12 - The Chronicles of Crime Vol 1

·30 min·2 clips

Turning to shoot at pursuing officers, Turpin instead shot his own partner, King, who cried out, "Dick, you have killed me."

1. This episode of The Chronicles of Crime is a narrated reading of historical criminal biographies rather than a modern interview or investigation. 2. It opens briefly with George Price, who strangled his wife on Hounslow Heath in 1738 and died of jail fever in Newgate before his death sentence could be carried out. 3. The narrator uses Price's case to introduce a historical digression on jail fever outbreaks in English courtrooms. 4. The most striking of these is the 1577 Black Assize at Oxford, where nearly everyone present at a trial, including Lord Chief Baron Robert Bell and Sir William Babington, died within days, while the prisoners themselves survived. 5. One account attributes this outbreak to a poisoned candle allegedly prepared by prisoner Roland Jencks and lit at the moment of his own sentencing. 6. A similar fatal outbreak is described at the 1730 Lent Assize in Somerset, where Lord Chief Baron Pengelly and his officers died after exposure to prisoners brought from Ilchester Gaol. 7. The episode then shifts into its main subject: the full criminal biography of highwayman Dick Turpin, son of an Essex farmer. 8. Turpin trained as a Whitechapel butcher before turning to cattle theft, smuggling, and deer poaching around Epping Forest. 9. He and his gang escalated into armed house invasions, including one at Loughton where an elderly woman was held over a fire until she revealed the location of her savings. 10. In another raid, on the household of Mr. Lawrence of Edgware, the gang assaulted a maidservant and threatened to murder the homeowner if he did not produce more money. 11. Turpin partnered with a fellow highwayman known as King, and the two operated from a hidden cave on Epping Forest, robbing travellers along the road. 12. Turpin shot and killed a servant who was hunting him for a reward, an act that forced him to abandon his forest hideout. 13. During King's eventual capture attempt near Whitechapel, Turpin fired at pursuing officers but accidentally shot and killed King, his closest associate. 14. Turpin fled to Yorkshire under the alias John Palmer, posing as a horse dealer, but was arrested after shooting his landlord's rooster in a dispute. 15. His true identity was uncovered when a letter he wrote to his brother was opened by a magistrate and recognised by his old schoolmaster, Mr. Smith. 16. Convicted of horse theft at York, Turpin spent his final days buying new clothes and hiring paid mourners for his own execution procession. 17. He was hanged at York on April 10, 1739, and his body was later stolen from its grave by resurrectionists before being recovered and reburied by an angry crowd. 18. The narrator closes by noting that Turpin's popular legend, including the famous overnight ride to York on his horse Black Bess, is a later fabrication with no basis in the historical record. 19. Best suited to listeners interested in English legal history, highwayman folklore, and 18th-century criminal biography. 20. Likely to be skipped by listeners expecting a modern true-crime format with contemporary interviews or forensic detail.

As heard by us

A grim meeting of jail fever, violent robbery, and the legend built around Turpin.

The Chronicles of Crime folds prison sickness and highwayman legend into a grim single case. George Price is convicted of murdering his wife on Hounslow Heath, only to die in Newgate of jail fever before the sentence can be carried out.

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Want a convicted murderer, a vicious Edgware house robbery, and the unglamorous truth about Black Bess?

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