At first, the couple lived in Retreat Road in Westcliff-on-Sea, before buying a house at 41 Kensington Gardens in the then-fashionable London suburb of Ilford in July 1920.

On 3 October 1922, the Thompsons attended a performance at the Criterion Theatre in Piccadilly Circus, London, together with Edith's uncle and aunt, Mr and Mrs J. Laxton.

As they walked along Belgrave Road, between De Vere and Endsleigh Gardens,[4] a man jumped out from behind some bushes near their home and attacked Percy.

She wrote of a woman who had lost three husbands and remarked, “I can’t even lose one.” Thompson described how she had carried out her own abortion after becoming pregnant by Bywaters.

[6] Edith Thompson's counsel urged her not to testify, stressing that the burden of proof lay with the prosecution and that there was nothing they could prove other than that she had been present at the murder, but she rejected his advice.

Bywaters in particular attracted admiration for his fierce loyalty and protectiveness towards Edith Thompson but she was widely regarded as the controlling mind that had set it all up.

[8] With the exception of Ruth Ellis, the remains of the women executed at Holloway (Edith Thompson, Styllou Christofi, Amelia Sach and Annie Walters) were reburied in a single grave at Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey.

The grave and plot were formally consecrated by the Reverend Barry Arscott of St. Barnabas, Manor Park, the church in which Edith Thompson was married in January 1916.

"[2] It is true that Mr Justice Shearman did instruct the jury to find Edith Thompson guilty only if they were convinced that she had lured her husband to the place where he was murdered.

Again, commenting on a passage in the letters in which Edith Thompson refers to "this thing that I am going to do for both of us, will it ever at all make any difference between us, darlint [sic], do you understand what I mean; will you ever think any the less of me?

However, Filson Young, in writing contemporaneously with the trial in Notable British Trials (1923), suggests that it was the young of that generation who needed to learn morality: "Mr Justice Shearman frequently referred to Bywaters as 'the adulterer', apparently quite unconscious of the fact that, to people of Bywaters' generation, educated in the ethics of dear labour and cheap pleasure, of commercial sport and the dancing hall, adultery is merely a quaint ecclesiastical term for what seems to them the great romantic adventure of their lives.

However, it pursued a line of reasoning to the effect that proof of instigation of murder in a community of purpose without evidence of rebuttal raises an "inference of preconcerted arrangement".

If non-agreement as to the means and timing of the murder be conceded, there was merit to its claim that the case "exhibits from beginning to end no redeeming feature".

In Notable British Trials, Filson Young takes a similar approach, suggesting that Curtis-Bennett should have resigned his brief at her insistence on going into the witness box, although his quest for fame and fortune could never have allowed it.

Curtis-Bennett argued a more legally secure but evidentially weak defence based on Edith acting the part of poisoner, or engaging in a fantasy.

The fact that the two Home Office pathologists, Sir Bernard Spilsbury and Dr John Webster, both concluded categorically in their independent post mortem reports that there were no traces of poison or glass in Percy Thompson's body should have been proof of the fantasy defence.

"If you think these letters are genuine, they mean that she is involved in a continual practice of deceit; concealing the fact of her connection with Bywaters, and not reiterating it with requests for her husband to let her go.

I had no knowledge of it, and I was stunned and horrified when it took place, and I defy the prosecution to introduce any evidence with which that denial is not absolutely compatible,' and had rested on that, I do not think you could have found a British jury to convict her.

The judge, Mr Justice Shearman, placed much weight on inconsistencies in her evidence, particularly her statements to the police concerning the night of the murder that suggested she had intended to conceal her witness of the crime, and perhaps conversations of criminal intent with Bywaters preceding it, although she always vigorously denied foreknowledge of it.

In The Innocence of Edith Thompson, Lewis Broad states that the judge's summing up was considered to be at the time "deadly, absolutely against her" and that he 'was pressing the case much more strongly than the Solicitor-General had done.

Even though perceived in her favour by Lewis Broad, Filson Young, Edgar Lustgarten, René Weis, Laura Thompson and other students of the case, the Court of Appeal held the poison-plots against her and against him: "If the question is, as I think it was, whether these letters were evidence of a protracted, continuous incitement to Bywaters to commit the crime which he did in the end commit, it really is of comparatively little importance whether the appellant was truly reporting something which she had done, or falsely reporting something which she merely pretended to do.

James Douglas, the chief reporter for the Express papers covering the trial in 1922/23, also took issue with the verdict, writing "I think the hanging of Mrs Thompson is a miscarriage of mercy and justice ...

I might amplify this catalogue of the innocence or non-guiltiness of Mrs Thompson, but my eight points suffice to drive home my argument that her guilt stopped short of wilful murder if only by a hair's breadth was a broad abyss separating the will from the deed.

"[18] Although Lustgarten does not allege any defect in legal procedure, he says that the Court was unable to understand questions of "sex and psychology" and the consequent possibility of fantasy.

344–396, Twining argues that a Wigmorean, "decompositional" analysis of the charges brought against Edith Thompson demonstrates how unsatisfactory the verdict against her was in law.

Twining argues that a close Wigmorean analysis allows for the following conclusions: "For example, the judge's suggestion can be attacked on the following grounds: 1. it is sheer speculation, with no evidence to support it; 2. it involves a petitio principii in that it assumes what is seeks to prove; 3. it does not make sense of the passage: ‘Don’t forget what we talked in the Tea Room [about whether to use poison or a dagger], I’ll still risk and try if you will we have only 3⁠1/2⁠ years left darlingest.’"[22] Twining continues with "Even if we totally discount testimony of both accused that it referred to eloping (the ‘risks’ being financial and/or of social stigma), the context of the letter as a whole and the words ‘3½ years left’ both tend to support the judgement that an innocent explanation is a good deal more likely than the prosecution's interpretation.

In March 2018 the BBC presented a thoughtful evaluation in an episode of the series Murder, Mystery and My Family in which barristers Sasha Wass and Jeremy Dein reviewed the case.

Although they were unable to determine any new evidence, they agreed that there were serious issues to be addressed regarding the final summing up by the trial judge, Mr Justice Shearman.

Despite acting as prosecution and defence, Wass and Dein presented a joint submission to Senior Crown Court Judge David Radford for consideration, arguing that there was no case to answer by Edith Thompson with regard to the charge that was brought against her.

The BBC quotes Mr Raab’s letter to Prof Weis stating that this will "allow a full investigation of your application to take place".