Chilling tale of murder, Frankenstein experiments and a book bound by human skin; Mary Ann Weems was just 21 when she was strangled to death by her husband Thomas, 200 years ago this month.
Byline: Matt RoperHer white gravestone, on the edge of a churchyard in Godmanchester, Cambs, sends a chill down the spine of anyone who comes across it.
"To the memory of Mary Ann Weems," it reads, "who wasMurdered in the 21st Year of her Age."
Even more hair-raising, though, is the epitaph engraved on the back of the stone, which recounts details of how she met her death "as a warning to the young of both sexes".
It reads that Mary became "acquainted" with Thomas Weems at an early age, "terminating in a compulsory marriage".
It continues: "Wishing to be Married to another Woman he filled up the measure of his iniquity by resolving to murder his Wife which he barbarously perpetrated at Wendy on their Journey to London toward which place he had induced her to go under the mask of reconciliation."
A eerie verse at the bottom of the gravestone, meanwhile, reads: "Ere Crime you perpetrate survey this Stone, Learn hence the God of Justice sleeps not on his Throne, But marks the Sinner with unerring Eye, The suffering Victim hears and makes the Guilty die."
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In fact the murder of the young woman 200 years ago rocked the quiet Cambridgeshire market town.
And while she was laid to rest at the 800-year-old church St Mary The Virgin, her murderer Weems' fate was even more macabre.
He was executed, experimented on, then his skin used to bind a book now sitting on the shelf of a Cambridge University library.
According to parish records, Mary Ann Dixon fell pregnant when she was only 14, when she moved from her home in Bedfordshire to Godmanchester, to be closer to the father of her child.
There, aged 20, she met 23-year-old Thomas Weems. She was described as being of "a very unprepossessing appearance", while he was of "strong build and of rough exterior".
But in 1818 she told him she thought she might be pregnant, and Thomas, frightened at the thought, began to avoid Mary to the point of leaving town.
In those days couples in those circumstances were forced to marry, so Thomas was arrested and brought back to Godmanchester to face his responsibilities.
The couple married at Goldington Church in Bedfordshire on January 3, 1818, and they started moved in together, living with Mary's grandfather in Godmanchester.
It soon became clear, however, that Mary wasn't pregnant, and Thomas' mind turned to how he could extricate himself from the pointless, loveless marriage he found himself in.
First, Thomas took Mary with him to the village of Over, telling her he had found work there.
But once there he abandoned her and left for Edmonton in London, where he had already secured employment.
Distraught, Mary found her own way back to Godmanchester.
A month later, Thomas fell in love with another woman, Maria Woodward, in Edmonton, and proposed to her - even though he was still legally married to Mary.
Knowing he had to remove Mary from the picture, he returned to Godmanchester on May 2, 1819, to visit his sister and collect money for his wedding to Maria.
He then tried to convince Mary that she should come back to Edmonton with him, and she finally agreed, believing they could make a new start together.
The couple left in the early hours of Thursday, May 8, setting off on foot on what is now the A1198 toward Royston.
Along the way, after walking 16 miles outside Godmanchester, Thomas and Mary walked to a hamlet called Wendy by Wimpole Hall.
Thomas suggested that Mary catch her breath and rest on the grass to eat some toast before they continued their trip - where he strangled her to death.
He said in his confession to police: "We sat down together, and she began to eat the toast.
"Soon after she began to eat the toast, I clasped my hands around her neck and said, "Now I am going to be the death of you".
"I clasped my hands around her neck and stuck my two thumbs into her windpipe. She said, 'Oh Lord' and that was all the noise she made, and I pressed my thumbs until she was dead, which was about five minutes.
"I then took her garter off her leg and tied it around her neck. I then put her in a ditch, or more like a drain, put some grass over and then left her".
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Thomas believed she would never be found and that he had committed the perfect crime.
He could tell others that she had left him in in London and no-one would ever suspect he had murdered her.
That he didn't get away with murder was all down to a woman called Susanna Bird, who was also walking the road to Royston that day and had seen the couple together.
When she saw him for the second time, Susanna asked "Where is that young woman I saw you with this morning?"
Thomas replied: "I left her behind, she is about spun up. I cannot get her any further, so I left her to get on by the coach."
But after the conversation, Susannah saw the coach and did not see Mary inside, so set off to try to find her.
After passing through to the field where she saw Thomas and Mary walk towards, she enlisted the help of a man hoeing a field and the two started to search the area.
Within minutes they found the 21-year-old's body, covered in grass except for a foot and one of her fingers.
A warrant was immediately issued for the arrest of Thomas, who was by now well on the way to London - and his new life with Maria.
A local constable borrowed a horse-and-cart and soon found him striding down the road.
He was arrested and transported to Cambridge County Jail to stand trial.
On Wednesday 4th August 1819 Thomas Weems stood in front of the Honourable Justice Burrough and was charged with Mary's murder.
Faced with overwhelming evidence it took the jury very little time to find him guilty.
He was sentenced to death and executed at "a few minutes past noon" over "the gateway of the county Gaol" in Cambridge on August 7, 1819.
An hour later he was cut down and paraded through the streets of Cambridge to the Botanic Gardens.
Weems' execution became one of the most famous in criminal history, as after his death his body was subjected to a number of quasi-scientific experiments, all related to Mary Shelly's Frankenstein, which had been published a year earlier in 1818.
Because of the barbaric nature of his crime, there was so little public sympathy for him that authorities agreed to allow his body to be used in the strange experiments, which involved passing electricity currents through it to see if parts of the body could be revived.
The Cambridge Chronicle reported: "The body, after being suspended an hour, was immediately conveyed in a cart to the Chemical Lecture-room of the Botanical Garden, where Professor Cumming had prepared a powerful galvanic battery with the intention of repeating some of the experiments lately described by Dr Ure of Glasgow".
The experiments involved applying to parts of the body some "'220 pairs of double six inch plates charged with dilute sulphuric and fuming nitrous acid" to give the galvanic batteries "intense action".
The following day, Saturday, "the body was exposed to public view in the same room in which the experiments had been performed".
The newspaper reported: The benches were instantly filled with spectators, whose countenances bespoke a strange combination of curiosity, disgust, and awe.
"Crowds of every description of persons continually succeeded each other until one o'clock and amongst the many hundreds who came to view the body, no one seemed moved by a feeling of pity for the fate of the criminal, so strong were the grounds for his condemnation.
"The doors were then shut, and at a request of a large party of gentlemen, Mr Okes commenced a more extensive dissection of the body."
Finally and even more bizarrely, a square piece of Weems' skin was sent to the University bookbinder, which was made into the macabre cover of a book and shelved for posterity in Sir Christopher Wren's library.
Following her murderer's execution, Mary was buried in the church of St Mary The Virgin in Godmanchester.
Parishioners decided to warn other young girls of the dangers of getting pregnant at a young age, by writing the grisly details of her demise on the back of her tombstone.
Thanks to them, the gruesome true story continues to this day to be a source of curiosity, fascination and nightmares.
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Credit: CambridgshireLive/ WS
Mary Weems was murdered by her husband after the two were forced to marry
Credit: Cambridge News
The gravestone tells the story of Mary's tragic demise
Credit: CambridgshireLive/ WS
Mary's gravestone stands at the edge of the St Mary The Virgin churchyard
Credit: Hulton Archive
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, published a year earlier, inspired experiments on Thomas Weems' body
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| Title Annotation: | News,UK News |
|---|---|
| Publication: | Daily Mirror (London, England) |
| Date: | Jun 9, 2019 |
| Words: | 1542 |
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