Today’s Obsolete Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
Housemaid Mary Ashford and bricklayer Araham Thornton left a dance at The Three Tuns Inn, Castle Bromwich, together after midnight on May 26, 1817. At about 4:00 a.m., Mary came cheerfully into her friend Hannah Cox’s room to change out of her dance clothes before returning home.
Hannah noticed blood on Mary’s gown: the girl had commenced her monthly courses.
Mary Ashford
At 6:30, Mary’s body was found in a water-filled pit. Blood-spots and footprints suggested that she had been chased by a man who assaulted her violently, probably raping her, and then chased her again to the pit, where he drowned her. Abraham Thornton was fetched and his boots fitted a preserved footprint exactly.
At his trial his counsel pointed out that the matching boot-print was made before the time of the struggle. Nobody had confirmed that Abraham had chased the girl again and drowned her. Abraham did not deny enjoying sexual connection with her, which he said was her desire as much as his, the rupture of her virgin hymen coupled with her menstrual flow causing the blood spots. The jury acquitted him.
Mary’s brother William, however, discovered a statute of Henry VII by which he could reopen proceedings with a private prosecution within a year and a day.
He did so, only to be astonished when Thornton exploited the other half of the statute, and threw a glove on the floor of the court, while declaiming: “Not guilty. And I am ready to defend the same with my body.”
For by the same unrepealed statute he could demand trial by combat; meaning that he and Ashford would be armed with staves and held in an enclosed ring to batter each other until Thornton yielded (to be hanged on the spot) or Ashford died, or daylight failed – at which point Thornton would be acquitted again.
Thornton’s point of law was as valid, if obsolete, as Ashford’s. The private prosecution was hastily withdrawn.
Culled from: The Chronicle of Crime: the Most Infamous Crimes of Modern History
What a wuss, William! You shoulda beat his ass!!!
History Repeats!
While searching for the photo of Mary Ashford, I found this intriguing article which details another murder on the same day, same location, 157 years apart. The suspects were both even named Thornton. Such a strange world…
