Eleanor Pearcey was at home, and the two women conversed in the front parlour. Clara Hogg asked Mrs Pearcey if she had seen or heard of Phoebe. Mrs Pearcey said ‘No.’ Clara rephrased the question and Mrs Pearcey then replied: ‘Well, as you press me, I will tell you. Phoebe wished me particularly not to say anything, and that is why I said “No.” She did come round at five o’clock. She asked me to mind the baby for a little while, and I refused. She also asked me to lend her some money. I could not lend her any, as I only had 1s 1 ½d in my purse.’ Phoebe, said Mrs Pearcey, then left the house. Clara Hogg was puzzled: she thought it most unlikely that her sister-in-law, who had a horror of being in debt, would ask for a loan, even a small one. However, she made no comment, only remarking that she intended to visit the Hampstead police and to ask to see the body of the woman who had been murdered the night before, in case it was Phoebe. She asked Mrs Pearcey to accompany her, for moral support.
For some reason, Mrs Pearcey agreed – she could, after all, have invented some excuse. But her part in the murder of Mrs Hogg had probably been blotted out of her mind. DI Thomas Bannister took the two women from the police station to the Hampstead mortuary, where they were both shown the body of Mrs Hogg. The baby’s body was not found until the morning of the following day.
Eleanor Pearcey said she was unable to recognise the unwashed, bloody mask of the woman on the mortuary table. ‘That’s not her,’ she said. ‘It’s not her. It’s not her! Let’s go away!’ She became hysterical. Clara said: ‘That’s her clothing.’ But she could not identify the features.
DI Bannister took the two women out of the room and said to Clara: ‘Surely if she is a relative and you have been living together, you can form a reliable opinion as to whether it is the person or not.’ Both women were brought back to look at the body. Clara was still doubtful, and when she attempted to touch the corpse’s clothing, Mrs Pearcey cried out: ‘Oh, don’t touch her!’ and tried to pull Clara away. ‘Don’t drag me!’ scolded Clara. A doctor in attendance at the mortuary was then asked by Bannister to wash the face of the corpse. When this was done, Clara said: ‘Oh, that’s her. Don’t drag me!’ she added again.
Detective Murray then took both women to see the bassinette, which Clara Hogg identified. Sergeant Beard was sent to accompany the women back to 141 Prince of Wales Road, where Frank Hogg and Mrs Styles were questioned. He was searched and in a pocket his key to 2 Priory Street was found. All three women and the unhappy husband were then asked to come to Hampstead police station for further questioning, and Mrs Pearcey was detained there. DI Bannister, mystified and made suspicious by her excessive and odd reaction in the mortuary, asked if one or two of his men could inspect her apartments. She agreed and said: ‘I would like to go with them.’
About 3 pm she returned to Priory Street with Sergeants Nursey and Parsons. They examined her rooms. One of the sergeants then went out to send a telegram to DI Bannister. The other sergeant stayed and engaged Mrs Pearcey in conversation in the front parlour, where she played the piano and sang. She also talked about her ‘poor dear dead Phoebe’, whom she loved so much, and about the ‘dear baby, who was just beginning to prattle, oh, so prettily’.
On receiving the telegram, DI Bannister went straight to 2 Priory Street. He spoke to Mrs Pearcey, questioned her as well as her neighbours and searched her rooms with one of his sergeants; she appeared to him to be distraught and her speech was somewhat incoherent. In the bloodstained kitchen he found two carving-knives, their handles similarly stained. A recently washed apron and skirt were also discovered, as well as a stained rug, smelling strongly of paraffin as if an attempt had been made to clean it. The curtains were missing – they and a bloody tablecloth were found in an outhouse. In the fender of the kitchen grate was a long, heavy poker with a ring handle: it was smeared with matted hair and blood.
Bannister took the knives and the poker into the parlour, where Mrs Pearcey was now whistling and affecting indifference. Asked what she had been doing with the poker, she responded: ‘Killing mice, killing mice!’
She could offer no sensible explanation for the bloodstained rooms. Bannister said to her: ‘Mrs Pearcey, I am going to arrest you for the murder of Mrs Hogg last night, also on suspicion of murdering the child, Phoebe Hogg.’ Mrs Pearcey jumped up and said: ‘You can arrest me if you like. I’m quite willing to go with you. But I think you have made a mistake.’ He took her to Kentish Town police station. On the way she commented: ‘I wouldn’t do such a thing. I wouldn’t hurt anyone.’
In the police station, she was charged and searched. When she removed her gloves, her hands were seen to have cuts on them. She wore two rings: one of brass, the other a broad gold wedding ring, which was later proved to have been removed from Phoebe Hogg’s fingers. The search also revealed that Eleanor Pearcey’s underclothes, unchanged for twenty-four hours, were saturated with blood. They were removed and she was supplied with workhouse garments.
Mrs Pearcey appeared at the Marylebone police court on 27 October charged with the murder of Mrs Hogg. She was sent for trial at the Central Criminal Court in the Old Bailey and appeared there, before Mr Justice Denman, on 1 December 1890. Mr Forrest Fulton and Mr CF Gill led for the Crown and the accused was defended by Mr Arthur Hutton. Still wearing her workhouse clothes, Mrs Pearcey gave no evidence and remained stonily impassive throughout the trial, seemingly indifferent to everything. The trial ended on its fourth day, when she was found guilty and sentenced to death.
Eleanor Pearcey was hanged at Newgate Prison on Tuesday 23 December 1890, on a bitterly cold and foggy morning. A crowd of about 300 people gathered outside the prison gates. A reporter in the Pall Mall Budget wrote:
The bell of St Sepulchre’s church commenced tolling at a quarter to eight, the tones ringing out sharply on the morning air. It had no effect upon the crowd, many of whom were women, and obscene and ribald jokes could be heard among every group, the females especially being fiercely denunciatory of the convict’s conduct … At one minute before eight o’clock a yell from the crowd proclaimed the fact that the black flag was hoisted, and directly after the crowd gave vent to their feelings in a loud cheer.
The day before her execution, Mrs Pearcey was visited by her solicitor, Mr Palmer. She asked him to distribute certain trinkets as keepsakes to relatives and friends. She also asked him to put an advertisement in the Madrid papers, addressed to certain initials. Mr Palmer inquired if this had anything to do with the case. ‘Never mind,’ said Mrs Pearcey. He asked her: ‘Do you admit the justice of the sentence?’ ‘No,’ she replied. ‘I do not. I know nothing about the crime.’ ‘Are you satisfied with what we have done for your defence and the efforts we have since made on your behalf?’ ‘I am perfectly satisfied,’ she said. He continued: ‘If you have any facts to reveal and will let me know them, even at this late hour, I will lay them before the Home Secretary in the hope of obtaining mercy.’ ‘I have nothing more to say,’ she replied. ‘Don’t forget about those things. Goodbye.’ She walked away across the yard to her cell.
She had repeatedly asked to see Frank Hogg, and permission had at last been given for him to visit her between two and four o’clock that Monday afternoon. Her expectation of seeing him again was great. But as time passed and he did not appear, she became ‘nervous and impatient’. When she realised that he would never appear she was overcome, and lay on her prison bed, her hands over her face, sobbing. After a while she controlled herself and got to her feet, her face now quite calm and composed. She sat down at a table in the cell and began to read.
Her executioner was James Berry, a Yorkshireman and a former policeman and boot salesman, aged forty-two, who had been hangman since 1884. During this more recent occupation he hanged 131 people, including five women. In his autobiography he described Eleanor Pearcey’s last hours:
The night before her execution was spent in the condemned cell, watched by three female warders, who stated that her fortitude was remarkable. When introduced to her, I said: ‘Good morning, madam,’ and she shook my proffered hand without any trace of emotion. She was certainly the most composed person in the whole party. Sir James Whitehead, the Sheriff of the County