At the inquest, PCs Atkinson, Richardson and Wensley gave evidence, as did Jacob Myers, Alice Weiderman, Miss Laughton, Mr Schafer, the dairyman and the little boy (William Whittaker, aged seven). Doctors described the injuries of the two dead persons. Mr Levy’s body, when examined at the house, was still warm. He had died about half an hour before being discovered. Six of his ribs and his skull had been fractured and there were cuts on his head. The wound in his throat was eight inches in length, the ‘windpipe and gullet having been cut right through.’ Mrs Gale had been dead for about two hours. Her skull was fractured in several places and ‘the force used in inflicting the wound in the throat had been so great that the knife had actually cut into the vertebrae.’
In the London Hospital, William Seaman’s identity was eventually revealed, and it was established that he lodged in Claude Street, Millwall, on the Isle of Dogs. He had lived there for some time, and claimed to be engaged in perfecting an invention that he was trying to sell. Two policemen guarded him daily in the hospital ward, occasionally making notes of what he said. These ‘voluntary’ statements were later read out in court. It is not known whether Seaman signed them. But perhaps the Millwall inventor and ex-convict, worn down by pain and weary of his guards’ questions, of his own wretched existence, became careless about what he said.
On the day after the double murders, Constable Hacchus, who had helped carry Seaman into Number 31 after he dived off the roof, was endeavouring to give the patient some milk when Seaman allegedly said: ‘I know what’s in front of me, and I can face it. If a man takes a life he must suffer for it. I don’t value my life a bit. I have made my bed and I must lie on it.’ On 17 April, PC Hacchus was helping a nurse to wash the patient, when Seaman said: ‘Never mind washing anything else, as I shan’t be here long … I don’t want to hide anything, and I shan’t try to. I did it. I’ve been prompted to do it thousands of times. I knew the old man had been the cause of all my trouble, and I would like to kill myself now. I’m sick of life.’
Earlier, on 11 April, PC Bryan was present when Seaman remarked: ‘I suppose old Levy is dead and buried by this time.’ ‘I don’t know,’ PC Bryan replied. ‘I’m glad I’ve done for him,’ Seaman is said to have continued. ‘I’ve been a good many times for the money, amounting to £70, and the old man always made some excuse. I made up my mind to do for him. I’m not afraid of being hanged.’ The next day, Seaman allegedly said, on waking up: ‘If the old Jew had only paid me the £70, the job would not have happened. You don’t know what I’ve had to put up from him. But this finishes the lot …’ On another day he said: ‘I’ve been crushed since I was nineteen years old. I’ve done fourteen years and two sevens.’
On Friday, 1 May, Seaman appeared at the Thames Police Court to be charged. The Times noted: ‘The prisoner was lifted into the Court seated on an armchair and was evidently suffering considerable pain. Seaman, who was undefended, was on Thursday night interviewed by Mr Bedford, solicitor, but declined that gentleman’s service.’
Seaman was charged with larceny, as well as with the two murders. He chose to question none of the witnesses, only asking both PCs Richardson and Wensley, as if to prove their lack of observation: ‘You saw only one hole?’ He complained strongly, however, when the various voluntary statements attributed to him were read out in court. Referring to PC Bryan he said: ‘The whole lot of his statement is a complete fabrication. I never had anything to say to him. Or the other one. They are the last two officers I should speak to. He and his companion were always questioning me. The rest of the evidence by the other witnesses is correct, but there is no truth in this.’ He was then committed for trial.
This took place at the Central Criminal Court by Newgate Prison on Monday, 18 May 1896, a year after the second trial there of Oscar Wilde, convicted of gross indecency (which implied ‘homosexual acts not amounting to buggery’) and sentenced to two years’ hard labour in prison, a sentence that he was currently serving in Reading Jail.
Seaman’s trial was the first of the May sessions in 1896, which were formally opened by the Lord Mayor of the City of London attended by various aldermen, sheriffs and officials. Ninety-one persons were to be tried during the sessions: five for murder, one for manslaughter, two for attempted murder, two for rapes and assaults on girls, one for arson, seven for bigamy, eleven for burglary, eleven for larceny, and seventeen for unspecified misdemeanours. Other charges in fact included forgery, libel, letter stealing, perjury, receiving stolen goods and one robbery with violence.
The judge at William Seaman’s trial was Mr Justice Hawkins. Mr CF Gill and Mr Horace Avery appeared for the prosecution. There was no counsel for the defence, and Seaman turned down the judge’s offer of a barrister to act as a watching brief. He was indicted for the wilful murders of John Goodman Levy and Annie Sarah Gale, but only tried on the first charge.
Mr Gill detailed the prosecution’s case and called witnesses in support. All Seaman did was to refute some of the statements he allegedly made in hospital. These included his own (alleged) account of the murders. Mr Gill said that the accused, on the morning of 4 April and after breakfast at his Millwall lodgings, went out between 8 and 9 am, having a hammer, chisel and knife in his possession. Reading from a statement allegedly made by Seaman and written down by PC Bryan, Mr Gill told the jury: ‘The prisoner said that on that morning he went to the house and knocked at the door. Mr Levy opened it and he walked in. Mr Levy said the girl was upstairs. The prisoner, continuing, said: “I then went upstairs and found her in her bedroom. She then had her dress on and was leaning over the bed. When she saw me she shouted and began to struggle. But I soon stopped her kicking. I then got downstairs and soon put the old Jew’s lights out.”’
Why was Mrs Gale the first to die? And why did Levy apparently do nothing about escaping from the house while Seaman ran up the stairs and killed the housekeeper?
PC Bryan’s statement, which had also been read earlier, at the Thames Police Court, reported that Seaman also said: ‘After the job was finished, I heard someone knocking at the door.’ Whether this was done by the little boy or Miss Laughton was not revealed. As Mrs Gale was surmised to have died some two hours before her body was found (i.e., at about 11.30 am), what was Seaman doing in the intervening time, and where was Mr Levy? It was thought that he had died about 1 pm. Why did he not flee from the house?
If what Seaman is alleged to have said is true, Levy opened the door to him about 11.30. Did an argument then take place, during which Mr Levy was struck with the hammer and left for dead? Did Mrs Gale then appear, see what had happened and run screaming up the stairs to her bedroom, pursued by Seaman? Did she try to put her bed between them, whereupon he hit her with the hammer more than once? Having silenced her, did Seaman, thinking that Levy was dead below, spend some time ransacking the bedroom, and possibly other upstairs rooms, before finding that Levy had disappeared, having crawled away and hidden himself in the outhouse lavatory? Although Levy was ‘very deaf’, it seems inconceivable that he would potter about downstairs, not trying to escape, knowing that Seaman was in the house.
It seems likely that the old man was attacked in the hall of Number 31 and hit by several blows of the hammer. Left for dead, he revived, and despite his fractured ribs and fractured skull was able to drag himself out of the house and hide in the outhouse. Perhaps in his condition he was unable to reach the front-door handle or latch and accordingly headed for the back door of the house, which may have been open, it being a warm spring day. Unable to attract any neighbour’s attention, he then may have locked himself in the lavatory in the outhouse. When Seaman came downstairs, to find that Mr Levy’s body was not in the hall, a trail of blood and the open back door may well have led him to the outhouse, where he cut the old man’s throat.
At the conclusion of the prosecution’s evidence, the accused man, when asked what he had to say to the jury in his defence, instead complained about prejudicial remarks about him in a weekly newspaper. The judge then asked Seaman if he had anything to say with regard to the charge against him. Seaman replied that he had nothing to say and no witnesses to call.