Torquay Times, and South Devon Advertiser – Friday 07 October 1904 Previously Unpublished: Eyewitness Testimony from the John Lee Babbacombe Murder Case In October 1904, nearly two decades after the events at The Glen, a remarkable article appeared in the Torquay Times and South Devon Advertiser. Written by a journalist who had reported on the original inquiry, it revealed two […]
The News
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East & South Devon Advertiser. – Saturday 01 October 1904 “No One Calls Upon Him in Vain” The Rumour of John Lee’s Imminent Release – and the Faith That Sustained Him In the early 1900s, long before John Henry George Lee would finally walk free from prison in 1907, whispers of his release began to stir public hope. One such […]
The Babbacombe Murder – A factual historical resource on the 1884 murder of Emma Keyse at The Glen, and the trial of John Lee — the man they could not hang. This Page Index Synopsis The 1884 Backdrop The Principal Characters The Footman Did It Knee Deep in Blood Tried Three Times The Execution That Failed Aftermath and Legacy All […]
Isidore James Carter, Life and the Babbacombe Murder Isidore James Carter played a shadowy but significant role in the Babbacombe Murder case of 1884 The name Isidore James Carter does not appear in bold headlines when discussing the Babbacombe Murder case — the sensational 1884 trial that saw John ‘Babbacombe’ Lee sentenced to death for the murder of Emma Keyse. […]
Gloucester Citizen – Saturday 22 November 1884 THE BABBICOMBE MURDER. The adjourned inquest on the body of Miss Keyse was resumed in St. Mary Church Town Hall, Torquay, on Friday. The prisoner, John Lee, was brought up in a cab by two police-officers. He was pale, but jumped nimbly out and ran lightly up the steps. It will be remembered […]
THE MURDER AT BABBACOMBE. Public excitement in reference to the murder of Miss Keyse, an elderly lady, residing at the Glen, Babbacombe, early on Saturday morning, under circumstances already reported, continues unabated in the district. The inquest was opened in the music room at Babbacombe Glen, the residence of the deceased lady, at eleven o’clock on Monday, before Mr. S. […]
Pall Mall Gazette – Thursday 20 November 1884: THE BABBACOMBE MURDER. John Lee, aged twenty, was brought before the magistrates at Torquay yesterday charged with being concerned in the murder of Miss Emma Keyse, who was found dead in her drawing-room early on Saturday morning last. The hatchet and knife with which the crime is supposed to have been committed […]
Western Times – Tuesday 18 November 1884 THE MURDER AT BABBACOMBE.—THE INQUEST. Public excitement in reference to the murder of Miss Keyse, an elderly lady, residing at the Glen, Babbacombe, early on Saturday morning, under circumstances reported yesterday (and which will be found in our seventh page), continues unabated in the district. The man John Lee, 20, a butler to […]
Express and Echo – Monday 17 November 1884 THE MURDER AT BABBACOMBE.FURTHER DETAILS.THE INQUEST. As we briefly reported in our issue of Saturday, a shocking tragedy was perpetrated at Babbacombe, near Torquay, early the same morning. The details of the occurrence—the position in which the deceased lady was found, the nature of the injuries inflicted upon her, and the deliberate […]
Exeter and Plymouth Gazette – Monday 05 October 1885 THE BABBACOMBE MURDER.LETTER FROM THE CONVICT LEE. It has been rumoured in Newton Abbot and the neighbourhood during the past two or three weeks that John Lee, who, it will be remembered, was sentenced to penal servitude for life after an ineffectual attempt was made to hang him, had been placed […]