One hundred years ago
A SHOCKING murder has this week attracted the attention of all London. On Friday se'nnight, the body of a woman, aged thirty, was found in Crossfield Road, South Hampstead, with the head crushed in and nearly cut off, the knife having almost severed the spine. The corpse was identified at the station as that of Mrs. Phoebe Hogg, wife of a furniture-remover in Kentish Town. It was visited by her sister-in- law, Miss Hogg, and a Mrs. Pearcey, living on the ground-floor of a house in Priory Street, Kentish Town; and In- spector Bannister was so struck with the latter's demeanour that he searched her rooms. He found, while she sat whist- ling, a poker with blood and hair on it, and other evidences of murder; while her petticoat, on being examined, was found to have been saturated with blood. He therefore charged her with the crime, and the evidence taken be- fore the Coroner establishes a strong Prima-facie case against the accused. It was shown that Mrs. Hogg had visited her on Friday, with her baby of eighteen months, carried in a perambulator; that the perambulator was found all bloody in Hamilton Terrace, St. John's Wood, and the child dead, either from expo- sure or suffocation, in a lane off Fin- chley Road; and that Mrs Pearcey had been seen wheeling the perambulator, with some heavy load in it, in the direction of Crossfield Road.
The Spectator, 1 November 1890
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