Our story opens on the morning of June 24, 1806. Two men named Thomas Giles and John Lench were walking on a lane just outside of Oddingley when they heard a gunshot, followed immediately by a cry of “Murder!” When they ran in the direction of these sounds, they encountered a man--a stranger to them--trying to hide in the field. When they confronted him with the words, “Villain, what have you been doing?” the man replied, “Me? Nothing.” Then he dropped the bag he had been holding and ran off.
Not far from where this strange character had been lurking, Giles and Lench found something burning on the ground. Closer inspection revealed it was a man. After extinguishing the flames, Giles ran for help while Lench went in pursuit of the man they had seen. Lench was able to nearly catch up with the stranger when the man put his hand in his pocket menacingly and threatened to shoot Lench if he came any closer. As he himself was unarmed, Lench had little choice but to watch the miscreant make his escape.
When the County Magistrate, Reginald Pynder, arrived on the scene, he recognized the victim as Oddingley’s rector, George Parker. Although the unfortunate Parker was still alive when Pynder saw him, he died a short time afterward without being able to identify his attacker.
Parker had been murdered in a particularly brutal fashion: he had first been shot, then clubbed over the head before being set on fire. The bag his killer left behind was found to contain the gun used to slay the rector.
Although Parker was known for his kindly and helpful acts toward his parishioners, he was a far from liked man in certain circles. He did not get a regular salary, instead depending on tithes from the villagers for his livelihood. As he was a tight-fisted man very fond of money, he was most insistent on collecting these payments from the wealthier residents. These tithes were usually paid from any produce or livestock owned by landowners. However, the war with France had caused the value of such goods to soar, meaning that Oddingley’s landowners were paying Parker more than they thought was fair. When they asked Parker to take their tithes in cash instead, Parker refused. The rector’s popularity did not increase when he insisted that Oddingley’s farmers build him a barn, and then went on to complain about the cost of the dinners these men regularly held. In short, Oddingley’s richest residents saw Reverend Parker as a very costly pest.
Giles and Lench described Parker’s murderer as of medium height, with balding dark brown hair and a black beard. He wore a long blue coat with metal buttons. This fit the description of one Richard Hemming, a carpenter who was already suspected of having committed several robberies. Now, he was wanted for murder. Unfortunately, although several people reported seeing Hemming at various places in the area, the police were unable to find him. It was presumed he had managed to escape to America, although his wife Elizabeth maintained that he would never have gone away without telling her.
As Hemming was the only suspect in Parker’s killing, his disappearance necessarily left the murder investigation at a standstill. The inquest returned the inevitable verdict of “Murder against some person or persons at present unknown,” and life in Oddingley went on Hemming was eventually nearly forgotten by everyone except, one presumes, his wife and three children.
In January 1830, an old barn at Oddingley’s Netherwood Farm was demolished. A laborer digging up the barn’s foundations found himself uncovering an old boot, still containing a skeletal leg. When the site was excavated by police, they unearthed a man’s complete skeleton. Buried with it were remnants of clothing and a few minor personal effects.
Everyone immediately recalled the long-missing Richard Hemming. His wife was able to identify the boots and the items buried with the body as having belonged to her husband. (As a side note, in one of life’s curious coincidences, the laborer who found the skeleton was Elizabeth Hemming’s brother.)
At the time Hemming disappeared, the owner of Netherwood Farm was one Thomas Clewes, so he naturally became the top suspect in the murder. During the third day of the inquest into Hemming’s death, Clewes interrupted the proceedings by stating that he wished to make a statement.
Clewes then began singing like the proverbial canary. He said that back in 1806, he and five other landowners, Captain Evans, John Barnett, Joseph Taylor, and William and George Banks, decided that something had to be done about Reverend Parker’s unseemly zeal for picking their pockets. That “something” they settled on was murder. The group paid Hemming--known as an unsavory sort who’d do anything for money--fifty pounds to kill the rector. They even provided him with the gun to do the deed.
Unfortunately for them, Hemming proved to be a dud as a hit man. When the men learned that he had been caught virtually red-handed, they knew they had to prevent his arrest, as Hemming would surely seek to defend himself by saying he had been a mere hired gun. The conspirators told Hemming to hide in Clewes’ barn while they made a plan to get him out of the area. Hemming found out just too late that their “plan” was to have Joseph Taylor bash his head in with a mallet. The men then quickly buried the body just outside the barn. Clewes--who professed to have had no foreknowledge that Taylor would turn to murder--went on to say that over the years, the other men would give him money and other gifts to insure that he never “split” on them.
By the time of Clewes’ confession, Joseph Taylor, William Banks, and Captain Evans were dead. (It was said that in the last few years of his life, the latter was tormented by terrible visions of...something.) The surviving members of the alleged murder ring were arrested and charged with being accessories after the fact in the murders of both Hemming and Parker. Clewes received an additional charge of having aided and abetted the killing of Hemming.
At their trial, the defense attorneys seized on a surprise legal complication: they pointed out that under English law as it had stood in 1806, the men could not be tried as accessories after the fact when the actual murderer had never been tried and convicted. Legally, they said, it had not been proven that any murder had occurred at all. This conundrum got the charges against Barnett and George Banks temporarily dropped, leaving Clewes as the sole defendant.
Those witnesses to the double murders who were still alive told their stories. To the great displeasure of the defense counsel, Clewes’ confession was read out in court. At the end of the trial, the judge summed up the unusual business as concisely as possible. He advised the jury that they must reach their verdict only on the evidence heard in court. The evidence dealing with Parker’s murder had been heard only because of its relation to the killing of Hemming, which was the only case under their consideration. The judge went on to say that the only evidence against Clewes was his confession. While this implicated him as an accessory after the fact, the judge was of the opinion that it failed to show that the defendant participated in, or even encouraged, the murder of Hemming.
Given the legal complexities involved, it is small wonder that the jurors were a bit confused. They initially returned a verdict of “Guilty as an accessory after the fact,” but when the judge pointed out to them that Clewes was being tried for murder, they immediately delivered an acquittal. The prosecution then said that they would not bother proceeding with their case against Barnett and Banks.
It is rare that murderers return home to a hero’s welcome, but such was the case in our story. Most Oddingley residents were of the opinion that by ridding the world of Reverend Parker and Richard Hemming, the defendants had performed a notable public service. A large party was thrown in their honor, and the three men remained esteemed local worthies to the end of their days. When Clewes eventually became landlord of the Fir Tree Inn, he proudly decorated the walls with press cuttings about the murders. The Fir Tree (popularly known as the “Murderer’s Bar,”) is still in existence, an unofficial monument to one of England’s strangest murder trials.
