Noah Percy Collins

Noah Percy Collins was convicted of the murder of his 19-year-old ex-girlfriend Annie Dorothy Lawrence and sentence to death.

He stabbed her to death at 5 Aberfawr Terrace, Abertridwr, near Caerphilly on 17 August 1908. He stabbed her seven times because she refused to kiss him and keep company with him. 

Noah Collins had been  a miner and had lodged at the home of Annie Lawrence. He had previously been seeing her secretly, but they had fallen out some months earlier.

Annie Lawrence had got up early on 17 August 1908 to prepare food for her brother and Noah Collins to take to the colliery. After her brother left Noah Collins came down stairs to ask her to be his sweetheart again but she told him that she had given her affections to another. Then, at some stage he stabbed her to death. There was no row. Annie Lawrence's mother heard her screams and came running downstairs but the kitchen door was locked. She kicked it down to find Annie Lawrence dead in a pool of blood. Her throat had been cut from ear to ear and she had been stabbed in the heart, throat and back.