Cambridgeshire Murders Read Free

born to Thomas and Mary Conquest in Whittlesey and baptised on 19 October 1729. The family were not well off but nevertheless Amy’s parents ensured that she received an education until she reached the age of 12. By the age of 16 she had grown into a tall, fine girl and began to receive attention from Thomas Reed 2 of Whittlesey. 3 Her father did not approve of the liaison and wanted his daughter to stop seeing the young man, but the two had fallen in love and soon consummated their relationship, which, according to a later description in the Newgate Calendar , ‘continued till it became criminal’ .
    Amy fully expected that she would marry and so was shocked when, in the summer of 1748, Thomas told her that he was planning to travel to London and did not know when he would come back to Whittlesey. Despite assuring her that they would marry upon his return, Amy still felt betrayed and began to spend time with another local man, John Hutchinson, who had also been a suitor but one she had not encouraged. Despite the fact that Amy had never particularly liked John, her family, and her father in particular, felt that he was a better choice than Thomas Reed. Consequently, when John formally asked for Amy’s hand in marriage on 24 August 1748, her father was quick to consent. As the wedding was arranged for the very next day, Amy’s father may have thought that a quick wedding would avoid any possibility of the union being spoilt by Thomas Reed’s return.
    However, Thomas got word that Amy and John Hutchinson were about to marry and rushed back to Whittlesey only to see the two leaving the church as man and wife. Amy was distraught when she saw him and instantly realised what a terrible mistake she had made by marrying a man she did not love.
    Within days Thomas and Amy were seeing one another again but were not as discreet as they should have been. Very soon neighbours were gossiping and John Hutchinson became jealous. Amy’s arguments with her husband culminated with him beating her with a belt or stick on several occasions, but also with a realisation that his wife would not change her ways. He began to drink heavily and to stay away from home.
    At about 5 a.m. on 14 October, just seven weeks and one day after their wedding, John Hutchinson became ill, complaining of the ‘ague’. Amy brewed him some warm ale but on seeing no improvement she sent for Mary Watson. Mary stated that she found John very ill and that the boiled beer given to him by Amy had made him feel worse. According to some accounts John was still alive at 9 a.m., but died soon afterwards. Mary Watson claimed that:
    Ann Conquest, the sister of the said Amey [sister-in-law] went for this deponent in the afternoon following to desire after to come and see the said John and upon going he apprehended to this deponent to be dying and dyed within about three-quarters of an hour after. That he did not complain that any means had been used to shorted his life. That this deponent was at the laying out of the said John after death and that nothing appeared to her this deponent but that he dyed of his natural death.
    Initially John’s death was not considered suspicious, and the burial took place in Whittlesey on 16 October 1748. However, when Amy’s lover moved in only a few days later in what seemed to be a blatant act of disrespect, the people of Whittlesey grew uneasy. On 19 October John’s body was exhumed and three surgeons, John Clarke, William Benning and John Stona, carried out an autopsy. In the mid-eighteenth century methods of detecting and identifying poisons were primitive, so their account of their findings is both graphic and fascinating:
    We whose names are here unto subscribed being called upon the day and date above to open the body of John Hutchinson deceased found his stomach had been much inflamed and in it a bloody liquor with a mucus matter of the same colour which we imagine to be caused by some