The Serial Killer - Part XIX
William Palmer worked as an apprentice at a Liverpool chemist's when he was 17 years old, but was dismissed after three months following allegations that he stole money. He studied medicine in London, and qualified as a physician in 1846. He returned to his home town of Rugeley to practise as a doctor, and married Ann Thornton in 1847. His new mother-in-law, also called Ann Thornton, had inherited a fortune of £8,000 after Colonel Brookes committed suicide in 1834. She died on 18 January 1849, two weeks after coming to stay with Palmer; she was known to have lent him money. An elderly Dr Bamford recorded a verdict of apoplexy. Palmer was disappointed with the inheritance he and his wife gained from the death, having expected it to be much greater.
Palmer then became interested in horse racing and borrowed money from Leonard Bladen, a man he met at the races. Bladen lent him £600, but died in agony at Palmer's house on 10 May 1850. His wife was surprised to find that Bladen died with little money on him, despite having recently won a large sum at the races; his betting books were also missing, thus there was no evidence of his having lent Palmer any money. William and Ann had five children but except for the first born, all the others died in infancy, the cause of death listed as convulsions. As infant mortality was not uncommon a the time, these deaths were not initially seen as suspicious, though after Palmer's conviction in 1856 there was speculation that he had administered poison to the children to avoid the expense of more mouths to feed. By 1854 Palmer was heavily in debt, and he began forging his mother's signature to pay off creditors.He took out life insurance on his wife with the Prince of Wales Insurance Company, and paid out a premium of £750 for a policy of £13,000. The death of Ann Palmer followed on 29 September 1854, at only 27 years old. She was believed to have died of cholera, as a cholera pandemic was affecting Great Britain (causing 23,000 deaths across the country.
Still heavily in debt, with two creditors (whom he owed £12,500 and £10,400) threatening to speak to his mother (thereby exposing his fraud), Palmer attempted to take out life insurance on his brother, Walter, for the sum of £84,000. Unable to find a company willing to insure him for such a sum, he instead returned to the Prince of Wales Insurance Company, paying out a premium of £780 for a policy of £14,000. Walter was a drunk, and soon became reliant on his brother, who readily plied him with several bottles of gin and brandy a day. Walter Palmer died on 16 August 1855. However the insurance company refused to pay up, and instead dispatched inspectors Simpson and Field to investigate. The pair found that William Palmer had also been attempting to take out £10,000 worth of insurance on the life of George Bate, a farmer who was briefly under his employment. They found that Bates was either misinformed or lying about the details of his insurance policy, and they informed Palmer that the company would not pay out on the death of his brother, and that they further recommended a further enquiry into his death.
He then planned the murder of his friend John Cook, which he accomplished by poisoning him.
Palmer was arrested on the charge of murder and forgery (a creditor had told the police his suspicions that Palmer had been forging his mother's signature) and detained. The jury deliberated for just over an hour before returning a verdict of guilty. A death sentence was handed down, to no reaction from Palmer.
Some 30,000 were at Stafford prison on 14 June 1856 to see Palmer's public execution by hanging. As he stepped onto the gallows, Palmer is said to have looked at the trapdoor and exclaimed, "Are you sure it's safe?" William Palmer was buried beside the prison chapel in a grave filled with quicklime.
We return to history with a fake serial killer. Palmer did it for money, which is, as we all should agree by now, the lowest possible reason for anyone to comit serial killing.
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