Enraged when 18-year-old Dorothy Clewer ended their relationship, Ernest Robert Hill, an 18-year-old farm labourer, waylaid her at Moreton Say, near Market Drayton, Shropshire, on APRIL 13th, 1936, as she walked home with two friends.
Then he shot her in the shoulder with a small, low-powered shotgun, inflicting little more than a superficial injury which was considered to be minor. Tetanus developed, however, and when Dorothy died 10 days later Hill was charged with murder.
At his trial at Shropshire Assizes, witnesses included the hospital doctor who had attended Dorothy. He admitted that if tetanus had been anticipated her treatment would have been different and she would probably have lived.
In convicting Hill the jury recommended mercy because of his youth, the judge adding that they might also take the view that the defendant intended only to wound. Although Hill was refused leave to appeal, he was reprieved and served only three years.