Blackpool Bloodbath ....

What does the town of Blackpool mean to most of our reader’s? Kiss me quick hats, donkeys on the beach, the tower, the pleasure beach, happy days as a small child building sandcastles on the promenade to think of a few. But what of its murky paranormal past and stories of murder and mayhem? Here are just a few tales of the town’s strange history…..

An ex-World War I soldier put his crime down to post-traumatic stress disorder, but he still ended up on the gallows. Lieutenant Frederick Rothwell Holt had murdered his girlfriend, and then tried to plead insanity. But there was a huge question of a £5,000 life insurance policy hanging over the case

Near Blackpool Airport there are a stretch of sand dunes than run along the coast for a fair few miles. As a young child I actually used to go and play on them! On Christmas eve 1919 the body of Kathleen Breaks ( known as Kitty )  was found, she had been shot three times by a revolver. In the sand dunes the police found a Wesley revolver, stained gloves and the footprints of her ex-lover Frederick Rothwell Holts. At the trial Frederick pleaded insanity which was rejected by the home office psychiatrists, he was hanged by John Ellis on the 13^th April 1920 at Strangeways prison in Manchester.

Holt, on the other hand, accused the police of setting mad dogs on him and trying to kill him with germ-ridden flies and poison him with gas. In other words, he was claiming post-traumatic stress and depression. However his plea of insanity fell on deaf ears and the jury found in favour of the prosecution.
He then appealed asserting that he’d caught syphilis while serving in Malaya and this had tipped him over the edge. But the Home Office refused to entertain the idea after he was checked over by psychiatrists.

It’s interesting to see who else that John Ellis dealt with and what effect being a hangman eventually had on him. John executed 156 during his macabre career including many famous criminals, which we will come to later. He tended his resignation due to poor health, having executed a total of 203 people. Before his suicide (slitting his own throat) on September 20th 1932, Ellis wrote his memoirs "Diary of a Hangman" which has been recently reprinted.

John Ellis took the responsibility of his position very seriously and hoped to "despatch" the condemned person with as little fuss and pain to the individual concerned. George Smith was the famous "Brides in the Bath" murderer whom Ellis hanged on the 13th of August 1915 at Maidstone prison.

George Joseph Smith (alias Oliver George Love, Charles Oliver James, Henry Williams and John Lloyd) was found guilty of the murders of Bessie Williams (nee Mundy) who was found dead in a bath in 1912, Alice Burnham who died in a bath at Blackpool in December 1913, and Margaret Elizabeth Lofty who was found in a bath in Highgate in December 1914.

Blackpool Landlady Margaret Crossley had the couple turn up on her doorstep, claiming to be newly-weds and giving the name of Smith. They seemed to be quite genuine. Shown to the first-floor front, Smith beadily noted that the price included use of a bathroom down the landing. The Smiths had first viewed a room in Adelaide Street, but decided that without a bath, the accommodation would not suit. George Smith explained that his wife, Alice, was a former nurse and particular about hygiene.
At 16 Regent Road, the bathroom has now been converted into a small bedsit with its own bath, previous owners never knew of the house's infamous history, ‘There's always been something strange about that little flat at the back. People take it, but never stay. I must have had 10 tenants through it since I took the house a couple of years ago’ says a former owner who does not wish to be named.
The arrangements at Regent Road suited Smith perfectly. What only he knew was that he had already drowned his first wife, Bessie Mundy, at Herne Bay the year before, and had identical plans for his new bride, Alice Burnham. Smith had already insured Alice's life for £500, and persuaded her to transfer money from her savings account into his. Just days before travelling to Blackpool, she had made a will in his favour, much to the anger of her parents.
Then Alice asked if she might take a bath. Down in the kitchen, the Crossleys were having their evening meal when one of them noticed a large patch of water on the ceiling. It grew bigger and dripped down the wall. Knowing that Alice was bathing above, they discussed who should go up to complain. Just then, George Smith appeared, breathless and rumpled, with a paper bag. "I've bought these eggs for our breakfast in the morning," he said, and went upstairs.Moments later, he appeared on the landing, shouting to Mrs Crossley to fetch a doctor. He found Smith in the bathroom, supporting Alice's head and she lay in the hot suds. "Oh, she is drowned," the doctor announced. "She is dead."
Smith slept the night at a neighbour's, but returned to Regent Road next morning to make funeral arrangements. In the afternoon, he played Mrs Crossley's piano in the parlour and drank a bottle of whisky, rendering him weepy and emotional at the inquest, hurriedly convened that very evening and hastily concluded. Verdict : accidental death from a fit in the bath.
Alice was given the cheapest possible funeral and her body buried in a pauper's grave. Derided for ordering a cheap coffin, Smith retorted : "When they are dead, they are done with." He fled Blackpool, leaving an address with Mrs Crossley on a postcard. On the back, she wrote "Wife died in bath. We shall see him again." As Smith sped off down Regent Road, Mrs Crossley hollered "Crippen!" after him. Alice's estate, willed to Smith, amounted to £600.
From the Bow Street dock, Smith hurled insults at the witnesses, branding his Blackpool landlady Mrs Crossley "a lunatic". At his Old Bailey trial, the Regent Road bath in which Alice Burnham died was used to demonstrate Smith's murder method to the jury. In a back room of the court, the bath was filled with water and a nurse, wearing a bathing suit, got in. A detective inspector grasped her feet and pulled the nurse's head under the water. So realistic was this demonstration that the nurse had to be revived by artificial respiration. The jury took just 22 minutes to turn Smith over to the hangman. The water mark from Alice's last bath stayed on Mrs Crossley's kitchen ceiling until she surrendered her £32-a-year lease and left the house around the time of the trial. The bath water had left a brown stain, and had marked the back of the pictures hanging on the kitchen wall.
The house has recently again just been converted into flats; I wonder if the new owner knows what horrid history has transpired there.

One hanging in the north of England that didn’t get the same prominence was that of Louisa Merrifield for the murder of Mrs Sarah Ricketts.

The last woman to be executed at Strangeways Prison was 46 year old Louisa May Merrifield who had been convicted of poisoning Mrs Sarah Ricketts. Mrs Ricketts was a 79 year old, bedridden widow who lived in Blackpool, North shore and had hired Merrifield and her husband Alfred to look after her in March 1953. Shortly thereafter, she made a new will leaving her bungalow to Merrifield. Merrifield added the rat poison, Rodine, to the jam which Mrs Rickets subsequently ate. Her death was considered suspicious and an autopsy was performed which revealed the presence of poison. A record of the sale of the Rodine to Merrifield was discovered at a local chemist and the police arrested her and her husband, Alfred.
Unfortunately for her, Merrifield had openly boasted of inheriting the bungalow which threw suspicion on her. 

On 9 April 1953 Louisa asked a Doctor to certify that Mrs. Ricketts was fit and sane enough to make a new will. On 14 April 1953, Mrs. Ricketts died. Her post-mortem revealed that she had died from phosphorous poisoning. The police searched the bungalow and its garden, with the Merrifields still in residence, although they found no poison.
Lousia and Alfred Merrifield were both tried together with murder at Manchester in July 1953. The prosecution's case was that the Merrifields had murdered Mrs. Ricketts with phosphorous in the form of a rat poison, and that they would benefit financially from Mrs. Ricketts' death. Witnesses also testified to the earlier remarks made by Lousia Merrifield about her wealthy old women who had not died yet.
Louisa Merrifield was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging. The jury failed to reach a verdict on Alfred Merrifield. He was released and inherited a half-share in the late Mrs. Ricketts' bungalow. He died, aged 80, in 1962.
Lousia Merrifield was hanged at Manchester's Strangeways Prison on 18 September 1953.