Stage 3: Completing the investigation

Walter Horsford and Annie Holmes were lovers. Annie Holmes thought she was pregnant and Horsford wrote to her about it, hoping she would end the pregnancy. As the police gathered evidence in 1898, it pointed more and more towards a case of murder by poisoning. But what would a modern police officer and a Victorian police officer have done to complete their work?

They found a letter in the house from Walter Horsford to Annie Holmes. It said

Dear Annie,

Will come over Friday to see you if I can come to an
arrangement of some sort or other, but you must remember
that I paid you half a crown, so if I thought well not to give
you anything you could not get it, but still, I don’t want to
talk and hear that it is by me, if you really are so.

Don’t write any more letters, as I don’t want Bessie to
know.

Yours truly,
W Horsford.


Now YOU DECIDE what to do next.

1. Before you start download the answer frame stage 3, so you can record your decisions.
   
   
2. Below are a number of things you could do as a police officer. Select which actions you would carry out as a police officer in 1898 and which actions you think you would carry out as a police officer today. Record these on the answer frame:
   
   
   1. Arrest Walter Horsford
      
      Young Annie Holmes will have explained about her mother receiving the letter above from Horsford before her death. Is there anything in it that could make you suspicious of Walter Horsford? Should he be arrested and interviewed?
      
      
   2. Find out where the strychnine came from
      
      Would it be any help to find out where the strychnine came from?
      
      
   3. Search Horsford’s house and barns
      
      Would there be any point in searching Horsford’s house and barns?
      
      
   4. Meet with lawyers from the CPS (Crown Prosecution Service)
      
      The lawyers of the CPS officially prepare prosecution cases which go to court. They decide whether there is enough evidence to take a case to court and whether they think a jury will be convinced of someone’s guilt.


3. Once you have recorded your answers:
   
   Click on the links below and record for each one, if it is an action that would have been possible or likely in 1898 and which ones would be carried out today.
   
   Are there any things that suprised you?
   
   What are the similarities and differences between what a Victorian and modern police officer might do? How great are the differences compared with stages one and two?
   
   
   1. Arrest Walter Horsford
      
   2. Find out where the strychnine came from
      
   3. Search Horsford’s house and barn
      
   4. Meet with lawyers from the CPS (Crown Prosecution Service)