Convicted of the murder of his wife and one of his children, both named Margaret, at 16 Central Park Avenue in Wallasey. Thier bodies were found in the back kitchen, along with a bloodstained hatchet. He had been having an affair with a waitress whom he had made pregnant, and after the murder was found to have bloodstains on his clothes, which were analysed by Bernard Spilsbury.
Judgement was passed on Friday 13th July.
” William Thomas Hodgeon, I will not add to the pain of your present position any observation of mine on the character of the crime of which you have been convicted. I am but the instrument of the law, pronounce upon you the sentence which the law decrees for the punishment of that crime, and that the sentence is that you should taken from hence to a lawful prison, and then to place execution, and that you be there hanged by the neck until you dead, and that your buried within the precincts of the prison in which you were last confined. May the Lord have mercy on your soul.”
Hanged by John Ellis and Edward Taylor on August 16th at Liverpool
