Famous Trials: Thurtell and Hunt, Frederick Nodder, Peter Barnes and Others, John George Haigh v. 6

The four cases of murder that are examined in this volume are remarkable in that they were all the focus of intense media interest at the time. The evidence given at the trial of Thurtell and Hunt in 1842 gives a graphic picture of the seedy underworld of the Georgian sporting "fancy" as well as a glimpse into a now vanishing legal system. Over 100 years later, Frederick Nodder was accused first of the abduction and then of the murder of a little girl, whose body took five months to surface from the river. The case against Peter Barnes and four others, two of them women, took place on the eve of World War II. They were accused of involvement in the IRA bombing in Coventry: five people died and over 60 were injured. Finally, John Haigh eventually claimed he had murdered as many as nine people and had drunk their blood. He was charged with the single murder of an elderly lady whose body he had dissolved in acid.