The Sinister Crimes of Catherine Hayes

Brief Case

Hello Everyone, today we are going to dive into the horrific case of Catherine Hayes, a truly wicked woman!  Please remember to subscribe and hit the bell icon as well as leave a like and a comment for more videos twice a week!  Music by CO.AG Music - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwZB4l43iTw&t=105s Music by Myuu -https://www.youtube.com/user/myuuji Music by Kevin Macleod - https://incompetech.com  Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Transcript

00:07Hello everyone, today I'm going to be taking you back 300 years to Georgian England where

00:16we will be looking at the horrific crimes of Catherine Hayes. Catherine was one of the last

00:24women in England to be charged with petty treason before this charge was abolished and simply

00:31reclassified as murder. In Britain the Georgian period was between 1714 and 1830 and this crime

00:44was committed very early in the Georgian period in 1725 so nearly 300 years ago and 104 years

00:54before the Metropolitan Police Act of 1829 established a full-time professional police force

01:01in London. It was considered that in Georgian Britain men were more valuable in law than women

01:10so if a woman killed her husband she was guilty not merely of murder but the much more serious crime

01:18of petty treason. Petty treason was defined by the Treason Act of 1351 and encompassed the killing

01:26of a master by a servant, a husband by his wife or a superior by his inferior. These crimes were

01:34seen

01:35both as an assault on the majesty of the state as well as the actual victim and were perceived at

01:42the

01:42time to be against the natural order of things. This meant that the punishment for petty treason

01:48was much more severe than for ordinary murder. Women were burned at the stake and men could be

01:55hang drawn and quartered. These also being the respective punishments for high treason.

02:04Catherine was born in Birmingham England in 1690. When she was 15 years old she ran away from home.

02:12As a 15 year old in 1705 it was difficult to survive but Catherine was a very pretty girl

02:20and found her way into prostitution. She was employed to look after the needs of a group of army officers

02:26in

02:27Worcestershire but after a while they tired of her services. She spent the next few years working in

02:34prostitution or when she could as a maid in domestic service. Catherine had a relationship with a local

02:41tanner and gave birth to a son named Thomas. At the age of 23 she secured a position as a

02:50housemaid

02:50to a local gentleman farmer named Hayes. Mr Hayes had two sons and it didn't take long for Catherine to

02:58seduce the older one. He was 21 year old John. John fell for Catherine and they married in secret

03:06and started living in a cottage on his father's farm. For the first six months of the marriage

03:13it seemed to go quite well. John was working long hours on the farm while Catherine was at home.

03:20Catherine however needed to amuse herself so she started to have relationships with other men.

03:26The couple lived a very rural life on the farm which is very different to Catherine's childhood

03:30in the city of Birmingham. In 1719 Catherine persuaded John to move to London. This they did

03:38and John set up a business as a coal merchant, pawnbroker and money lender. The business did very

03:44well and Catherine was given a generous allowance including servants. This however was not enough

03:51to satisfy her and she constantly asked John for more. He was growing tired of his wife's demands

03:57and decided she was spending too much money so reduced her allowance. By the year 1725 the marriage began

04:06to go downhill. Coincidentally at the same time the couple had taken in a lodger who was a young

04:16mother. She was a young mother. She was a young mother. She was a young mother. She was a young

04:23mother.

04:23She started to have an incestuous affair with Thomas.

04:26She then took in another lodger.

04:42So now to put it into context. Living in the house we have Catherine, her husband John,

04:49Catherine's illegitimate son Thomas Billings, a tailor and Thomas Wood who was a butcher.

04:59Catherine decided that she no longer wanted to be married to her husband.

05:03She could have left him. Nevertheless in Georgian Britain this would mean giving up all of the

05:10luxuries and comfortable life she had become accustomed to leading. Instead she decided she

05:17would have to kill him. Using all of her charms she persuaded the two lodgers to help her end her

05:24husband's life. On the first of March 1725 John went out drinking to a local pub with the two lodgers

05:32and they took bets on who could drink the most and remain sober. When they all got home Catherine's

05:39husband John was very drunk so he went to bed. When he was finally asleep Thomas Billings, Catherine's

05:47illegitimate son entered his bedroom and hit John on the head with an axe. John let out screams which

05:55were heard by the lady who rented the rooms above. Her name was Mrs Springate. She immediately came down

06:01to inquire about the noise but Catherine told her they had been having a party and Mrs Springate

06:08returned to her room. Thomas Wood then helped Thomas Billings finish off John with the axe.

06:15They all decided that it would be best to ensure that John's body was unidentifiable. So they cut

06:22off his head and wrapped it in a cloth. They then put it in a bucket. As Thomas Wood was

06:28a butcher he

06:29sliced up the rest of John's body. They then had to get rid of the evidence so waited until it

06:36was dark

06:37and removed the sliced up body from the house. They took it to a nearby pond in Marleybone Fields.

06:44They then went to Millbank and threw the head into the River Thames. Their plan however was not well

06:51thought out and they had not made sure that the head sunk to the bottom of the river. So it

06:58was soon

06:58recovered by a local boatman who in horror reported his findings to the constable. It was taken to be

07:06examined where the skull was found to be severely fractured in two places and the face terribly cut.

07:14Nobody could identify John's severed head so it was placed on top of a wooden spike in St Margaret's

07:20churchyard. Despite its appearance it didn't take long for the head to be identified by three men as

07:28being that of John Hayes. One of the men who had identified John was a business associate named Mr Ashby

07:36who informed Catherine that he had been due to meet John to discuss some business and John did not show

07:43up at the appointment or send word that he would not be there. Catherine insisted that her husband had

07:48been called away on urgent business. She was getting agitated and this time she made up a story about

07:56John having killed a man in a fight and fleeing the country. Mr Ashby didn't believe this story

08:03so reported his suspicions to the authorities. In consequence of voicing his suspicions Mr Ashby returned

08:10to the Hayes household with several constables. When they arrived to their surprise they discovered

08:16Catherine in bed with Thomas Billings. The pair were both immediately arrested. Thomas Wood had

08:23temporarily escaped but for some reason returned to London a few days later where he too was arrested.

08:30The remains of John's body were later discovered on the 26th of March. The authorities also decided to

08:37arrest Mrs Springate although they soon realized that she had no part in the crime and was released.

08:43A coroner's inquest opened on the 16th of April 1726 to investigate John's death.

08:51It brought in a verdict of willful murder naming Catherine, Thomas Wood and Thomas Billings as the

08:58people responsible. This was a very barbaric crime which shook early 18th century London and was widely

09:06reported in the newspapers and spoken about in the streets. The case was a special interest because it

09:13was one of the first recorded instances where a victim had been dismembered after death. The

09:20magistrate showed Catherine her husband's head by now preserved in a jar of gin and invited her to touch it.

09:27At the time there was a superstition that if a murderer touched the head of the victim their guilt

09:34will be revealed. Catherine being aware of this was quite happy to touch John's head and put on a show

09:41of

09:41grief for the magistrate. However she was remanded in Newgate prison until her trial. Billings and Wood

09:48were kept separately from Catherine and her illegitimate son Thomas continued to protest his innocence.

09:56When Thomas Wood had been arrested he was cross-examined by the justices of the peace

10:01and confessed to his part in the crime implicating Catherine and Billings. He told the justice that

10:09Catherine had given he and Billings the money to get her husband drunk and that Billings had struck

10:16the fatal blow while he had cut up the body. Catherine then also confessed her guilt and said that the

10:24devil had been in them and made them commit murder. The three came to trial at the April sessions of

10:31the Old

10:32Bailey in London held between Wednesday the 20th and Saturday the 23rd of April before the Lord Mayor

10:39the recorder and several other judges. The indictment against Catherine was for petty treason. Thomas

10:46Billings and Thomas Wood were simply charged with murder. Catherine maintained that she had not taken

10:52part in the actual killing but held a candle for the men while they dismembered her husband. She also

10:59continued to maintain but the crime was the work of the devil through them. They were tried by a jury

11:06of 12 men who heard evidence of the murder and they returned a verdict of guilty against all three

11:12defendants. Billings and Wood were sentenced to be hanged at Tyburn and afterwards to be hanged in chains

11:20and Catherine having been found guilty of petty treason was sentenced to be drawn to Tyburn

11:26on a hurdle and there be burned alive at the stake. She was greatly distressed by her sentence as were

11:34her

11:34two co-defendants who begged just to be hanged. Catherine and her fellow condemned were lodged in the

11:42condemned hold at Newgate prison where she reaffirmed her confession but protested the severity of her

11:50sentence. She accepted that she deserved to die for her crimes but very distressed by the thought of the

11:58way she would be executed. The executions were set for Monday the 9th of May 1726 and drew the usual

12:08huge

12:08crowd particularly as a woman was to be burnt. In the press yard at Newgate that day there were nine

12:16men

12:16and Catherine waiting to be executed. Their irons were removed and the yeoman of the halter put the

12:23nooses around the men's necks prior to loading them in the carts where they sat on their coffins for the

12:30journey to Tyburn. When they reached Tyburn the three carts were backed under the beams and the hangman

12:37secured each man in turn. When they finished their prayers the carts were moved from under them

12:42leaving them suspended. Catherine was of course able to watch the men die one of which was her son

12:50Thomas Billings. Attention now turned to her execution. She was secured to a stake set in the ground a few

12:57yards from the gallows. A cord put around her neck and passed through a hole board in the stake for

13:06the

13:06purpose of strangling her in accordance with the normal practice of the time. Two cartloads of sticks

13:13were piled around her and at the signal the fire was lit. She begged the executioner to strangle her

13:19before the fire reached her and he took the end of the cord and began to pull on it but

13:23the flames blew

13:24in his direction burning his hands so he had to let go. Catherine reportedly gave three dreadful shrieks

13:31before she was engulfed by the fierce fire and fell silent. She was seen trying to push away the

13:38flames with her free hands but to no avail. Reports claimed that the executioner seeing her suffering

13:46threw a large piece of wood at her head which broke her skull and probably killed her. However she would

13:53have suffered terrible burns and shot and had been horrific pain for some time before the fire or lack

13:59of oxygen created by it would have killed her. It was over an hour before her body was reduced to

14:06ashes.

14:08There is no memorial stone for Catherine Hayes. She goes down in history as a cold-blooded murderer

14:14who was burnt at the stake for the crime of killing her husband.

14:22She goes down in history as a cold-blooded murderer. She goes down in history as a cold-blooded murderer.

14:23Hi everyone, thanks for listening and I hope you enjoyed the video. If you did please hit the like button

14:30and leave a comment. You can also subscribe and hit the bell icon to get notified of the next brief

14:38case.

14:39If you enjoyed the video, please.

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