Name: |
Louisa Masset |
AKA: |
|
D.O.B. |
|
Kill
Total: |
1 |
Kill
date: |
27th
October 1899 |
Kill
Place: |
London ? |
Status: |
Single |
Occupation: |
Piano Teacher |
Victim: |
Son -
Manfred |
D.O.B. |
|
Court: |
|
Judge: |
|
Prosecution: |
|
Defence: |
|
|
FACTFILE
Louisa Masset, who was
half-French and half-English, lived at 29, Bethune Road,
Stoke Newington, London, with her married sister, Leonie
Cadisch and Leonie's husband, Richard.
Employed as a day-governess and piano teacher, Louisa had
left her child, Manfred, with a foster-mother, Miss Helen
Gentle, at 210 Clyde Road, Tottenham, for a fee of thirty
seven shillings per month, visiting him every Wednesday
and taking him for trips to the park. This state of
affairs had existed since the child was a small baby.
Next door to Louisa lived 19 year old Eudor Lucas, a
Frenchman, soon he and Louisa had become close
friends. The relationship developed and before long, a
weekend away in Brighton was suggested, by Louisa.
There had never been any suggestion, from either party,
that the liaison would develop beyond the casual and it
seemed that Louisa was simply well ahead of her time in
that she saw nothing wrong in seeing Eudor without
committing herself to marriage. It was an attitude she
would live to regret, once it had become public.
TOP
13th October 1899, Louisa wrote to Miss Gentle and
informed her that Manfred's father wanted the child
returned to him. She had agreed to this request and
therefore wanted Manfred delivered to her so that she
could take him on the ferry across to France.
Arrangements were made and two weeks later,
Friday, 27th October
, Louisa met Helen outside the Birdcage, a pub on Stamford
Hill, and took possession of her son.
At 1:45pm that afternoon, mother and child were seen
together at London Bridge railway station. The boy
appeared to be distressed and Louisa was seen to take him
into the buffet in order to buy him a cake. They remained
there until about three o'clock when they were seen to
leave together. A witness, Ellen Rees, would later say
that Louisa was seen again at about six, back at London
Bridge, and that then she was alone.
At about the same time that Louisa was supposedly
returning to London Bridge, Mary Teahan and her friend,
Margaret Biggs, entered the ladies waiting room on
platform three of Dalston Junction station. There she
discovered the body of Manfred Masset, naked except for a
black shawl. It appeared that he had been battered with a
brick, which still lay near the body, and then suffocated.
Louisa meanwhile had caught the train to Brighton where
she enjoyed a weekend of love with Eudor.
TOP
Monday 30th October, Helen Gentle received a letter
from Louisa saying that Manfred had missed her terribly
but was now in France and sent her his love. The
newspapers though had been full of the discovery of the
dead child and feeling that the description matched that
of Manfred, Helen Gentle had already been to the mortuary
and formally identified the body.
At about the same time that Helen was making that
identification, a bundle of child's clothes had been found
in a waiting room at Brighton station, and Miss Gentle
later identified these as belonging to Manfred. Further,
the parcel was wrapped in a piece of paper which had been
torn from a larger piece found at Helen Gentle's house.
The tears on both pieces were shown to match exactly.
Finally, as if all this were not enough, the shawl used to
wrap the poor child's body was identified by a draper as
similar to one he had sold to Louisa Masset on 24th
October , and the brick found near the body could have
come from a rockery in the garden of 29, Bethune Road.
On her return to London, on the Monday, Louisa went about
her normal routine, even attending one of her pupils that
evening. On her journey home, after the lesson was over,
she saw newspaper headlines referring to the murder of her
son and would claim that this was the first she knew of
the matter. She went immediately to Streatham Road,
Croydon and the house of George Richard Symes, her
brother-in-law. She told him what had happened and then
waited there for the police to arrive.
At her trial, Louisa's defence was that she had decided to
place her son in the care of a Mrs Browning, who had just
started up a children's home. Apparently Louisa had first
encountered Mrs Browning and her assistant on one of her
Wednesday trips to the park. Having met up a few times,
Mrs Browning had told her of the new school and offered to
take Manfred as a pupil. Louisa, concerned about Manfred's
education, had finally agreed.
TOP
On Friday October 27th, Louisa had met these two ladies at
London Bridge station where she had handed over Manfred, a
parcel of clothes given to her by Helen Gentle, and the
sum of two pounds which was to cover the boy's education
for one year. If Manfred had been murdered then it must
have been these two ladies who did it. Louisa however had
no receipt for the money and the address of the children's
home, in Chelsea, was of course fictitious.
Louisa claimed that she was already in Brighton when she
was supposedly seen again at London Bridge station. This
witness must simply have been mistaken. Louisa said she
had arrived in Brighton, enjoyed a meal at Mutton's
restaurant on the sea-front and then gone on to her hotel.
The evidence though was too telling and Louisa Masset was
adjudged to be guilty and sentenced to death.
There was to be no reprieve, even when the manager of
Mutton's, and one of his waiters came forward and said
that they believed they could positively identify Louisa
as a woman who did indeed have a meal in the establishment
at the time in question.
9th January 1900, Louisa was Hanged at
Newgate.
TOP |
|
|