'Til Murder Do Us Part: 15 Couples Who Killed (Volume Three)
One killer is horrible, but two--words cannot even begin to describe the horror that two killers can bring. In fact, there's only one thing worse: two killers in love!
This book profiles 15 couples you'd never want to go on a double date with!
This is volume 3 of the popular series!
This book profiles 15 couples you'd never want to go on a double date with!
This is volume 3 of the popular series!
Buy Now!
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'Til Murder Do Us Part 3 PDF and ePub |
Excerpt
Introduction
For most people, murder becomes more interesting and entertaining when killers come in twos. Murderous pairs and killers are so fascinating to us because they pervert the basic human needs for love and companionship into something truly evil and wicked.
When lovers start killing, they debase love itself into a deadly evil. Pals that kill together turn friendship into something monstrous and frightening. Instincts and emotions that should make life better become a deadly threat to all of us.
Under normal circumstances, love and friendship make people better. Persons with somebody to believe in and trust are often braver and harder working. Those with somebody to fight for are often willing to struggle on until the bitter end.
When a deadly pair is involved, something similar occurs. A person who would normally lack the courage to kill or rape or rob suddenly gets the courage to do so. Friendship and love can be just as empowering for killers, cannibals, and sadists as for the rest of us. Therefore we should always be afraid when those who look twisted or weird get together; it could be the beginnings of a deadly duo.
A Murderous Duo Too Horrific to Be Real—or Were They? Sweeney Todd and Margery Lovett
The story of Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street who murdered his customers, and his deadly paramour Margery Lovett, who made the victims’ bodies into meat pies, seems almost too horrific to be true. Yet there is probably a lot of truth behind the legend of the gruesome hairdresser and his murderous mate who have inspired everything from nursery rhymes to Broadway musicals.
Sweeney Todd and Margery Lovett were apparently real people. They were the first celebrity serial killers to be extensively covered in the press. The deadly duo was also the first pair of sadistic cannibals to be widely glorified in popular culture. Sweeney and Margery were stock characters in pulp magazines and dime novels as early as the 1850s.
The strangest thing about Sweeney Todd and Margery Lovett is that nothing is certain about them. We know that they were real people and that they certainly killed innocent people, but that’s about it. Nobody knows how many people they killed, why they killed them, or even how they killed them.
The Man, the Woman, and the Legend
The legend of Sweeney Todd and Margery Lovett is a well-known and gruesome one. Sweeney Todd operated a barbershop, where he would shave men; he would occasionally kill a customer with his straight razor and then dump the body in a secret pit under the barber shop. Margery Lovett, who owned a pie shop nearby, would have one of her accomplices cut up the body and serve it in a meat pie.
To add icing on the cake, Sweeney’s barbershop and Margery’s pie shop were located on Fleet Street, the legendary home of London’s newspapers: the place where tabloid journalism and crime reporting were born. Sweeney and Margery’s trial was covered by the first crime reporter, Thomas Peckett Prest. They pushed Napoleon off the front pages back in 1801.
Okay, that’s the legend, but it’s hard to tell what's fact and what’s fiction in this tale. Records were poor back in 1801, organized police forces were in their infancy, and journalism was a purely amateur affair. Discerning fact from fiction and legend from reality is difficult even though Sweeney Todd committed his crimes in the center of what was then the world’s largest and most advanced city.
What We Know
Sweeney Todd was a young man who grew up in London near the Tower of London. He apprenticed as a barber—then a good job because there was no way for a man to shave himself at the time. He apparently served a prison term for theft and then spent several years operating as an independent, or flying, barber on the streets until he made enough money to open his own shop.
Along the way Sweeney Todd began committing murders using his straight razor. He later admitted that he slit the throat of a young gentleman on Hyde Park Corner but gives no motive. The motive might have been robbery, or perhaps Sweeney Todd was actually a hit man rubbing out somebody for money.
By 1801 Sweeney Todd was running a barbershop at 186 Fleet Street near Temple Bar. Ironically enough, the Royal Courts of Justice—the Old Bailey—were just a few blocks away. In a bizarre twist of history, Sweeney Todd’s barbershop was located on the site where London’s first daily newspaper, the Daily Courant, had been published a century before.
How He Got Away with It
Sweeney Todd located his barbershop over an old tunnel that connected to a nearby church. He built a trap door into the tunnel so it would be easy to dispose of bodies. When a likely victim would come into the shop, Sweeney Todd would simply slit his throat with the straight razor, which got the nickname “cutthroat” razor because of Sweeney’s activities. He then dumped the body down into the tunnel, where it would be eaten by rats and other vermin.
The motive for most of the killings seems to have been plain old-fashioned robbery. Most of the victims were travelers or sailors; there were no travelers’ checks, credit cards, or paper money in those days. Travelers carried gold and silver coins, which Sweeney stole. Some of them also carried knives, watches, guns, jewelry, and other items, which Sweeney could sell or pawn for more cash. Even their clothing could be sold for a few pennies.
In the era before modern communication, there was little or no way to track a person. Many people simply disappeared, a circumstance that Sweeney Todd and other serial killers took advantage of. This means it is impossible to tell how many people Sweeney Todd actually killed, although some estimates are as high as 160, which makes him Britain’s second most prolific serial killer after Harold Shipman, the Doctor Death of the National Health Service, who may have murdered more than 250 people in the late 20th Century.
Caught by Smell
It isn’t known how or when Sweeney Todd linked up with a woman named Marjory Lovett. All we know about Marjory Lovett was that she was a widow and she owned a pie shop. She apparently discovered that Sweeney was using abandoned crypts under St. Dunstan’s church to hide some of his bodies. The tunnel under his shop led to the crypts. Mrs. Lovett started putting meat from the bodies into the pies to save money. The exact relationship between the two isn’t known; we don’t know if they were lovers or simply business partners.
Interestingly enough, we do know how Sweeney and Lovett got caught: by smell. In 1801 worshippers at St. Dustan’s began complaining about a terrible smell coming out of the old crypts. One parishioner even said it smelled like rotting corpses, but nobody had been buried in the crypts for many years. Eventually the Bow Street Runners, a sort of amateur police force that was a predecessor of Scotland Yard, began an investigation.
Two of the runners went into the crypt but found no bodies, so they started looking around the neighborhood. One of them learned that several sailors had gone into Sweeney Todd’s barbershop for a shave and never came out again. The chief of the runners, Sir Richard Blunt, noticed that Todd’s barbershop was near the church. He and his men made another search of the underbelly of the church and discovered that one of the crypts was filled with decomposing bodies. They also found the tunnel to Todd’s shop and arrested him.
Execution and the Beginning of a Legend
Sweeney Todd was arrested, confessed, and tried at the Old Bailey a few blocks from his barbershop and hanged in 1802. It isn’t known how the Runners uncovered the connection to Margery Lovett, but she was arrested and confessed before committing suicide in jail before her trial.
Since then Sweeney Todd and Margery Lovett have moved into the realm of legend. Some historians claim that they didn’t exist, others that they did. The buildings connected to them are real, and the Dundee Courier building where his barbershop was still stands. It now contains a Kwick Copy franchise.
Stars of Stage, Screen, and Television
The tale of Sweeney Todd became a staple in Victorian pulp fiction, the so-called penny dreadfuls, the first of which was The String of Pearls published in 1846. These were soon adapted for the stage in Victorian melodramas under the name Sweeney Todd: the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. A movie version appeared as early as 1926, and a sound version was made in 1936.
The most famous version, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. A Musical Thriller, appeared in 1979. It was based on a 1973 reimagining of the Victorian melodrama, which gave a more sympathetic portrayal of the killer. With lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, the play became a hit, the highlight of Angela Lansbury’s stage career, and a staple of modern musical theater. This play was adapted for the screen by Tim Burton in 2007 and starred Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter.
There have also been several television movies based on Sweeney Todd’s career. These generally follow the Victorian version in which Todd is a bloodthirsty killer rather than sympathetic.
The strangest part of Sweeney Todd’s legacy is its place in modern British slang. The terms “The Sweeney” or “Sweeney Todd” are popular nicknames for the Flying Squad, an elite unit of London’s Metropolitan Police Force that is known for being tough on criminals. The Sweeney was a famous British TV series about the Flying Squad. So a famous police unit takes its name from a famous serial killer.
Bibliography
Gribben, Mark. "Sweeney Todd." n.d. trutv.com/library/crime. Online Encyclopedia Article. 20 May 2013.
Knowledge of London. "Sweeney Todd." n.d. knowledgeoflondon.com. Travel Blog Entry. 20 May 2013.
Wikipedia. "Harold Shipman." n.d. en.wikipedia.org. Online Encyclopedia Entry. 20 May 2013.
—. "Sweeney Todd." n.d. en.wikipedia.org. Online Encyclopedia Entry. 20 May 2013.
—. "Sweeney Todd (disambiguation)." n.d. en.wikipedia.org. Online Encyclopedia Article. 20 May 2013.
Wisegeek. "Who is Sweeney Todd?" n.d. wisegeek.com. Blog Entry. 20 May 2013.
For most people, murder becomes more interesting and entertaining when killers come in twos. Murderous pairs and killers are so fascinating to us because they pervert the basic human needs for love and companionship into something truly evil and wicked.
When lovers start killing, they debase love itself into a deadly evil. Pals that kill together turn friendship into something monstrous and frightening. Instincts and emotions that should make life better become a deadly threat to all of us.
Under normal circumstances, love and friendship make people better. Persons with somebody to believe in and trust are often braver and harder working. Those with somebody to fight for are often willing to struggle on until the bitter end.
When a deadly pair is involved, something similar occurs. A person who would normally lack the courage to kill or rape or rob suddenly gets the courage to do so. Friendship and love can be just as empowering for killers, cannibals, and sadists as for the rest of us. Therefore we should always be afraid when those who look twisted or weird get together; it could be the beginnings of a deadly duo.
A Murderous Duo Too Horrific to Be Real—or Were They? Sweeney Todd and Margery Lovett
The story of Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street who murdered his customers, and his deadly paramour Margery Lovett, who made the victims’ bodies into meat pies, seems almost too horrific to be true. Yet there is probably a lot of truth behind the legend of the gruesome hairdresser and his murderous mate who have inspired everything from nursery rhymes to Broadway musicals.
Sweeney Todd and Margery Lovett were apparently real people. They were the first celebrity serial killers to be extensively covered in the press. The deadly duo was also the first pair of sadistic cannibals to be widely glorified in popular culture. Sweeney and Margery were stock characters in pulp magazines and dime novels as early as the 1850s.
The strangest thing about Sweeney Todd and Margery Lovett is that nothing is certain about them. We know that they were real people and that they certainly killed innocent people, but that’s about it. Nobody knows how many people they killed, why they killed them, or even how they killed them.
The Man, the Woman, and the Legend
The legend of Sweeney Todd and Margery Lovett is a well-known and gruesome one. Sweeney Todd operated a barbershop, where he would shave men; he would occasionally kill a customer with his straight razor and then dump the body in a secret pit under the barber shop. Margery Lovett, who owned a pie shop nearby, would have one of her accomplices cut up the body and serve it in a meat pie.
To add icing on the cake, Sweeney’s barbershop and Margery’s pie shop were located on Fleet Street, the legendary home of London’s newspapers: the place where tabloid journalism and crime reporting were born. Sweeney and Margery’s trial was covered by the first crime reporter, Thomas Peckett Prest. They pushed Napoleon off the front pages back in 1801.
Okay, that’s the legend, but it’s hard to tell what's fact and what’s fiction in this tale. Records were poor back in 1801, organized police forces were in their infancy, and journalism was a purely amateur affair. Discerning fact from fiction and legend from reality is difficult even though Sweeney Todd committed his crimes in the center of what was then the world’s largest and most advanced city.
What We Know
Sweeney Todd was a young man who grew up in London near the Tower of London. He apprenticed as a barber—then a good job because there was no way for a man to shave himself at the time. He apparently served a prison term for theft and then spent several years operating as an independent, or flying, barber on the streets until he made enough money to open his own shop.
Along the way Sweeney Todd began committing murders using his straight razor. He later admitted that he slit the throat of a young gentleman on Hyde Park Corner but gives no motive. The motive might have been robbery, or perhaps Sweeney Todd was actually a hit man rubbing out somebody for money.
By 1801 Sweeney Todd was running a barbershop at 186 Fleet Street near Temple Bar. Ironically enough, the Royal Courts of Justice—the Old Bailey—were just a few blocks away. In a bizarre twist of history, Sweeney Todd’s barbershop was located on the site where London’s first daily newspaper, the Daily Courant, had been published a century before.
How He Got Away with It
Sweeney Todd located his barbershop over an old tunnel that connected to a nearby church. He built a trap door into the tunnel so it would be easy to dispose of bodies. When a likely victim would come into the shop, Sweeney Todd would simply slit his throat with the straight razor, which got the nickname “cutthroat” razor because of Sweeney’s activities. He then dumped the body down into the tunnel, where it would be eaten by rats and other vermin.
The motive for most of the killings seems to have been plain old-fashioned robbery. Most of the victims were travelers or sailors; there were no travelers’ checks, credit cards, or paper money in those days. Travelers carried gold and silver coins, which Sweeney stole. Some of them also carried knives, watches, guns, jewelry, and other items, which Sweeney could sell or pawn for more cash. Even their clothing could be sold for a few pennies.
In the era before modern communication, there was little or no way to track a person. Many people simply disappeared, a circumstance that Sweeney Todd and other serial killers took advantage of. This means it is impossible to tell how many people Sweeney Todd actually killed, although some estimates are as high as 160, which makes him Britain’s second most prolific serial killer after Harold Shipman, the Doctor Death of the National Health Service, who may have murdered more than 250 people in the late 20th Century.
Caught by Smell
It isn’t known how or when Sweeney Todd linked up with a woman named Marjory Lovett. All we know about Marjory Lovett was that she was a widow and she owned a pie shop. She apparently discovered that Sweeney was using abandoned crypts under St. Dunstan’s church to hide some of his bodies. The tunnel under his shop led to the crypts. Mrs. Lovett started putting meat from the bodies into the pies to save money. The exact relationship between the two isn’t known; we don’t know if they were lovers or simply business partners.
Interestingly enough, we do know how Sweeney and Lovett got caught: by smell. In 1801 worshippers at St. Dustan’s began complaining about a terrible smell coming out of the old crypts. One parishioner even said it smelled like rotting corpses, but nobody had been buried in the crypts for many years. Eventually the Bow Street Runners, a sort of amateur police force that was a predecessor of Scotland Yard, began an investigation.
Two of the runners went into the crypt but found no bodies, so they started looking around the neighborhood. One of them learned that several sailors had gone into Sweeney Todd’s barbershop for a shave and never came out again. The chief of the runners, Sir Richard Blunt, noticed that Todd’s barbershop was near the church. He and his men made another search of the underbelly of the church and discovered that one of the crypts was filled with decomposing bodies. They also found the tunnel to Todd’s shop and arrested him.
Execution and the Beginning of a Legend
Sweeney Todd was arrested, confessed, and tried at the Old Bailey a few blocks from his barbershop and hanged in 1802. It isn’t known how the Runners uncovered the connection to Margery Lovett, but she was arrested and confessed before committing suicide in jail before her trial.
Since then Sweeney Todd and Margery Lovett have moved into the realm of legend. Some historians claim that they didn’t exist, others that they did. The buildings connected to them are real, and the Dundee Courier building where his barbershop was still stands. It now contains a Kwick Copy franchise.
Stars of Stage, Screen, and Television
The tale of Sweeney Todd became a staple in Victorian pulp fiction, the so-called penny dreadfuls, the first of which was The String of Pearls published in 1846. These were soon adapted for the stage in Victorian melodramas under the name Sweeney Todd: the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. A movie version appeared as early as 1926, and a sound version was made in 1936.
The most famous version, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. A Musical Thriller, appeared in 1979. It was based on a 1973 reimagining of the Victorian melodrama, which gave a more sympathetic portrayal of the killer. With lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, the play became a hit, the highlight of Angela Lansbury’s stage career, and a staple of modern musical theater. This play was adapted for the screen by Tim Burton in 2007 and starred Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter.
There have also been several television movies based on Sweeney Todd’s career. These generally follow the Victorian version in which Todd is a bloodthirsty killer rather than sympathetic.
The strangest part of Sweeney Todd’s legacy is its place in modern British slang. The terms “The Sweeney” or “Sweeney Todd” are popular nicknames for the Flying Squad, an elite unit of London’s Metropolitan Police Force that is known for being tough on criminals. The Sweeney was a famous British TV series about the Flying Squad. So a famous police unit takes its name from a famous serial killer.
Bibliography
Gribben, Mark. "Sweeney Todd." n.d. trutv.com/library/crime. Online Encyclopedia Article. 20 May 2013.
Knowledge of London. "Sweeney Todd." n.d. knowledgeoflondon.com. Travel Blog Entry. 20 May 2013.
Wikipedia. "Harold Shipman." n.d. en.wikipedia.org. Online Encyclopedia Entry. 20 May 2013.
—. "Sweeney Todd." n.d. en.wikipedia.org. Online Encyclopedia Entry. 20 May 2013.
—. "Sweeney Todd (disambiguation)." n.d. en.wikipedia.org. Online Encyclopedia Article. 20 May 2013.
Wisegeek. "Who is Sweeney Todd?" n.d. wisegeek.com. Blog Entry. 20 May 2013.
