A furious domestic row was the cause of Mrs. Charlotte Jones walking out on her husband Joseph after 20 years of happy marriage. Next day, NOVEMBER 12th, 1908, thinking he would be out, she returned to the marital home in Wolverhampton to retrieve her belongings. But Jones was at home after all.

A few minutes after Mrs. Jones went into the house a shot rang out and Jones appeared at the front door, bleeding from a wound in his throat. He was later to claim that his wife attacked him with a razor and cut his throat, then went upstairs to the bedroom and shot herself.

But two doctors who examined Mrs. Jones’s body decided that her wound could not have been self-inflicted. And it seemed that Jones had already let it be known to neighbours that he expected his wife to call that afternoon.

Jones’s appeal against the conviction for murder seemed to throw some doubt on the verdict. A new witness, firearms expert Edward Churchill, said that in his view the gun that killed Mrs. Jones was fired from between three and six inches’ distance and therefore the wound could have been self-inflicted.

Other evidence suggested that Mrs. Jones had ample time to find the gun and load it, ready for use against herself. The Lord Chief Justice, presiding over the appeal, wasn’t impressed. Why should Mrs. Jones try to kill her husband, he asked, and why, if she had wished to kill him, did she not use the revolver which she supposedly later used to kill herself?

The appeal was dismissed, and on April 13th, 1909, Jones was hanged at Stafford.