On the morning of November 15th, 1890, a schoolboy found the body of his teacher, Elizabeth Holt, at Longworth Lane, in Belmont, Lancashire. She had been beaten, kicked, raped, and her throat was cut. She had been missing for nearly a week.

Thomas McDonald, 32, was the prime suspect. He had a previous conviction for rape and had been out of prison for only seven months. Witnesses placed him a few hundred yards from Elizabeth when she was last seen alive.

He was convicted and hanged on Tuesday, December 30th, 1890, at Kirkdale Prison, after having confessed in the death-cell. “I got angry when she started telling people I was following her around,” he said. Victorian murder stories from True Crime Library.

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