In the early hours of April 26, 1871, Constable Donald Gunn was walking his beat through Kidbrooke Lane in southeast London when he came upon a young woman on her hands and knees, whispering that her head hurt. Her cheeks were covered in blood, her bonnet and gloves lay on the ground, and nearby were fresh footmarks. She managed only a few words before falling silent: “Take hold of my hand,” and then, “Let me die. ” She was rushed to Guy’s Hospital, where she lingered for days before dying on April 30.

A postmortem revealed she was two or three months pregnant and had died from blows delivered by both sharp and blunt objects. Deep cuts covered her head, and bruising on her hands and arms showed she had tried to defend herself. The victim was Jane Maria Clouson, a seventeen-year-old domestic servant from Deptford. She had been dismissed without warning just before Easter from the household of Ebenezer Pook, a wealthy Greenwich printer, where she had worked since the age of fourteen.

Mrs. Pook claimed the girl was unpleasant and slow, but the other staff were surprised; they knew the real reason. Jane had been involved in a relationship with the Pooks’ son, Edmund, three years her senior, who suffered from fits and worked in his father’s printing business. Mrs.

Pook, determined that her son would not marry beneath himself, had sent Jane away. The girl went to live with her aunt on Ashburnham Road, where she told her family she expected to marry Edmund and return as Mrs. Edmund Pook. On the evening of Tuesday, April 25, Jane left the house, telling her aunt she had arranged to meet Edmund at Blackheath.

She was never seen alive again by her family. After her death, she was identified by her aunt, Mrs. Elizabeth Trott, who came forward after reading newspaper accounts of the attack. Police soon learned that Jane had been seen with Edmund that evening, and witnesses described a young man matching his description running from Kidbrooke Lane.

Scotland Yard Detective Inspector Mulvaney and Superintendent Griffin went to the Pook home. Asked when he had last seen Jane, Edmund claimed it was the day she left and that he had not written to her. Then, without prompting, he added, “I know nothing about her. She was a dirty young woman and left here in consequence.

I can account for all my nights. ” When police examined his clothes, they found bloodstains on both sleeves of his shirt. Edmund explained that he had bitten his tongue during a seizure. He was arrested on suspicion of murder.

The case became a sensation. A servant girl dismissed by her employer’s family, found murdered two weeks later, pregnant, with the son of the house accused of both fathering her child and killing her. The public followed every detail. At the coroner’s court, Edmund Pook was found guilty of willful murder, and a full trial was arranged at the Old Bailey for July 10.

At trial, witnesses placed Edmund with Jane on the night of the murder. Thomas Lazelle, who lived in Kidbrooke Lane, testified he had seen the defendant walking with his arm around a young woman’s waist, heading toward the lane. A shopkeeper confirmed he had sold the plasterer’s hammer found near the scene to Edmund Pook days before the attack. Edmund’s trousers and shirts had blood and mud on them.

The police believed he was guilty, and the press reported unfavorably against him. But the judge, Sir William Bovill, was far more sympathetic to the defendant. He ruled that Jane’s dying words, in which she had apparently named Edmund as her attacker, were inadmissible as hearsay. He criticized the police for arresting Edmund too quickly without real evidence and for failing to investigate other suspects.

On July 15, the jury retired and returned just twenty minutes later with a verdict of not guilty. The crowd outside the courthouse reacted with anger and disappointment. Many believed Edmund had escaped justice because of his family’s social standing. The Times published an editorial critical of the police investigation, and the matter was raised in Parliament.

A pamphlet was released claiming Edmund was responsible for Jane’s death. He sued for slander and won, receiving fifty pounds in damages, though the civil case subjected him to uncomfortable questioning. The Pook family never escaped the shadow of the case. Local gossip persisted in Deptford and Greenwich, and references to the murder continued to appear in newspapers.

Eventually, they left London and relocated where they would not be recognized. A memorial for Jane was erected at Brockley Cemetery, paid for by public donations. The inscription read: “A motherless girl who was murdered in Kidbrooke Lane, Eltham, aged 17 in 1871. ”

In the years that followed, people claimed to have seen the ghost of a young woman in a white dress with blood dripping from her face standing in Kidbrooke Lane.

Several of these sightings were reported by patrolling policemen. Residents avoided the lane at night, fearing they might encounter the spirit of Jane Maria Clouson.