Age: unknown
Sex: male
Crime: murder
Date Of Execution: 25 Jul 1893
Crime Location: Wormwood Scrubs
Execution Place: Newgate
Method: hanging
Executioner: James Billington
Source: http://web.archive.org/web/20070624062456/http://www.fred.net/jefalvey/execute.h
An unusual case in which the murderer was actually a policeman. On 7 June, a warder at Wormwood Scrubs gaol saw a policeman and a young girl walking together across the common adjacent to the prison. Early next morning a shepherd crossing the common stumbled across a female body. She had been battered to death and was covered in blood, though there was no sign of any sexual assault. Police identified the victim as Maud Smith, and when the gaol warder offered his information, detectives interviewed a twenty seven year old PC Cook whose beat took him past the prison. He denied knowing Smith but they soon discovered he had been having an affair with her. A search of his lodgings unearthed a bloody uniform, and in the garden a bloodstained truncheon. Despite his infidelity his fiancée made strenuous efforts for a reprieve but it was to no avail and he was hanged by James Billington in Newgate on the 25th July 1893.
see Western Daily Press - Friday 09 June 1893
