Chronicle & Echo has delved into the history books to pick out a few of the most shocking crimes that ended with perpetrators hanged or jailed… or, in one case, transported to Australia where he went on to become a bit of a celebrity, by all accounts.
5. MICHAEL READER and STEPHEN WELCH
Reader, 70, was jailed for after a jury found him guilty of gunning down his estranged wife Marion Price in cold blood in Earls Barton in December 2019 after being ordered to pay her £10,000 as a final divorce settlement. His best mate Welch, 61, was also convicted of murder on a majority verdict for his role in the plot. Photo: Northamptonshire Police
6. ANDREW GEORGE MACRAE
Macrae was among the last men hanged at Northampton Gaol in 1893 for murdering his mistress Annie Pritchard in what is known as the Body in the Bag case. Macrae, who worked in a bacon warehouse in Dychurch Lane, was charged after some of Annie’s remains were found wrapped up in meat sacking in a ditch near East Haddon. Her ghost has been ‘sighted’ at the nearby Black Lion pub — now the Wig & Pen in St Giles’ Street. Photo: Dave Knibb
7. EDWARD TENNISWOOD
Jurors took just 108 minutes after a ten-day trial to convict the 52-year-old of murdering and raping India Chipchase. The 20-year-old had been on a night out with friends when Tenniswood approached her in the early hours of January 30, 2016, led her to a taxi before taking her to his house in St James where she was attacked and killed. Photo: Northamptonshire Police
8. JOSIAH DENTON
According to Peter Hill’s A HIstory of Hostelries in Northamptonshire, Denton had been drinking with three pals in pubs in Flore in November 1835 before robbing one of them — named only as Bull — of a silver pocket watch and a shilling. Denton was sentenced to transportation to Australia where, after serving his time, he became a founder of the town of Toowoomba in Queensland. Photo: Logan MacLeod