and a corded wooden bonnet-box. She was unable to fit the murdered woman's head and one of the feet into the containers and disposed of them separately, throwing the foot onto a rubbish heap in Twickenham. The head was buried under the Hole in the Wall pub's stables a short distance from Thomas' house, where it was found 131 years later.
Personal life
Julia was born as Julia Martha Batterbee, on 16 April 1823 in St. James parish, Westminster, to Barnabas Batterbee, a painter (b. abt. 1796) and his wife Martha (b. abt. 1797). Julia married James Murray in St. James Church in 1847. She was a widow in 1851, then living with her housemaid in St. Pancras. Julia was a schoolmistress living with her mother and two nieces in 1861. She re-married in 1862 to James Thomas, a printers reader (Born abt. 1824 in Christchurch, Surrey). The couple moved to 2 Hazelville Road, Hornsey Lane, Middlesex, where he died in 1873. After the husband died, she moved to a rented house, 2 Mayfield Cottages in Richmond.
Thomas was described by her doctor, George Henry Rudd, as "a small, well-dressed lady" who was about fifty-four years old. According to Elliot O'Donnell, summing up contemporary accounts in his introduction to a transcript of Webster's trial, Thomas was said to have an "excitable temperament" and was regarded by her neighbours as eccentric. She frequently travelled, leaving her friends and relatives unaware of her whereabouts for weeks or months at a time. She was a member of the lower middle class and as such was not wealthy, but she habitually dressed up and wore jewellery to give the impression of prosperity. Her desire to employ a live-in domestic servant probably had as much to do with status as with practicality. However, she had a reputation for being a harsh employer and her irregular habits meant that she had difficulty finding and retaining servants. Before 1879 she had only been able to keep one maid for any length of time.
On 29 January 1879, Thomas took on Kate Webster as her servant
The murder
Webster persuaded Thomas to keep her on for a further three days, until Sunday 2 March. She had Sunday afternoons off as a half-day and was expected to return in time to help Thomas prepare for evening service at the local Presbyterian church. On this occasion, however, Webster visited the local alehouse and returned late, delaying Thomas' departure. The two women quarrelled and several members of the congregation later reported that Thomas had appeared "very agitated" on arriving at the church. She told a fellow congregant that she had been delayed by "the neglect of her servant to return home at the proper time", and said that Webster had "flown into a terrible passion" upon being rebuked. Thomas returned home from church early, about 9 pm, and confronted Webster. According to Webster's eventual confession:
Mrs. Thomas came in and went upstairs. I went up after her, and we had an argument, which ripened into a quarrel, and in the height of my anger and rage I threw her from the top of the stairs to the ground floor. She had a heavy fall, and I became agitated at what had occurred, lost all control of myself, and, to prevent her screaming and getting me into trouble, I caught her by the throat, and in the struggle she was choked, and I threw her on the floor.
The neighbours, a woman named Ives (who was Thomas' landlady) and her mother, heard a single thump like that of a chair falling over but paid no heed to it at the time. Next door, Webster began disposing of the body by dismembering it and boiling it in the laundry copper and burning the bones in the hearth. She later described her actions:
I determined to do away with the body as best I could. I chopped the head from the body with the assistance of a razor which I used to cut through the flesh afterwards. I also used the meat saw and the carving knife to cut the body up with. I prepared the copper with water to boil the body to prevent identity; and as soon as I had succeeded in cutting it up I placed it in the copper and boiled it. I opened the stomach with the carving knife, and burned up as much of the parts as I could.
The neighbours noticed an unusual, unpleasant smell. Webster spoke later of how she was "greatly overcome, both from the horrible sight before me and the smell". However, the activity at 2 Mayfield Cottages did not seem to be out of the ordinary, as it was customary in many households for the washing to begin early on Monday morning. Over the next couple of days Webster continued to clean the house and Thomas' clothes and put on a show of normality for people who called for orders. Behind the scenes she was packing Thomas' dismembered remains into a black Gladstone bag and a corded wooden bonnet-box. She was unable to fit the murdered woman's head and one of the feet into the containers and disposed of them separately, throwing the foot onto a rubbish heap in Twickenham. The head was buried under the Hole in the Wall pub's stables a short distance from Thomas' house, where it was found 131 years later.
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