The Slough Murder
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X3500800408 |
| Author | John Vibart |
| Published date | 01 October 1935 |
| Date | 01 October 1935 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
The Slough
Murder
By
JOHN
VIBART
EARLY
one evening in July, 1910, Mrs. Isabella Wilson, an
elderly woman of 70, was found dead with her
head battered in at her house in Slough. Although the
crime and the tracking down of the criminal failed to arouse
the same interest, perhaps, as is usual in such cases, probably
on account of the fact that public excitement was at its height
at about this time over the search for, and subsequentconviction
of, Hawley Harvey Crippen, none the less as an unusually
clever piece of detection, the
"Slough
Murder"
deserves
a foremost place in the police annals of this country.
Mrs. Wilson was a second-hand clothes dealer and lived
alone in one of a small row
of
houses in the High Street of
Slough.
The
front portion of the premises was used as a
shop, where the old woman transacted all her business, and
this led into a smaller room at the back, which she designated
as her " parlour ".
It
was in the parlour that the dead body
was discovered.
That
she had fought hard for her life was
apparent in the disordered state of the room and her torn
and disarranged clothing.
The
local authorities promptly called in the aid of
Scotland Yard and Detective-Inspector Elias Bower, with
Detective-Sergeant Burton as his assistant, was immediately
put
in charge of the case.
It
may be recalled that it was Elias Bower who solved the
famous Moat
Farm
mystery in 1899 when, after nearly four
years of relentless searching, he struck the trail of Herbert
Samuel Dougal and sent him to the gallows for the murder
of Miss Camille Holland.
447
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