A scene of utter carnage greeted Patrick Goldsmith when he returned from the pub to his cottage at Hunston, near Chichester, on the night of Sunday, July 18th, 1937. His two daughters, June, seven, and Eunice, four, had been strangled in their beds, and his wife Ivy was bleeding from a severe throat injury.
Mrs. Goldsmith was not fit to stand trial for the double-murder until DECEMBER 1st, when the jury at Lewes Assizes heard that she had killed her children as an act of mercy because she believed that neighbours were going to set fire to her house.
She was found insane and sent to Broadmoor.