the man they could not hang
About This Work
19th Century Murder - 21st Century Research
The Babbacombe murder was particularly violent and the case intensely shocking for locals.
The brutal murder of Emma Keyse was international news as word spread of the of the killing of an innocent elderly spinster at her idyllic Devonshire seaside home.
Next the story became indelibly etched in the history books when, in early 1885, the execution of the killer failed - not once, but three times. The man on the gallows survived death and in an instant became The Man They Could Not Hang. John Lee was sentenced to life as a Victorian prisoner and released as an Edwardian personality.
These pages carry research, archive, pictures, letters, explanations, certificates and news reports. This really is as near as you will ever get to the actual events as they unfolded all those years ago.
Some of these pages have detailed archive painstakingly transcribed from photocopies from the originals. The language and spelling has remained exactly as it was written down (in some cases, exactly as it was spoken) more than 120 years ago.
This is research is a whole world away from the original events - the person who uttered the words, the courtroom clerk, the lawyer, the house maid, the politician, the policeman, the dozens of ordinary Victorian folk who were witnesses and, of course, the central figure in all this, John Lee. They would never have dreamed that their words would have been immortalised yet alone placed on this powerful and incredible vehicle we call the internet.
Above: Detail from an early Victorian painting of Babbacombe
This is a story that began in 1884 Britain and is still in the news today in the UK and far beyond. This is the world's leading online resource as 21st century technology has caught up with a real-life Victorian drama that unfolded in a picturesque, quiet Devon fishing bay.
I first became aware of this story when I was a boy - I'm now in my fifties. My grandfather told me about John Lee who he had seen after Lee's release from prison in 1907. To add flavour (and fear to me as a young boy) he told me he recognised Lee by the rope marks on his neck! Despite the addition of this fiction into the story - my grandfather's tale has stayed with me all my life.
I started investigating the Babbacombe murder case properly in the mid 1990's and decided, in 1997, that best way forward was to strip the story back to basics and concentrate on the proven facts. The only way to do this was to gather and transcribe the available archive and begin to layout as accurate picture of events as possible. This can be extremely tedious and time consuming (and expensive!), but well worth the effort.
My work took on a somewhat controversial aspect when I decided to share the archive with the rest of the world online. After going through the "permission" process I then had to learn how to design a web site! The project development slowed down somewhat in early 2000 after I suffered two strokes and lost the use of my right arm and hand.
But by mid-2000 I managed to publish a limited amount of archive amid some press reports! After more than a century of speculation, rumour and darn-right lies, the way was clear to publish the actual archive. This blatant exposure of the facts did not initially go down well in certain quarters, but as I am made of fairly tough stuff I just stubbornly carried on anyway - such is my nature in these matters, for which I make no apology!
By the beginning of 2001, it was clear there was a considerable world-wide appetite for this story. So I decided to invest in a whole site dedicated to the Babbacombe Murder giving scope for development with "The Man They Could Not Hang" story.
This work is not primarily concerned with the well-documented botched hanging. With the help of witness statements, I try to unravel the truth surrounding this brutal killing.
A large amount of my research (not published here) has uncovered quite a lot of rubbish, perpetrated by this generation and our naughty predecessors who should have known better than to fill our naïve heads!
So what you see on these pages is as near to the truth as you'll ever get.
I constantly get asked who I believe killed Emma Keyse. I have attempted to stand away from the research and look at the bigger picture - you can read my personal thoughts about the murder case here (but remember, it's only based on knowledge and archive!).
If you've heard about The Man They Could Not Hang and a little about John 'Babbacombe' Lee these pages might put you in the picture - if you hear stories of Lee walking the streets of Newton Abbot with rope marks around his neck, take it with a large pinch of salt!
I do not have a fascination for historic murder as such - in fact I am extremely squeamish when comes down to it! However, I am incredibly attracted to UK history and particularly UK historic mysteries. I just like finding the answers to the unanswered and getting the facts completely straight, which is incredibly difficult at times. I also like sharing as well, hence this work! My favourite research time range is 1830 until about 1950 - so that covers the end of Hanoverians, the entire Victorian era, the brief Edwardian period, two world wars and into the 'modern age'. Also I do not confine my research to murder - so I'm fairly flexible.
To be honest, I found history at school the dullest, most boring subject. It wasn't dreary because I was young (even at that early age I was interested in history), it was an uninteresting school subject because there seemed no real incentive to learn it in the classroom. Such was school life at times during the 1960's. I just hope that the education profession is doing more these days to make this subject more relevant to school students - because the connection between the emerging and developing technologies (which young people seem so fascinated with) and this subject is so crucial and incredibly exciting.
No money or income is derived from this website. Although I fully support the organisations, businesses and individuals mentioned at MurderResearch, I do not hold any responsibility for the content of their websites (see Terms of Use here).
MurderResearch Enquiries
I get a large and frequent number of enquiries from people wishing to trace a UK historic crime. Sadly, due to certain constraints here in the UK, there is only a limited amount of help I can provide.
I can point you in the right direction and provide some basic help - but I cannot obtain any photocopied archive from local libraries or any archivists which I then supply to you (the third party). This is extremely frustrating, but the law is the law.
Thing is when you order photocopied archive (news reports, statements - in fact any archive) from a source, you will find that you will have to sign a statement supplied by the archivist affirming that the copied archive you are buying is for your sole use. Believe me, this is a legal minefield. Naturally this applies not only to MurderResearch, but right across the board - if someone offers to sell you archive photocopies from Record Offices, Museums, Libraries or Publishers they are in breach of the law for offering such services (Copyright, Designs and Patents Act).
Finally
I've been 'collecting' UK historic murder data for years and this has resulted in my index which you can view here.
Thank you for visiting my website and remember we are dealing
with history here - that's all.