Radlett murder
His killer was John Thurtell (1794–1824), a sports promoter, amateur boxer, a former Royal Marine officer and a son of the mayor of Norwich.
As Weare lay injured, Thurtell slit his throat with a knife before driving the pistol into his head with such force that his brains were dashed over the ground.
Even though Hunt had cooperated the most with the authorities, it was Probert who was offered the chance to save himself by turning King's evidence against the other two in exchange for freedom.
Having temporarily disposed of Weare’s corpse, "the trio entered the house, Hunt was introduced to Mrs Probert, directions were given to cook some pork chops for supper, and then Thurtell took the two men to the field, where they rifled the body, and left it lying enveloped in the sack.
After supper a jovial evening was spent, Hunt sang several songs over the grog, and Thurtell gallantly presented Mrs. Probert with the gold chain he had taken from the body."
A contemporary street ballad, The Hertfordshire Tragedy, did not fail to emphasize the particulars: Although his hands were warm with blood, He down to supper sat, And passed the time in merry mood, With drink and songs and chat.
Nero fiddling over burning Rome, Thurtell fresh from the murder of Weare, inviting Hunt, the singer and his accomplice, to ‘tip them a stave’ after supper .
Unable to find work, Probert resorted to crime to support himself and his wife, and in 1825, at 33, was hanged at Newgate Prison for stealing a horse worth £25 from a relative.
[13] Besides the gruesome details, the murder was also sensational because it exposed the seedy London underworld of gambling and amateur boxing to a public ignorant of it.
In his diary he wrote of the "labyrinth of intricate lanes, which seemed made on purpose to afford strangers the full benefit of a dark night and a drunk driver, in order to visit Gill’s Hill, famous for the murder of Mr. Weare .
Another distinguished essayist, Thomas Babington Macaulay, acidly remarked: "There is a possibility that Thurtell may have killed Weare only in order to give the youth of England an impressive warning against gaming and bad company.
There is a possibility that Fauntleroy may have forged powers of attorney, only in order that his fate might turn the attention of the public to the defects of the penal law.
Among his acquaintances were the essayist William Hazlitt (who talked of him as "Tom Turtle" in the essay The Fight), the sports historian Pierce Egan, and the writer George Borrow.
Weare too had contact with the intelligentsia, as he frequently played billiards with the future controversial Shakespearean scholar John Payne Collier.
[14] In the 1885 short story Markheim by Robert Louis Stevenson there is a reference to a wax chamber of horrors with "Weare in the death grip of Thurtell".
