The Cut Throat Killer

Monday 9 September

It is 30 June 1860 and the occupants of Rode Hill House, a remote manor house in a sprawling estate in Somerset, awake to a horror. Francis Savile, the four-year-old son of the master of the house, is gone from the nursery. The alarm is raised in the village but as his father, Samuel Kent, rides off to alert the police in Trowbridge, two of the locals discover the lifeless body of the young boy in the outside privy. His throat has been cut and he has stab wounds to his chest. Who has perpetrated this heinous crime? Could it be a revenge attack from the villagers, who had a grudge against the Kent family, or perhaps the adulterous Samuel Kent himself, who let his first wife die of neglect. It seems that this Victorian family had more than its fair share of secrets.

Inspector Foley was puzzled that no sound was heard during the abduction. The child shared the nursery with his one-year-old sister and Elizabeth Gough, the nurse employed to look after the smaller members of the family. Mr and Mrs Kent slept across the landing with their newest baby and on the same floor were 16-year-old Constance and 15-year-old William, in separate rooms. The housemaid and the cook occupied rooms on the top floor. 

On 15 July Scotland Yard stepped in and put Inspector Jonathon Whicher on the case. Although hampered by the local force, who had left false clues with their own footprints and lost vital evidence, Whicher uncovered from interviews with the large number of former servants the degree of resentment of the two older children towards their younger siblings. After interviewing Constance he was convinced of her guilt but could find no hard evidence.

Constance was charged, but released on bail. Gough was then arrested, brought before magistrates and released. In 1864 Constance finally confessed to the murder to magistrates at Bow Street and later pleaded guilty at her trial. She was handed down the death sentence, which was commuted to life penal servitude because of her age, and she was released from Millbank Prison in 1885.

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