THE WORST AND TERRIBLE EXECUTION OF WILLIAM BENJAMIN REEVE FOR THE MURDER OF HIS WIFE....

THE WORST AND TERRIBLE EXECUTION OF WILLIAM BENJAMIN REEVE FOR THE MURDER OF HIS WIFE....

 William Benjamin Reeve - for the murder of his wife.

42 year old Reeve lived with his wife, 40 year old Annie Harriet (neé Sapwell) and their four children, at No. 8 Old Plantation Road in Leighton Buzzard.  He was rarely in work and Harriet struggled to support the family which led to constant friction in the marriage. 

 Reeve tended to fly into violent rages when he had been drinking.  On Monday the 5th of July 1915 he and his friend Thomas Major returned a lost dog to its owner, the licensee of the White Hart Inn, who rewarded them with a couple of free pints each.  Reeve continued drinking all afternoon before returning home around 6 p.m.

Once again, he and Harriet got into an argument which resulted in him firing both barrels of his shotgun at her.  Annie died instantly, part of her face being blown away by the close range blast.  Reeve then attempted to cut his throat, but finding that he had not succeeded in killing himself went out and found PC William Clark in Church Street.

Clark took him to his father’s house nearby and then went to Plantation Road where he discovered Annie’s body.

The neighbours were interviewed and Martha Barnes recalled hearing Reeve and Annie quarrelling, followed by a silence and then two loud bangs.  She then saw Reeve, covered in blood, stagger from the house.

Reeve was tried at the Bedford Assizes on the 19th of October, 1915, before Mr. Justice Shearman. 

His defence was that the gun had gone off accidentally when he tried to unload it.  This was hardly likely to impress the jury who delivered their guilty verdict in just twelve minutes.  Reeve appealed on the grounds that the judge had misdirected the jury but this was dismissed by the Lord Chief Justice and Justices Atkin and Bray on the 1st of November.

It was an unwritten rule in the Home Office that killers who shot their victim should not be reprieved.  Thus at 8.00 a.m. on Tuesday the 16th of November 1915, Reeve was hanged at Bedford prison by John Ellis, working without an assistant.

He weighed 138 lbs. and was given a drop of 7’ 6”.  This was sufficient to cause fracture/dislocation of the neck vertebrae but also resulted in re-opening of the self inflicted neck wound by some four inches.

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