Separated from her husband, 54-year-old Julia Ann Johnson began a relationship with Robert Gadsby, 66, a widower working as a dyer’s labourer in Bramley, Leeds. Then Gadsby accused her of seeing other men, and on FEBRUARY 28th, 1917, he went to her home and demanded the return of a ring and some money he had given her.
Mrs. Johnson denied his accusations and refused to hand over the ring, reminding him that he had told her it symbolised that they would never be parted. A struggle followed, and when Mrs. Johnson’s daughter called at the house shortly afterwards she found the front door locked and looked through a window.
Seeing Gadsby holding a bloodstained knife as he knelt over her mother, she fetched the police and Gadsby was arrested. But the officers were too late to save Mrs. Johnson, who died from a cut throat. Tried and convicted of murder at Leeds Assizes, Gadsby was hanged on April 18th, 1917, by Thomas Pierrepoint.