Frederick William Maximilian Jesse

Frederick William Maximillian Jesse was convicted of the murder of his aunt, 50-year-old Mabel Jennings Edmunds and sentenced to death. He killed her at 156 York Road, Lambeth, London on 21 July 1923. Frederick Jesse had no regular occupation, but had lived during 1921-2 and again in 1923 with Mabel Edmunds at 156 York Road, taking his meals with her but not sleeping in the same room. However, he failed to repay £40 raised for him on her furniture and they often quarrelled about money After a quarrel on 21 July 1923 he killed her by strangling her with his hands and ramming a handkerchief into her mouth. He then started cutting up the body, but desisted after taking off the legs, and left the remains in a locked up room. He told people that she had gone away with a man. He then wrote a letter, which was found beneath the letter box, written as though by her husband, who was abroad, and suggesting that the husband had murdered her and committed suicide. He accounted for marks on his face by saying that Mabel Edmunds had quarrelled with him and hit him with a police whistle. However, when the room was broken into after a week had passed, the remains were found. He made two statements to the police, the first intended to shield himself, and the second, saying that after she had provoked him first by words and then by attempted assault with a knife, she used what he thought was a bottle of fluid, after which he knew nothing until he found he had strangled her. At his trial he denied having any intention of killing her. He said that on the morning of 21 July 1923 that Mabel Edmunds got into a temper over a grand piano that she wanted him to sell, and that after lunch she: xxxqxxx Got into a rage over family matters. xxxqxxx He said: xxxqxxx She objected to the company I was keeping, and said foul and wicked things about my mother. I stood it as long as I could, and then I told her of certain things that had come to my knowledge about her, and she said she would commit suicide. I told her not to be ridiculous and talk common-sense. She replied, 'In any case, you are not going out of this house alive. I will kill you'. She picked up her carving knife and put her threat into action, and came towards me. I closed with her, took the knife away, and went to my room to give her time to cool down. She rushed up the stairs behind me, and before I could shut the door she struck me a severe blow over the left eye. I thought at the time it was the knife. I was dumbfounded and fell back on the bed. She came after me and threw something in my face from a bottle in her hand and struck me again. The fluid took my breath away, and I was unable to see what I was doing. I thought she was trying to drug me and make me unconscious. I tried to get hold of the bottle, but I could not see. The next thing I found my arms round her neck, and that she was dead. xxxqxxx When he was asked whether he had had any idea that he had been applying pressure to her throat, he said: xxxqxxx No, I thought I had her arms, and was trying to get the bottle. xxxqxxx He said that he then put a handkerchief in her mouth. When he was asked whether he then thought he had killed her, he said: xxxqxxx I was under the impression that I had done so accidently, but I was not certain of it. I knew she had a weak heart. On seeing the body the next day it was a picture of horror. I became almost frantic, and for the time being I think I must have been unbalanced in my mind. Something seemed to say to me, 'Cut off the legs', and I did. I went out and never visited the room again. xxxqxxx The jury took 25 minutes to arrive at a guilty verdict. At his appeal, his defence was along the lines of what he said at the trial, with it being additionally noted at the appeal that the judge had failed to give adequate direction as to the difference between murder and manslaughter as well as to some confusion as to the interval between provocation and the killing. However, the judges dismissed the appeal application, noting that the jury had obviously come to the right conclusion and that it was a case of wilful murder. There was no recommendation to mercy. It was noted that he had previously been sentenced to 15 months' hard labour for unlawfully wounding with a policeman's truncheon another woman in whose house he had lived, and from whom he had borrowed money. Although it was suggested that he had been strange in his manner during that assault, as well as in the murder, however, the medical reports showed no grounds for a statutory inquiry into his mental health. He was executed at Wandsworth on 1 November 1923. Frederick William Maximillian Jesse was lodging with his aunt, Mrs Mabel Jennings-Edmunds, who was separated from her husband, at her home in York Road, Lambeth. On Saturday 21 July, they had a dispute over a family matter and to escape further nagging, he retired to his room. His aunt followed and carried on the argument, during which she whipped him with a heavy police whistle she kept on a length of cord, cutting him above one eye. He fell to the bed and she then threw the contents of a bottle into his face. Jesse lost control and the next thing he knew was that his aunt lay dead on the bed. He had strangled her. At his trial, he claimed that after killing her he panicked and that a voice in his head told him to cut up the body and dispose of it. Following the dismemberment, he was unable to find anywhere to dispose of the parts and he eventually lost his nerve and confessed to the police. Sentenced to death by Mr Justice Swift at the Old Bailey in September, and hanged by John Ellis and Robert Baxter on the 1st November 1923 at Wandsworth prison.