Brides in the Bath Murders
Image source: Flickr
In January 1915 in London, a letter was sent to Detective Inspector (D.I.) Arthur Neil from Joseph Crossly with two newspaper clippings: one was from the newspaper announcing the death of a women named Margaret Lloyd (née Lofty); the other was a coroner's report of a woman named Alice Smith. D.I. Neil immediately saw similarities in the deaths and decided to start an investigation into Margaret’s husband, John Lloyd (George Joseph Smith).
On December 17th, 1913, D.I. Neil went to 14 Bismark Road, where the Lloyds lived before Margaret drowned in a bathtub. Upon inspecting the bathtub, Neil couldn’t understand how a grown woman had drowned in it. It was much too small and the bathtub wasn’t full when she was found. In the coroner’s report, there was no signs of struggle or violence. Neil learned that 3 hours before her death, Margaret had written out a will, whom the sole beneficiary would be her husband John Lloyd. She had also taken out her entire life savings. The same information was found for the woman in the second newspaper clipping, Alice Smith. Smith had recently gotten life insurance to which her husband George Smith was the sole beneficiary of as well.
D.I. Neil suspected at this point that these two widowers, John Lloyd and George Smith, were the same individual. Neil’s suspicion was heightened by the fact that when he tried to look into the two men’s records, everything came up blank. Neil attempted to ensnare John Lloyd by asking the coroner to send a report to the insurance company. Neil knew that this would make John Lloyd pay a visit to his lawyer. Neil sat outside the lawyer’s office and waited for John Lloyd to show up. On January 15, 1915 a man matching the description of both John Lloyd and George Smith arrived at the lawyer’s office. D.I. Neil asked if he was George Smith, but the man vehemently denied to be George Smith. However, Neil suspected he was lying and took him into questioning for bigamy.
So who was this man of many names? George Joseph Smith was born in Bethnal, Greenland on January 11, 1872. He was the son of an insurance agent. He was a well-versed, charming boy who enjoyed poetry, Shakespeare and piano, but he was a bit of a tearaway. At age 9, he was sent to a reformatory school for swindling and theft and stayed there until age 16. In 1891, Smith was arrested and locked up for the first time for theft. While he was locked away he learned new tricks from other inmates, such as fraud and using false identities.
In 1896, he was imprisoned again for persuading a woman to steal from her employers. With that money he opened a bakery where he employed and married a woman named Caroline Thornhill who he manipulated into stealing for him until she was eventually caught and sentenced to twelve months in prison. When she was released, she incriminated George Smith who was arrested for a third time for two years in 1903. When he was released, Caroline fled and George Smith went back to his second wife (whom he had married bigamously) and cleared out her savings and left. Shortly after that in 1908, George Smith married a woman named Florence Wilson and, true to his M.O., cleared out her savings ($30, which in today’s world would be about $3,000).
George married again in 1908 to Edith Pedler. She became the closest thing to a true wife. George came back to her again and again throughout his murderous career.
George Joseph Smith’s first victim was Bessie Mundy, a 33 year old spinster. He had murdered her in 1912 claiming she had epileptic fits before she, too, was found dead in a bathtub. The third and final death was that of Margaret Lloyd (née Lofty), who was found dead in the bathtub, like Bessie and Alice before her.
The three women’s only connection was that all three of the victims had the unfortunate fate of meeting and marrying George Joseph Smith, who used aliases during his relationships with Bessie Mundy and Margaret Lloyd. With Bessie, he went by Henry Williams. With Margaret, he went by John Lloyd.
George Joseph Smith preyed on spinsters who could offer him something of an inheritance in the wake of their death. The reason he married Bessie Mundy was because she had $2,500 dollars of inheritance. He realized after this that the inheritance was tied in a trust fund, so he gave up and persuaded Bessie to give him $150 and vanished. 18 months after Smith fled, Bessie spotted him in town one day. When she approached him he fibbed that he had been searching for her all this time, but that he had contracted a venereal disease that he didn't want her to catch. Bessie didn't care and took him back. After this, Smith convinced her that they should draw separate wills so if one died, the other would receive the other’s inheritance.
In July 1912, Smith had taken Bessie to the doctors a few times because she was having “fits” - this was really just Smith’s way of laying a foundation for when she would pass away, so that no one would be surprised. It worked out perfectly when Bessie was ended up dead in the bathtub. The doctor signed off that no autopsy was required. George arranged for her to have a Pauper’s Funeral, even though he had just inherited $2,500 . A Pauper’s Funeral in England was a funeral paid for by the government to aid poor citizens who would otherwise not be able to afford burying their loved ones. George Joseph Smith did not contribute one cent towards Bessie Mundy’s funeral.
George went back to Edith Pedler for a short time. Then in 1913, he met Alice Smith during a chapel service and married her within the week. He manipulated her to write a will to which he was the sole beneficiary. For their honeymoon, they went to the board room owned by the Crosslys (the couple who had originally sent the two newspaper clippings to D.I. Neil). George took Alice to the doctor, where she complained about headaches. On the night of December 12th, 1913, Mrs. Crossly noticed water trickling from above the ceiling. She ran upstairs to find George screaming for a doctor, holding Alice’s head above water. The doctor walked into the washroom only to find newlywed bride Alice Smith dead in the bathtub. Her new husband George Joseph Smith, expressed that she had a history of headaches and said she probably had a fit in the bath, causing her to drown. This scene was George Smith’s second murder. Like Bessie, George gave Alice a Pauper’s Funeral. After her death, he went back to live with Edith Pedler.
In December 1914, George married 37 years old Margret Lofty. They made several visits to their local solicitor to make arrangements for life insurance. They ran off together to London and stayed in lodging in Highgate. The landlady of the lodge heard splashing and then George screaming for a doctor. When the doctor finally arrived, Margaret was dead. The doctor said that she had most likely fainted and drowned. Margaret died one day after being married to George. She, like Bessie and Alice, was given a Pauper’s Funeral.
George Joseph Smith returned again to Edith and spent Christmas with her and her family. Soon after, D.I. Neil would have Smith locked away on suspicions of bigoamy. Investigators couldn’t figure out how this man had murdered three different woman the same way without leaving any evidence of foul play. There were no traces of substances in the women nor any signs of struggle. Neil then sought out renowned pathologist Bernard Spilsbury. Neil appoint Spilsbury in charge of examining the bodies and determining their cause of death. For weeks Spilsbury tried to figuring out what could have happened to these women, with no signs of heart disease, no evidence of epilepsy, no poison, nothing. It was as if they had died, instantly, like a stroke.
Spilsbury decided to run some tests with a tub similar to the ones the victims had died in, and asked female officers to help play the roles of the women. They tried recreating the alleged murder by holding the women underwater, but they were able to fight back. Spilsbury then had an idea, something he randomly thought of during the investigation. A story about a captain whose ship went under and in the shock of it all, the captain lost all consciousness and drowned without any struggle. He suggested that the women where shocked, causing them to lose consciousness immediately. They tested this theory by quickly pulling up on the female officers’ feet and having their heads submerged. It worked–they immediately lost all consciousness and started to drown. It took them 30 minutes to revive the women they tested it on.
D.I. Neil and Spilsbury presented their argument in court against George Smith, who continued to plead innocent and would bark out objections, one being “I’m not a murderer, although I may be a bit peculiar.” It took the jury only 20 minutes to decide Smith was indeed guilty. On the July 1, 1915, Smith was convicted with murder and sentenced to death by hanging. Smith was hung on August 13, 1915. He continued to plead his innocence even up until the point of being hanged, shouting “I am innocent!” denying his crimes until the very end.
Sources:
Netflix Murder Map series
Ms cici on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_yJ-LSq7VI
