PAST CRIMESemployer to be overly demanding. Eventually, Mrs Thomas gave Webster her
notice, telling her that her employment would end on 28 February. However,
Webster persuaded her to let her stay until the end of the weekend; on Sunday
2 March, Webster came back late to the house, having been in the pub. Mrs
Thomas was angry, as she had thus been made late for church, as she told
another member of the congregation. After the service she went home around
9pm to have the matter out with her servant. There was a violent argument,
during which Webster threw her employer down the stairs. She followed the
body down and made sure of Mrs Thomas’silence and death by choking her
until she was still.
Webster then decided to dispose of the body. She used a razor, kitchen
knives and saws to dismember the body, and then boiled the pieces in the
kitchen copper. She burned some of the bones in the hearth. For the next few
days, she cleaned the house, answering the door and acting as if all was
normal when tradesmen called. Meanwhile, she was packing Mrs Thomas’s
remains into a bag and a hat box. Not all the parts would fit–she had to throw
one foot on to a rubbish dump in Twickenham, and she buried the head under
the stables of the nearby pub.
On the Tuesday, Webster went to see some old friends in Hammersmith,
wearing a silk dress that had belonged to her victim, and carrying a black bag.
She took her friends for a drink in a pub in Barnes and, while they were
drinking, she slipped out and threw the bag into the Thames. She then
recruited her friends’son to help her carry a box the next day from Mrs
Thomas’house to Richmond railway station. On the way, while crossing
Richmond Bridge, the box was dropped into the water.
It was found the next day about a mile downstream by a coalman who
alerted the police. The contents, when examined, proved to be a
disembowelled torso and two legs, one without a foot. Then a foot was found
in Twickenham, and it was apparent that the two finds were connected. The
doctor misidentified the remains as those of a young woman, and at the
inquest, an open verdict was recorded.
Webster remained at Mrs Thomas’house, and took her identity as well as
dressing herself in the unfortunate woman’s clothes and jewellery. She made
an arrangement to sell off the furniture to a local publican, who wished to
furnish his pub. On 18 March, the van turned up to move the furniture, and
finally the neighbours’ suspicions were aroused. The removers identified
Webster as‘Mrs Thomas’and the neighbour realised that there had been a
deception. Knowing the game was up, Webster fled back to Ireland. The
publican called in the police who searched Mrs Thomas’house. They found