Harriet Reeve
Tuesday
19th October 1915: For the second day running a Bedfordshire
man has been on trial at the Assizes for the murder of his wife. Yesterday
Henry Charles Martin was convicted on the lesser charge of manslaughter
and sentenced to twelve months in gaol. Today, after a six hour trial, William
Benjamin Reeve of Leighton Buzzard has been convicted of the wilful murder of
his wife and has been sentenced to death. The evidence was almost identical to
that given at the Police Court hearing and the inquest into Harriet Reeve's death, with the addition of
Reeve’s own account of events.
Reeve was a man not in very
regular employment who was in the habit of drinking rather too much. On the 5th
July he had visited several public houses with a man named Thomas Major. When
he returned home the worse for drink his wife was anxious to get rid of the
children who were in the house and gave them money to go to the Picture Palace. Evidence was given by Private Jack Toms
of the Bedfordshire Regiment, the husband of Reeve’s niece Annie. When asked
whether Reeve suffered from ill-health which prevented him working Toms replied
“No, I think it was laziness”. Mrs. Reeve, however, was an “industrious and
sober” woman who had worked as a carpet sewer for Messrs. Aveline and Phillips.
When Reeve came to Toms’ house on July 5th he heard him say “I’m going to do my
old girl in tonight”, giving as his reason that she never gave him any money.
When begged not to carry out this threat Reeve said his loved “his old girl”. Toms
had not attached much importance to the conversation, assuming it to be the
silly remarks of a drunken man.
Reeve told the court that he
was a drover and labourer, who had been married for over twenty years and had
lived on good terms with his wife. He was not aware that he had ever threatened
his wife’s life. He admitted that on the 5th July he had had a good deal to
drink. Asked about his gun he said that he had not used it for months, but it
had been left loaded. The gun was peculiar in that when both barrels were
loaded if the right hand barrel was fired the left hand one was also likely to
go off. He could not remember any of the events of the evening his wife was
killed, but he was certain he had no intention of injuring her – she was “the
best friend I had got”. He did not remember how the gun and razor came to be
found just outside the door, and did not have any memory of cutting his own
throat with the razor. He had no recollection of telling Jack Toms he intended
to “do his old girl in”; he rarely quarrelled with his wife, and had no
grievance against her for not giving him money. He also had no memory of
opening the drawer which contained the shot and taking out the shot flasks. He
believed the gun must have gone off by accident.
In the closing speeches the
prosecution said it was extremely improbably the gun could have gone off
accidentally and caused Harriet Reeve such injuries. However drunk he was Reeve
had clearly checked before he went home that his wife was there, and he was
clearly conscious enough to take the gun from its usual place. Why else would
he have cut his own throat if he was not aware he had committed a crime? He had
run out of money for more drink and had grown in resentment and hostility to
his wife for refusing to give him more as the day went on. The defence pointed
out that there were certain discrepancies in the evidence of Jack Toms which
suggested it was unreliable. Flemming, the friend of Reeve’s son, claimed to
have heard Reeve threaten his wife yet young Reeve who actually lived in the house
said he had never heard his father threaten his mother. There was nothing to
suggest that Mrs. Reeve felt herself threatened as she had stayed seated in her
chair.
The judge said that there
was no evidence that Reeve was insane and drunkenness was no excuse for crime. If
the jury believed Reeve’s story that the death was an accident they should find
him not guilty; if they believed he did not know what he was doing, he should
be found guilty but insane; the only other possible verdict was guilty of
wilful murder. The jury took only twelve minutes to consider their decision
before passing a unanimous verdict that he was indeed guilty of wilful murder.
After spending much of the trial slumped low in his seat with his head in his
hands Reeve stood unmoved while the verdict was read out. He did not reply when
asked if he had anything to say as to why judgment should not be passed on him,
and lowered his head while the sentence was pronounced. He swayed when the
judge spoke the closing words “And may the Lord have mercy on your soul” and stood
as though in a daze until the gaolers escorted him to the cells. As he left he
exchanged a brief, inaudible remark with his mother who was seated in the public
gallery.
Source:
Leighton Buzzard Observer, 26th October 1915
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