Murder of Catherine Lewis
The John Rathbone Oliver Criminological Collection includes a number of popular English broadside ballads commemorating murders, rare trials, and executions as part of Oliver’s interest in psychiatry and criminal motivation. Catherine Lewis, a nine-year-old girl, disappeared on December 22, 1867; the next day her father found her, suffocated by a shawl and with her throat severed. A neighbor, John Mapp, was charged with the murder and convicted. On the morning before his execution, Mapp confessed to the crime:
When I parted with Jane Richards at the Short Lane gate, Catherine Lewis and myself walked together for a few yards. I ketched hold of her hand, and she said, ‘Do you live by Edward Mason’s?’ and I said ‘Yes.’ When I had her by the hand she began to cry, and I believe she shouted out, but I am not quite sure. She ran to the gate and got over it—I suppose she was frightened at me. As she got over it I was close after her, and when I got over it the gate fell, but I did not fall. When I got up to her she was lying under the hedge, and I asked her to let me do something to her. She said she wouldn’t let me. She then told me she’d tell her father. She was crying. I said to her, ‘Well, if you tell your father I’ll cut your throat.’ I then pulled out my knife and I cut her throat. She was lying on the ground, and I was kneeling at her left side. I got up and wiped the knife with some grass, and then wiped it on her pinner. I then undid the shawl and put the brooch in my pocket, and then put the shawl in her mouth. I am not, however, quite certain whether I pushed the shawl into her mouth before I cut her throat or afterwards, but I did put it in. I then got up and turned her head round, and pulled her down the field by her right hand. She was not dead when I started with her, but she was quite dead before I got to the bottom of the field. I put her in the building where she was found. I think the mark on her forehead was caused by the heel of my boot touching her as I pulled her down the field. I did not strike her. I was very sorry after I done it.
John Mapp was executed April 9, 1868—he was the last person to be publicly executed in Shropshire—just a month before the end of public executions in England.