Timothy Marr, whose age was reported as either 24 or 27, had previously served several years with the East India Company (EIC) aboard the trading ship Dover Castle, and now kept a linen draper's and hosier's shop.

Marr had a young wife, Celia; a 14-week-old son, Timothy (who had been born on 29 August); an apprentice, James Gowan; and a servant girl, Margaret Jewell.

Jewell was not present at 29 Ratcliffe Highway because she had just been sent to purchase oysters as a late-night meal for Marr and a treat for his young wife, who was still recovering from childbirth.

Finding the oyster shop closed, she walked back past the Marrs' home, where she saw her employer through the window, still at work, and went to pay the baker's bill.

The "narrow premises ... so floated with gore that it was hardly possible to escape the pollution of blood in picking out a path to the front door.

A reward of 50 guineas was offered for the apprehension of the perpetrator,[3] and, to notify area residents, a handbill was drafted and stuck on church doors.

Murray stated that he had heard bumping noises around 12:10 a.m., so it was decided that the killers had still been in the home when Jewell returned and had fled out the back door.

There was no blood on the chisel, but since Jewell stated that Marr had been looking for one earlier that evening, it was thought that it was brought to be used as a weapon, since if it had been in plain sight, he would have found it.

The four victims were given a memorial service, then buried beneath a monument in the parish church of St. George in the East, where the infant had been baptised three months earlier.

The same night the initials were discovered on the maul, and twelve days after the first killings, the second set of murders occurred at The King's Arms, a tavern at 81 New Gravel Lane (now Garnet Street).

The victims were John Williamson, the 56-year-old publican, who had run the tavern for fifteen years; Elizabeth, his 60-year-old wife; and their servant, Bridget Anna Harrington, who was in her late 50s.

Earlier that night Williamson had told one of the parish constables that he had seen a man wearing a brown jacket lurking around the place and listening at his door.

[3] The crowd forced the tavern doors open and saw the body of John Williamson lying face up on the steps leading into the taproom.

Given what had happened to the Marr family twelve days earlier, it seemed miraculous that she had slept through the entire attack and had no idea what had just occurred downstairs.

Acting on eyewitness accounts that a tall man had been loitering outside the tavern that night, wearing a flushing coat (a loose-fitting, hooded garment), several Bow Street Runners were assigned to hunt down the murderer.

The unknown assailant apparently escaped by running along a clay-covered slope, so it was assumed by the police that he would have got clay all over his clothing, making him easy to identify.

Richard Ryder, the Home Secretary, responded to public panic and pressure and appointed Aaron Graham, a Bow Street magistrate, to the inquiry.

London newspapers focused on the crimes for some three weeks, and a coroner's inquest was called at The Black Horse, a tavern across from The King's Arms.

He peered in and caught a glimpse of a man he estimated was six feet tall, wearing a dark flushing coat, leaning over Mrs Williamson and going through her pockets.

Thomas De Quincey claimed that Williams had been an acquaintance of Timothy Marr, and described him as: "a man of middle stature, slenderly built, rather thin but wiry, tolerably muscular, and clear of all superfluous flesh.

Williams claimed that the torn and bloodstained shirts were the result of a brawl after a card game, but he was silenced by the magistrates and returned to prison.

The facts in evidence against Williams were that he had had an opportunity to take the maul, that he had money after the murders but not before, that he had returned to his room just after the killer had fled the second crime scene, and that he had had bloody and torn shirts.

Although an attempt was made to identify the maul and ascertain whether any of Williams's shirts had blood stains on them, the courts could not assess forensic evidence and gave great weight to eyewitnesses' statements.

The Home Secretary was more than happy to agree with the opinion of the bench, and decided that the best way to end the matter was to parade Williams's body through Wapping and Shadwell so that the residents could see that while he had "cheated the hangman", he was indeed dead and no longer a menace.

The Thames River Police, the Bow Street Mounted Patrol, and local constables and watchmen were ordered to oversee the event.

On New Year's Eve, Williams's body was removed from the prison at 11 a.m., with "an immense concourse of persons", said to total 180,000, taking part in a procession up the Ratcliffe Highway.

The procession also stopped for ten minutes in front of The King's Arms, where the coachman reportedly whipped the dead man three times across the face.

An early eyewitness insisted that the two men seen on the road outside The King's Arms had spoken, and one had called out what sounded like a name, possibly "Mahoney" or "Hughey".

Newspaper accounts of this testimony shifted from calling the weapon a razor, which they took from the surgeon's reports, to claiming that the wounds had been clearly made with a sharp knife.

The murders are mentioned (albeit with a supernatural element) in KJ Charles’s Magpie Lord series; in Peter Ackroyd's Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem as a motivation of the murderer; in Arthur Conan Doyle’s first Sherlock Holmes novel, A Study in Scarlet; in Fergus Hume's The Mystery of a Hansom Cab; in Alison Goodman's novel The Dark Days Club; and in G.K. Chesterton's "Father Brown" stories, The Blue Cross and The Mirror of the Magistrate.