Murder of Julia Martha Thomas

After the murder, Webster posed as Thomas for two weeks but was exposed and fled back to Ireland at her uncle's home at Killanne near Enniscorthy, County Wexford.

[2] Elliot O'Donnell, summing up contemporary accounts in his introduction to a transcript of Webster's trial, said that Thomas had an "excitable temperament" and was regarded by her neighbours as eccentric.

She was later described by The Daily Telegraph as "a tall, strongly-made woman of about 5 feet 5 inches (165 cm) in height with sallow and much freckled complexion and large and prominent teeth".

[7] Webster was released from jail in January 1872 and, by 1873, she had moved to Rose Gardens in Hammersmith, West London, where she became friends with a neighbouring family named Porter.

[12] She told a fellow congregant that she had been delayed by "the neglect of her servant to return home at the proper time", and said that Webster had "flown into a terrible passion" upon being rebuked.

She had a heavy fall, and I became agitated at what had occurred, lost all control of myself, and, to prevent her screaming and getting me into trouble, I caught her by the throat, and in the struggle she was choked, and I threw her on the floor.

[17] The neighbours, a woman named Ives (Thomas's landlady) and her mother, heard a single thump like that of a chair falling over but paid no heed to it at the time.

[21] On 4 March, Webster travelled to Hammersmith to see her old neighbours the Porters, whom she had not seen for six years, wearing Thomas's silk dress and carrying the Gladstone bag which she had filled with some of the remains.

Leonard Reginald Gribble, a writer on criminology, commented that "there is no acceptable evidence that such a repulsive sale was ever made, and it is more than possible that the episode belongs rightfully with the rest of the vast collection of apocryphal stories that has accumulated, not unnaturally, about the persons and deeds of famous criminals.

"[30] Webster continued to live at 2 Mayfield Cottages while posing as Thomas, wearing her late employer's clothes and dealing with tradesmen under her newly assumed identity.

On 9 March, she reached an agreement with John Church, a victualler from Hammersmith, to sell Thomas's furniture and other goods to furnish his pub, the Rising Sun.

There they discovered blood stains, burned finger-bones in the hearth and fatty deposits behind the copper, as well as a letter left by Webster giving her home address in Ireland.

The head constable of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) in Wexford realised that the woman being sought by Scotland Yard was the same person whom his force had arrested fourteen years previously for larceny.

[15] On hearing of the crime with which she was charged, Webster's uncle refused to give shelter to her son, and the authorities sent the boy to the local workhouse until such time as a place could be found for him in an industrial school.

[34] The Times reported that Webster's first appearance at Richmond Magistrates' Court was greeted by "an immense crowd yesterday around the building ... and very great excitement prevailed.

Webster had attempted before the trial to implicate the publican John Church and her former neighbour Porter, but both men had solid alibis and were cleared of any involvement in the murder.

[38] A particularly damning piece of evidence came from a bonnetmaker named Maria Durden who told the court that Webster had visited her a week before the murder and had said that she was going to Birmingham to sell some property, jewellery and a house that her aunt had left her.

"[43] Eventually the Clerk of Assize suggested using the archaic mechanism of a jury of matrons, constituted from a selection of the women attending the court, to rule upon the question of whether Webster was "with quick child".

It was turned down with an official statement that after considering the arguments put forward, the Home Secretary had "failed to discover any sufficient ground to justify him in advising Her Majesty to interfere with the due course of the law".

[40] She was hanged the following day at Wandsworth Prison at 9 am, where the hangman, William Marwood, used his newly developed long drop technique to cause instantaneous death.

Freeman's Journal and Daily Commercial Advertiser of Dublin noted that what it called "one of the most sensational and awful chapters in the annals of human wickedness" had resulted in the press "teem[ing] with descriptions and details of the ghastly horrors of that crime".

[33] Such was Webster's notoriety that within only a few weeks of her arrest, and well before she had gone to trial, Madame Tussaud's created a wax effigy of her and put it on display for those who wished to see the "Richmond Murderess".

H. Such, a printer and publisher in Southwark, issued a ballad entitled "Murder and Mutilation of an Old Lady near Barnes" shortly after Webster had been arrested, set to the tune of "Just Before the Battle, Mother", a popular song of the American Civil War.

[58] At the end of the trial Such issued another ballad, set to the tune of "Driven from Home", announcing: The terrible crime at Richmond at last, On Catherine Webster now has been cast, Tried and found guilty she is sentenced to die.

Church, whom Webster had attempted to implicate, was himself a former servant who had risen to lower middle-class status and earned a measure of prosperity and effective management of his pub.

Crimes were thought to be committed by a social "residuum" at the bottom of society who occupied themselves as "habitual criminals", choosing to live a life of drink and theft rather than improving themselves through thrift and hard work.

[64] Her succession of male friends, one of whom had fathered her child outside wedlock, suggested promiscuous female sexuality – again, strongly counter to expected norms of behaviour.

[67] During her trial Webster attempted unsuccessfully to evoke sympathy by blaming Strong, the possible father of her child, for leading her astray: "I formed an intimate acquaintance with one who should have protected me and was led away by evil associates and bad companions.

"[46] According to Shani D'Cruze of the Feminist Crime Research Network, the fact that Webster was Irish was a significant factor in the widespread revulsion felt towards her in Britain.

[68] In 1952, the naturalist Sir David Attenborough and his wife Jane bought a house situated between the former Mayfield Cottages (which still stand today) and the Hole in the Wall pub.