Ill do for her when I get home, muttered Joseph Walker. A saddler, he had been arguing all morning with his wife Henrietta, and drinking all afternoon in an effort to get over it.
The other customers in the pub smiled. They knew how the Walkers, man and wife, raged at each other. All agreed that Henrietta was the worst of the pair, for when she was drunk she got fighting mad, and hit her husband with anything to hand.
When he got home that evening, September 16th, 1887, Walker was sober enough to put the children to bed. But then another row started. One of the children got up and watched in horror as his father picked up a small cheese knife and severed his mothers jugular vein. Henrietta bled to death on the spot.
At Oxford Assizes the following month it was said that the couple were constantly jealous of each other in the company of others. I can hold out no hope for you, the judge old Walker. This crime was clearly premeditated. He was hanged on Tuesday, November 15th, 1887, at Oxford Prison.