Freak storm dissipates over England

Year
1703
Month Day
November 27

On November 27, 1703, an unusual storm system finally dissipates over England after wreaking havoc on the country for nearly two weeks. Featuring hurricane strength winds, the storm killed somewhere between 10,000 and 30,000 people. Hundreds of Royal Navy ships were lost to the storm, the worst in Britain’s history.

The unusual weather began on November 14 as strong winds from the Atlantic Ocean battered the south of Britain and Wales. Many homes and other buildings were damaged by the pounding winds, but the hurricane-like storm only began doing serious damage on November 26. With winds estimated at over 80 miles per hour, bricks were blown from some buildings and embedded in others. Wood beams, separated from buildings, flew through the air and killed hundreds across the south of the country. Towns such as Plymouth, Hull, Cowes, Portsmouth and Bristol were devastated.

However, the death toll really mounted when 300 Royal Navy ships anchored off the country’s southern coast—with 8,000 sailors on board—were lost. The Eddystone Lighthouse, built on a rock outcropping 14 miles from Plymouth, was felled by the storm. All of its residents, including its designer, Henry Winstanley, were killed. Huge waves on the Thames River sent water six feet higher than ever before recorded near London. More than 5,000 homes along the river were destroyed.

The author Daniel Defoe, who would later enjoy worldwide acclaim for the novel Robinson Crusoe, witnessed the storm, which he described as an “Army of Terror in its furious March.” His first book, The Storm, was published the following year.

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Lord Muncaster of Britain is kidnapped in Greece, nearly causing war

Year
1870
Month Day
April 11

While visiting Marathon, Greece, Lord Muncaster of Britain is kidnapped by brigands, almost resulting in war. The pirates, led by Takos Arvanitakis, were experienced in kidnapping and had used it as a lucrative source of income for many years. However, their capture of Lord Muncaster and a group of English tourists proved to be more difficult to pull off than they anticipated.

Arvanitakis and his gang demanded £50,000 for the release of the captives. King George of Greece refused their ransom demands, offering instead to exchange himself for the hostages in an attempt to appease England. However, before any further negotiations could take place, a confrontation between the brigands and Greek troops resulted in the death of just about everyone involved, including Muncaster. Arvanitakis was one of the few who managed to escape the battle with his life.

The incident caused England to threaten war, but Russia interjected by siding with Greece. The crisis was averted after Greece conducted a major crackdown on the bandits. Although few of the people they arrested had actually played any role in the kidnapping, it eased the international tensions and greatly reduced the number of subsequent kidnappings in the country.

Arvanitakis was shot and killed two years later.

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The theft of “Duchess of Devonshire” painting stirs interest

Year
1876
Month Day
May 06

On May 6, 1876, Thomas Gainsborough’s painting, Duchess of Devonshire, causes a stir when it goes up for auction at Christie’s in London. It sells to a London art dealer, William Agnew, for $51,540, the highest price ever paid for a painting at auction.

Two days later, Agnew displays the painting at his gallery—and it is stolen by Adam Worth. 

Worth, whom Scotland Yard later called the “Napoleon of Crime,” and upon whom Sir Arthur Conan Doyle eventually based Sherlock Holmes’ arch nemesis Dr. Moriarty, stole the artwork in order to come up with the bail to release his brother from jail. However, his brother was freed without his help, so Worth decided to keep the painting, even in the face of serious consequences.

READ MORE: 10 Famous Art Heists

Adam Worth was perhaps the 19th century’s most masterful criminal. Born in Germany but raised in the United States, Worth joined the Union Army in the Civil War. After erroneously being reported killed in the Second Battle of Bull Run, he spent the rest of the war hopping from one regiment to another, collecting money to join and then immediately deserting. After the war, he made his way to New York, where he joined a gang of pickpockets.

A conviction for robbery resulted in a three-year sentence at Sing Sing Prison. However, Worth escaped after only a few weeks and vowed to be more careful in the future. Using the alias Henry Raymond, Worth took up a lucrative career robbing banks before moving his criminal exploits to Europe. With perfectly planned heists and a consistent forgery operation, Worth avoided all violent encounters and established himself in respectable society.

Yet the theft of the Duchess of Devonshire led to his eventual downfall. His co-conspirators, Joe Elliot and Junka Phillips, were angered by the fact that they weren’t financially rewarded for stealing the valuable painting. When Worth refused to divulge its whereabouts, Elliot and Phillips went to the police and Worth was sent to prison, albeit on other charges. Following his release four years later in 1897, Worth returned to America. After a change of heart, he began negotiations with the Pinkerton Detective Agency for the ransom of the painting.

The Duchess of Devonshire was finally returned to England in 1901 where J. P. Morgan, Wall Street’s biggest financier, promptly made the journey to obtain the painting for himself. He purportedly paid as much as $150,000 for it. Worth, who had received relatively little for his ransom, died a year later, penniless.

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The Moors Murderers begin their killing spree

Year
1963
Month Day
July 12

Sixteen-year-old Pauline Reade is abducted while on her way to a dance near her home in Gorton, England, by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, the so-called “Moors Murderers,” launching a crime spree that will last for over two years. Reade’s body was not discovered until 1987, after Brady confessed to the murder during an interview with reporters while in a mental hospital. The teenager had been sexually assaulted and her throat had been slashed.

Brady and Hindley met in Manchester in 1961. The shy girl quickly became infatuated with Brady, a self-styled Nazi, who had a substantial library of Nazi literature and an obsession with sadistic sex. After photographing Hindley in obscene positions, Brady sold his amateur pornography to the public.

In order to satisfy their sadistic impulses, Brady and Hindley began abducting and killing young men and women. After Pauline Reade, they kidnapped 12-year-old John Kilbride in November and Keith Bennett, also 12, in June the next year. The day after Christmas in 1964, Leslie Ann Downey, a 10-year-old from Manchester, was abducted.

In 1965, the couple killed a 17-year-old boy with a hatchet in front of Hindley’s brother-in-law, David Smith, perhaps in an attempt to recruit him for future murders. This apparently crossed the line for Smith, who then went to the police.

Inside Brady’s apartment, police found luggage tickets that led them to two suitcases in Manchester Central Station. They contained photos of Leslie Ann Downey being tortured along with audiotapes of her pleading for her life. Other photos depicted Hindley and Brady in a desolate area of England known as Saddleworth Moor. There, police found the body of John Kilbride.

The Moors Murderers were convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 1966. Their notoriety continued after it was revealed that a guard at Holloway women’s prison had fallen for Hindley and had an affair with her. For his part, Brady continued to confess to other murders.

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Last woman hanged for murder in Great Britain

Year
1955
Month Day
July 13

Nightclub owner Ruth Ellis is convicted of murdering boyfriend David Blakely on July 13, 1955. Ellis was later executed by hanging and became the last woman in Great Britain to be put to death.

Ellis was born in Rhyl, Wales, in 1926. She left school as a young teenager, had a child and worked a variety of jobs, eventually becoming a nightclub hostess. In 1950, she married dentist George Ellis, with whom she had a second child. The marriage was short-lived and Ruth Ellis returned to working in nightclubs. She then became involved in a tempestuous relationship with David Blakely, a playboy race-car driver. Ellis became pregnant but miscarried several days after a fight during which Blakely hit her in the stomach. She later became obsessed with Blakely when he failed to come see her as promised. On April 10, 1955, she shot him to death outside the Magdala pub in Hampstead, North London.

During her trial, which began in June 1955, Ellis stated “It was obvious that when I shot him I intended to kill him.” This was a critical statement, as British law required demonstration of clear intent in order to convict someone of murder. It reportedly took the jury less than half an hour to find Ellis guilty and she automatically received the death penalty. Thousands of people signed petitions protesting her punishment; however, on July 13, 1955, the 28-year-old Ellis was hanged at Holloway Prison, a women’s institution in Islington, London. She was the last woman executed for murder in Great Britain. On August 13, 1964, Peter Anthony Allen and John Alan West became the last people to be executed for murder in England. In 1965, the death penalty for murder was banned in England, Scotland and Wales. Northern Ireland outlawed capital punishment in 1973. However, several crimes, including treason, remained punishable by death in Great Britain until 1998.

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Irish race horse stolen


Year
1983
Month Day
February 08

Gunmen steal the champion Irish race horse Shergar from a stud farm owned by the Aga Khan in County Kildare, Ireland. The five-year-old thoroughbred stallion, named European horse of the year in 1981, was worth $13.5 million and commanded stud fees of approximately $100,000.

On the night of the heist, armed men arrived at the home of one of Shergar’s grooms, James Fitzpatrick, and forced him to lead them to the horse and help load him onto a trailer. The kidnappers dropped Fitzpatrick on a remote road later that night and then demanded a ransom of more than $2 million for Shergar’s return.

Negotiations with the kidnappers were short-lived and fruitless. Despite a highly publicized search by authorities, Shergar was never seen again and no ransom was paid. The case was never solved, although there were a variety of theories about the identity of the kidnappers. The most popular one held that the Irish Republican Army stole the animal in order to raise money for weapons, but ended up killing him in a panic because he was too difficult to handle. Former IRA member Sean O’Callaghan supported this theory in his book The Informer.

Another famous horse-napping was that of Canadian-bred Fanfreluche from Claiborne Farm in Paris, Kentucky, in June 1977. The race horse, who was in foal at the time to 1973 Triple Crown winner Secretariat, was successfully recovered in another part of the state in December 1977. She was being cared for and used as a riding horse by a farmer who said he found the thoroughbred walking along a road. A Kentucky man was later convicted for the theft. Fanfreluche gave birth to Sain et Sauf (Safe and Sound) several months later and died of old age in 1999.

READ MORE: The Man Behind the Kentucky Derby

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Gang commits largest robbery in British history


Year
2006
Month Day
February 22

In the early morning hours of February 22, 2006, a gang of at least six men, some of them armed, steal £53 million from the Securitas bank depot in Kent, Great Britain. It was the largest such theft in British history.

The plot was well planned. On the evening before, two men, dressed as police officers, pulled the depot manager, Colin Dixon, over as he was driving in nearby Stockbury. They convinced him to get out of his car, and forced him into their vehicle. At about the same time, two more men visited Dixon’s home and picked up Dixon’s wife and eight-year-old son; eventually all three Dixons were taken to a farm in West Kent, where the gang threatened their lives if Colin refused to cooperate with the robbery.

The Dixons were then forced to go with the gang to the Securitas depot, where Colin helped them evade the building’s security system. The gang proceeded to tie up 14 depot staff members, load the £53 million into a truck and, at about 2:15 a.m. on February 22, drive away. No one was injured in the robbery. Eventually, one depot worker was able to contact police, who launched a massive search for the culprits. As the stolen money was all in used bills, it was difficult to trace. Securitas and its insurers posted a £2 million reward for information leading to the arrests of the robbers and return of the money.

The next day, three people, one man and two women, were arrested in connection with the case; one had attempted to deposit £6,000 into a local bank that was bound in Securitas depot tape. However, all three were later released without being charged. 

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Forensic evidence solves a crime


Year
1968
Month Day
February 07

Bernard Josephs returns to his house in Bromley, England, and finds his wife Claire lying under the bed, her throat slashed and severed to the spine. Defensive wounds to her hands appeared to be caused by a serrated knife. No weapon was found at the Josephs’ house, and police had no other clues to go on. However, the murder was solved, and the killer convicted within four months, through solid forensic investigation.

Authorities first pinned down the time and circumstances of the crime. Ingredients of a meal that Claire had been preparing were still in a bowl in the kitchen. There was no sign of forced entry into the house and a half-empty cup of coffee was left out on the table. Investigators were fairly certain that a friend or acquaintance had dropped by while Claire was making dinner and so they began to concentrate on family and friends.

One of the people the police questioned was Roger Payne, a recent acquaintance of Bernard and Claire, who had earlier convictions for attacks on women. Police discovered several scratches on his hands, which Payne ascribed to a fight with his wife but his alibi for February 7 was far from airtight.

Forensic evidence focused on Payne’s clothing. Claire Josephs had been wearing a cerise woolen dress at the time of her murder. Although Payne’s clothing had been laundered, the seams and hems still contained over 60 cerise wool fibers matching Josephs’ dress. Investigators then examined Payne’s car and found traces of blood matching Josephs’ blood type, as well as additional clothing fibers.

Payne was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in May 1968. While DNA evidence has captured the public’s imagination in recent years, and is a powerful crime-solving tool, basic fiber and blood tests remain the backbone of forensic investigation. They are reliable, relatively inexpensive, and easy for lay people to understand.

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A wealthy heiress is murdered by her son

Year
1972
Month Day
November 17

Wealthy socialite Barbara Baekeland is stabbed to death with a kitchen knife by her 25-year-old son, Antony, in her London, England, penthouse. When police arrived at the scene, Antony was calmly placing a telephone order for Chinese food.

Antony’s great-grandfather, Leo Baekeland, acquired his family’s fortune with the creation of Bakelite, an early plastic product. Though financially successful, the family was far from stable. Leo’s son Brooks was a decadent adventurer and a self-described writer who rarely put pen to paper. Brooks’ wife Barbara, a model and would-be Hollywood starlet, had her own problems: she attempted suicide several times and was reportedly so deeply distressed by her son Antony’s homosexuality that she attempted to seduce him as a “cure.” Though Antony displayed signs of schizophrenia, his father called psychiatry “professionally amoral” and refused to pay for treatment.

Barbara and Antony’s tempestuous mother-son relationship worried her friends. Indeed, Antony’s erratic behavior was cause for concern, and over the years the two had several threatening arguments involving knives.

After the murder, Antony was institutionalized at Broadmoor until a bureaucratic mistake resulted in his release in July 1980. He then relocated to New York City, where he lived with his grandmother for a short time until he beat and stabbed her in 1980; she survived. Antony was sent to Riker’s Island, where he killed himself by suffocation on March 21, 1981.

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A serial rapist strikes in England

Year
1984
Month Day
August 17

The serial burglar and rapist known as “the Fox” breaks into a house and physically assaults a girl, her boyfriend and the girl’s brother near the village of Brampton, England. After raping the woman, the attacker proceeded to remove any traces of evidence from both his victim’s body and the surrounding area. The attack turned out to be a part of a crime spree had had begun in the spring of 1984 when a hooded burglar broke into several houses in an area north of London. A few months later, the thief turned to rape.

Despite the attacker’s efforts, detectives called to the scene near Brampton found fresh tire tracks in a field next to the victim’s home and a tiny flake of yellow paint on a nearby tree. A shotgun that the Fox had stolen from a previous victim was also found, hidden under some leaves. 

Police staked out the site, hoping that the Fox might return for the gun, but he never did. Fortunately, the paint flake turned out to be an essential clue; apparently, the color had been used only on a single model of a particular car manufacturer, Leyland, and that the car was produced in 1973 and 1974.

The victims also reported that the Fox had a northern accent. When investigators checked their records, they found more than 3,000 known burglars who were from northern England but had moved south. Detectives sent to investigate each of these men found a man washing a yellow Leyland in front of his house on September 11. Upon closer inspection, they noticed that a bit of paint was missing from the back of the car.

Malcolm Fairley confessed to the crimes after his arrest and received six life sentences in 1985.

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