The gruesome murder mystery that gripped North Yorkshire for months

In the quiet village of Pickering, Among the Yorkshire farming grounds,

A cruel murder, sad and startling,

Has aroused the country round.

One Joseph Wood, a well-known farmer,

In seclusion there did dwell.

His son and him did live together

Their sad fate we now must tell.

Chorus: No one pities the sad monster,

For the deed that he has done,

Although, he killed the poor old farmer

Why didn’t he spare the helpless son.

IN its edition of 150 years ago this week, the D&S Times was giving the first intimations of a gruesome story that would grip North Yorkshire for months – a story so gruesome that penny dreadfuls were composed so that people could sing of its notoriety.

The D&S said that Joseph Wood’s family had farmed at Cropton Lane, near Pickering, for generations. They were regarded as good farmers, if prone to eccentricity. Joseph’s eccentricity had grown since the death of his housekeeper-cum-partner, Catherine Thompson, who had lived with him for 20 years and with whom he had three children. Joseph had taken to keeping a large amount of cash – up to £3,000, according to the D&S – in the house.

But on May 17, 1872, Joseph and his nine-year-old son, also Joseph, had suddenly disappeared with cousin Robert Carter, from Lastingham, left in charge of the farm.

As if timed to quash any suspicions, on May 23, a letter from Liverpool was brought to the farm “by the Rosedale letter carrier, Francis Ellis,” according to the D&S.

“On sounding his whistle in the lane, Ellis was met at the gates by Charter who, after opening the envelope, asked Ellis to read it.

“Dear Cousin, I write these few lines to let you know that I am going to take the water, foreign, you must stay at Cropton Lane and get my affairs settled up as soon as you can, we are going either today or tomorrow, I will let you know in my next what I have done and where I am going. Excuse my bad writing, a bad pen and in haste. – Joseph Wood.”

Joseph’s brother, John, who farmed nearby, was deeply suspicious. Joseph’s signature, he said, “had an easy, confident flow about it, strangely contrasting” with the one on the letter. But his investigations with the railway company and in Liverpool drew a blank – he could not prove that Joseph had not suddenly upped and emigrated to New York.

Robert moved his family into the Cropton Lane farm and did a good job looking after Joseph’s affairs, although many visitors remarked on the bad smell emanating from the cellar. With the summer over, Robert returned to his farm on the North York Moors at Lastingham, and John was able to fully search the Cropton Lane premises.

After two months, he found Joseph’s best Sunday boots hidden beneath straw in a barn, which encouraged him to dredge a nearby pond.

His first go with a grappling iron pulled out pieces of clothing; during his second go, “a left hand, clenched, with fragments of a shirt adhering to it” came out.

He then paid attention to the “strange behaviour” of his brother’s sheepdog. “At night it moans piteously, and in the daytime it cannot be kept away from a turnip field where it is supposed the murders were committed,” said the D&S.

The dog’s behaviour prompted John to dig in the orchard where he discovered another hand and a couple of feet. More bits of bone, apparently human, where found in the manure heap.

John called in Supt Jonas who in turn called on Robert’s farm, where he noted a new water course had recently been dug.

In it, a couple of feet down, the D&S said “Mr Jonas found a bag which contained Mr Wood’s body, buried head downwards, and some smaller parts, which are supposed to belong the child”.

When the D&S went to press 150 years ago, it did not know that analysis would show that the child’s bones had been gnawed at by pigs.

This part of the story really caught the imagination of the penny dreadful writer who finished his dreadful poem:

They tried to find the poor boy’s body,

They searched around both night and day, Human bones they have discovered

That ravenous pigs had gnawed away;

The cruel monster perhaps did murder

The helpless unoffending boy,

And threw his body in the pigsty,

There all traces to destroy.

But God’s all-seeing eye was watching,

To bring to light this fearful crime,

And now the murderer, pale and trembling,

Awaits for trial at the appointed time.

If the jury found him guilty,

To eternity he’ll soon be hurled,

To meet his mutilated victims

Face to face in another world.”

Robert, though, eventually settled on a story which began with his cousin Joseph killing his own son. When Robert was about to expose this terrible crime, Joseph had turned on him, only for Robert to kill him in self-defence. Robert then feared that because there were no witnesses, he would be accused of a double murder, and so he tried to cover it all up, even paying a chap who was emigrating from the moors to post the letter from Liverpool.

Despite what the dreadful poet wrote, because there was no hard evidence of murder, at trial in March 1873, Robert, 53, was sentenced to 20 years for the manslaughter of Joseph senior. He served his time in prison on the Isle of Wight and on release returned to the North York Moors only to find that Lastingham villagers had pulled his house down stone by stone.