Robert Coombes (murderer)
Robert Allen Coombes MM (6 January 1882 – 7 May 1949) was an Englishman whose murder of his mother in 1895 at the age of 13 caused a media sensation, dubbed the Plaistow Horror.
Contemporary descriptions suggest Robert had no moral compass, and was involved in many financial tricks, before turning to murder.
[1] He was baptised in April 1882, but the parents' surname was recorded as Allen instead of Coombes, which was the maiden name of his mother.
Their doctor Dr Coward began prescribing potassium bromide during the period of the father's absence.
[2] Back in London in 1888, young Robert was exposed to the surrounding Whitechapel murders and Jack the Ripper and became obsessed with the cheap sensationalist papers known as the penny dreadfuls.
[3] In the winter of 1891–2, the family moved to 35 Cave Road in the Plaistow district of London's east end.
[2] On Sunday 7 July, Emily had beaten Nathaniel and he told Robert that he wanted to kill her.
Around 3:45 am on Monday morning, Robert stabbed his mother in the heart twice as she lay in bed, having first struck her on the head with a truncheon.
[7] Robert took a gold sovereign from his mother's purse on Monday morning and asked the neighbour James William Robertson at 33 Cave Road for change of the coin.
[9] On the Tuesday evening, Robert (in a highly organised way) put quicklime on his mother's body to control the decay.
[7] The boys played cricket with Fox in the back yard on most evenings of the week in question.
On Monday 15 July young Robert went to Hewson himself, with a fabricated letter alleging to be from J. J. Griffin, the local physician, confirming the mother's illness.
[13] Returning in early afternoon she knocked and this time got into the house and was met by the boys and Fox.
She obtained a spare key from the landlord and unlocked the door; she found the decomposing body of her sister-in-law, covered in maggots.
Robert and John Fox were arrested at the scene and held in the police cells at West Ham.
The bedroom where the murder had taken place had been ransacked by Robert and the contents of the drawers were strewn around the room.
He also found a letter from Robert to his father, not apologising for his crime, but contriving a complicated story about mother injuring her hand and not being able to write, and could he send money to cover various bills.
There was an unsent advert to a local newspaper from young Robert, seeking a private loan of £30 in return for six monthly repayments of £6.
He was observed by the Medical Officer, George Edward Walker, who on 10 August, on advice from the guards, moved him to a padded cell for his own safety.
Walker reported that the boy was greatly excited (in a positive way) regarding his forthcoming trial, and seemed to view this with glee.
[2] The family doctor John Joseph Griffin testified that Robert had a history of headaches.
Robert was concluded to be a homicidal maniac with lucid periods, and under influence of pernicious literature.
He was found guilty and sentenced to an indefinite period in Broadmoor Hospital for the Criminally Insane as its youngest inmate.
He enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force early in the First World War and won the Military Medal in October 1916 for conspicuous bravery as a stretcher-bearer during the Gallipoli Campaign.
[17] After the war he worked on a farm at Nana Glen and taught music in the surrounding area of New South Wales.
Nathaniel was Chief Stoker on HMAS Australia in the First World War[18] and died in Newcastle, New South Wales in 1946.
