A Murder at Christmas: Cecil Teesdale, 1937

[Music] [Laughter] there is a great difference between knowledge and proof we may know something and yet be unable to prove it in fact that is the normal human condition if you were to ask me at the time and i could tell you it was 12 20 in the early afternoon and you would probably accept this because it would confer no conceivable advantage on me uh to lie to you but if you wanted proof we would have a difficulty my watch might be wrong um it might have stopped or i might light you for some obscure reason the difficulties of proof it's why although there may be many people who are in prison who are innocent there are many more who are not who perhaps should be and it's why occasionally someone gets away with murder and there again i know this i know this because it is logical i know this from experience and i know it intuitively and yet i can't prove it to you this next case illustrates this point perfectly [Music] about 9 30 on the morning of the 28th of december 1936 amy kirby was in discovery at number two comforts avenue in scanthorpe her master cecil teasdale had just returned home after being out all night and he and his wife were having words about this in the dining room amy heard the sound of raised voices then the footsteps of someone leaving the room and then of them returning followed by mr teasdale's voice saying don't fool around and his wife's reply i'm not fooling then there was a loud bang amy rushed to the doorway to find cecil teasdale lying on the floor between the table and the city clutching his side and groaning his wife doris teasdale was standing in the doorway facing her doris said to her fetch the doctor amy kirby ran out and called at a house several doors away where a dentist called james vogwel lived vogue well who had a friend reverend roland thompson staying went immediately with his friend to number two they noticed the smell of gunpowder on entering the house doris teasdale told james vogwel i have shot him i never intended to it was only to frighten him bogwell went into the dining room and here he found cecil teasdale lying on the floor he had a hole in his jacket and was evidently wounded but was still conscious he said look after her i am alright it was only a blank vogwell was told that a doctor was on his way and leaving his friend reverend thompson with mrs teasdale he went to phone for the police cecil teasdale again expressed anxiety about his wife he told reverend thompson look after her she will do away with herself there are only blanks i will not go to the hospital by the time dr thomas cullen arrived at the scene cecil teasdale was unconscious the doctor examined the wounded man and found a bullet wound in cecil's side and arranged for him to be taken to hospital a police constable warren arrived and called in his superiors detective sergeant brewster and inspector herbert cook who arrived at the scene around 10 am sergeant brewster's wife lillian sat with doris teasdale for fear that he might commit suicide during the morning doris told her i feel so lonely if he had only taken me with him this would never have happened i only meant to frighten him i only shot to go by the side of him she also said he was there i was here oh i shot i don't know it just went off he fell to the floor i said get up cecil stop joking he began to moan and i sent for a doctor at once i don't know anything about firearms i don't know how to use them mr teasdale was in critical condition on admission to scanthorpe war memorial hospital at dr william c smith examined him and took an x-ray of his abdomen and decided to operate immediately to remove the bullet and repair a perforated bowel this he did without delay and the operation was successful though mr teasdale remained in a critical condition mrs teasdale was questioned by inspector herbert cook later that morning was taken into custody and at scunthorpe police station she was there charged with the attempted murder of her husband cecil she was held in custody at the police station and following an appearance for remand she was sent to hull prison while police inquiries into the shooting got underway cecil remained conscious and made some progress but police were unable to take a statement from him it had caused something of a sensation in the north lincolnshire town of skanthorp on the east coast of england the couple were well known in the town and dramatic events of this kind are rarity although the knowing citizens of scunthorpe spoke of the philandering ways of cecil tiesdale and his long-suffering wife by friday the 1st of january as fireworks lit the sky and new year celebrations boisterously ushered in 1937 cecil's condition worsened peritonitis set in he called the solicitor and made amendments to his will and in the early hours of january the third cecil teasdale died superintendent dolby who had charge of the investigation now informed the coroner of the matter and he informed the magistrates that the charge against mrs teasdale was now one of murder cecil teasdale was born in horn castle lincolnshire in 1908 he came from a prosperous family of butchers in the district and in two course he had entered the business himself in 1926 while working in lincoln he met eighteen-year-old doris van der ursula woolsey who was the daughter of a lincoln railway porter and they were married in early 1927 they seemed to have been happy enough for a time they were prosperous could afford a maid and had a comfortable suburban home and in 1929 doris gave birth to a son terence it seemed their happiness was complete but it didn't last cecil became inattentive to his young family went out and began spending more time with other women than seemed right to many people including his wife doris seemed to tolerate her husband's errand ways for a time but then things took a turn for the worse in 1934 when their four-year-old son terence became ill and died it was a tragedy for the young couple and it did nothing to repair their relationship cecil teasdale went out partying with increasing regularity and it was a perennial jot he was out late at night often not returning until the early hours and sometimes not returning until the following morning as quarrels between the couple escalated in 1936 cecil responded to his wife's complaints by flaunting the women he had been with openly telling her of the women he had kissed as she later put his by december 1936 the relationship between cecil and doris teasdale had reached its lowest deb it was christmas and the party season was upon them cecil was out more than ever she complained that he was hardly ever home that he never took her with him and cecil responded with levity and easy dismissal he seemed to derive a certain malicious pleasure from her anxiety for him it was the season of goodwill to many women except mrs tiesdale it was against this background of domestic disharmony that the shooting of cecil teasdale occurred on december the 28th an autopsy on the body of cecil was carried out on the 3rd of january by dr william smith of the memorial hospital in the presence of dr russell stamford from this it was determined that the 0.455 bullet had entered his left side passed across his 11th rib fracturing it and ruptured his intestines in two places before coming to rest in the right buttock perhaps there were those who might regard that as appropriate the cause of his death was given as peritonitis a common consequence of such abdominal injuries in those pre-antibiotic days an inquest was opened on monday the 4th of january which was brief dealing principally with the identification of the victim the cause of his death and the briefest of accounts of the circumstances themselves the scanthorpe coroner mr george edmunds davey then adjourned the inquest until the 1st of march for the police to conduct its investigation into the matter the funeral of cecil t's dale took place at st lawrence church on the 22nd of january and cecil was interred in brumby cemetery attended by his family and friends his wife was not present of course the police investigation was in the hands of superintendent dolby a very experienced officer and although it was not a complex one it presented some difficulties mrs teasdale admitted to shooting the gun the maid amy kirby had heard raised voices followed by the shot this was soon after 9 30 am on the 28th of december mrs teasdale claimed that she had been told at the time by her husband that the gun was loaded with blanks but there was a problem with this story although cecil when lying wounded on the dining room floor had told two people the gun had only blanks in it mrs teasdale had not mentioned this in her accounts to anyone until late in the day it seemed she had taken her cue from her husband's words while wounded also there were no blank cartridges in the house mr teasdale had never loaded his gun with blanks and it seemed to police quite improbable that he should tell his wife there were blanks in the gun when the plane they weren't and even if he had told his wife this would she have believed him sufficiently to risk pointing the gun at him and firing it then there was the background of the couple's marriage relations were poor and the husband errant unfaithful and appeared not to care that his wife knew it in fact he spoke openly of his affairs to her she had every reason to be angry it seemed therefore altogether more probable that mrs teasdale had shot her husband in a jealous rage him having taunted her once too often with his infidelities after a brief appearance at scunthorpe police courts before magistrates on the 22nd of january the same day as cecil's funeral at which the prosecution evidence relating to the relationship between husband and wife the circumstances leading up to the shooting incident and the death of mr teasdale were heard the magistrates committed mrs teasdale to stand her trial at lincolner sizes the following month the trial began on the 8th of february 1937 before mr justice travis humphries richard o'sullivan casey appeared for the prosecution and norman burkitt casey appeared for the defense it was a short trial lasting just one and a half days there was little evidence and few witnesses the retention of norman burkett the protege and junior of the late sir edward marshall hall was a considerable coup for the defense following the passing of marshall hall in 1927 burkitt took on his mantle as the foremost defense advocate in england he had all of his mentors ability to draw sympathy for the defendant was a powerful orator in the pulpit where he was a lay preacher and in the courtroom where he was formidable if anyone could gain an acquittal for mrs diesdale burkett was the man of course his services came with a hefty price tag but the plight of mrs teasdale elicited such widespread sympathy in skunkthorpe and beyond that's a defense fund established for her apparently by a rival butcher who delighted in the opportunity succeeded in raising 350 pounds in just four weeks that's approximately twenty five thousand pounds in twenty twenty one terms in spite of the evidence against doris teasdale the case for the prosecution was not an easy one the public sympathy for her was considerable there was a widespread consensus that mrs teasdale had been pushed to the end of her tether by her husband she had lost a child two years before and had an 18 month old baby who was currently being looked after by her parents in lincoln and here she was facing the solemn process of the law and the possible swift remedy of a death penalty if she was convicted of course the law is the law even if the husband was not entitled to the sympathy of the law he was entitled to its protection but in view of the prosecution's concerns that a jury might be reluctant or unwilling to convict a woman in such circumstances the crown prosecuted on two alternate charges that of murder and that of manslaughter this gave the jury a lesser option on which to convict mrs teasdale if it so wished if convicted of manslaughter she might serve as little as five or seven years in prison for killing her husband a murder conviction would result in a mandatory death sentence effectively making her dependent on the home secretary for the exercise of clemency and even if such clemency was forthcoming she could expect to serve a minimum of 15 years in prison as a result of this it seemed a realistic and satisfactory approach from the perspective of the law if the jury should balk at a death sentence justice would be done an offender punished appropriately but not in a manner which would attract public dissatisfaction such things matter and there was another reason the prosecution believed it necessary to offer the jury a lesser alternative to the verdict of murder the holy pragmatic one that the entire case rested on whether mrs teasdale had told his wife before she shot him that there were only blank cartridges in the gun if he had indeed said this and she had believed him two distinctive points then the best that could be achieved from the prosecution point of view was a conviction for manslaughter only two people could possibly know whether cecil teasdale had said this to his wife and one of them was dead having made no statement the jury was therefore being asked essentially whether it believed mrs teasdale's account or not the evidence beyond this was entirely inferential o'sullivan opened the prosecution outlining the facts of the case its background on the circumstances which had led to the shooting and death of mr teasdale the large spanish gun which of sullivan flourished before the jury was he said fired at the deceased either to kill or cause grievous bodily harm to him if this were proved then the prisoner would be guilty of murder however o'sullivan gave it as his opinion at the opening of his case that it was one of manslaughter a timid approach for a public prosecutor witnesses to the prosecution case were then called amy kirby the maid said she had been employed by the teasdales for nine weeks and gave details of mr teasdale arriving home at 9 15 am is going to his bedroom to wash and then to the dining room where he started on his breakfast then his wife had entered the dining room she said she heard raised voices which she could not discern then the sound of mrs teasdale's footsteps on the tiles in the hall as she left the dining room followed by the sound of her returning moments later after which she heard mr teasdale call out don't fool around and his wife's reply of i'm not fooling followed soon afterwards by the sound of a shot she also said it was not the first occasion on which she had heard a shot fired in the house three weeks prior to the shooting she had been upstairs and heard a loud bang and rushed into the dining room to find mr and mrs teasdale sitting either side of the fireplace in armchairs and mrs teasdale with a revolver in her hand neither of them said a word to her on that occasion and mr teasdale stood up and left the room the following day mrs teasdale had showed her where the bullet was embedded in the floor james vogwell the dentist gave his accounts of events as did reverend thompson and doctors cullen and smith gave evidence of the injuries suffered by cecil teasdale and his death several days later from peritonitis various policemen attested to the events of the morning of the 28th of december and the arrest of mrs teasdale for attempted murder and subsequently for murder sergeant brewster reported the statement mrs teasdale had made to him if only he had taken me with him she had said it would not have happened but he only just came in i shot at him to scare him i am so lonely he leaves me hours upon hours he also said he found no blanks in the house but he did find 16 rounds of live .455 cartridges and three empty shells the spanish revolver was lying on mrs teasdale's chair he said and a single empty cartridge was in the chamber ernest teasdale the brother of cecil spoke of his brother's habits he said cecil had owned the spanish gun about ten years and that he did not visit his brother's house although he saw him often george william taylor also a butcher and friend of cecil told the court he had attended the party in grimsby on the eve of the shooting with cecil he had dropped cecil off at comfort's road the following morning he spoke of two women who were present at the party one especially close to cecil teasdale which burkitt probed him on serena ann robottom a previous maid of mrs teasdales said there were frequent rows between the couple and that doris had told her of her husband's going with other women under cross-examination she said she had seen cecil strike his wife twice during the summer and she also said that doris was a good wife and mother dr henry holden director of forensic sciences at nottingham university gave evidence relating to mr teasdale's clothing and the distance from which the shot had been fired walter spreckley a gunsmith of west bridgeford nottingham said the gun had a five and a half pound trigger pull and that it would be impossible to discharge it accidentally the defense called no witnesses but mrs teasdale herself appeared in the witness box to intense interest it was after all a matter of whether the jury believed her account of events upon which the case rested she had sat somewhat pale looked tired and nervous during the trial now she appeared in the box and drew great sympathy all were courteous to her the prosecution as constrained as possible given the task they were charged with performing the judge invited mrs teasdale to sit as she appeared in the dock norman burkett led mrs tiesdale carefully through her testimony she had pleaded with her husband on the evening of the 27th of december for him to take her with him to the party in grimsby you're not broad-minded enough he had replied burkett asked her was there any time when in consequence of the conduct of your husband with other women of staying out late you had in mind doing him any harm never replied doris i wanted to get him back as a husband speaking of the shooting itself she said she had asked her husband where he had been when he arrived home on the sunday morning but he had waved away the question she said he would not tell her and so she went to get the gun from the front bedroom where it was kept beneath the mattress why did you go to get the gun inquired burkett i had no idea of firing it but i thought it would just scare him into telling me where he had been that night replied doris had you any knowledge of firearms none whatsoever replied doris i have never seen one loaded or discharged did you know whether it was loaded or not no i did not when he told me to stop fooling and i said i was not fooling he said oh well it does not matter you cannot do any harm with that it is only loaded with blanks she said that her husband persisted in refusing to tell her where he had been i fired just to scare him i fight it off more to the side of him i thought it would be between him and the table i was at one corner and he was at the other i think i aimed more to the left side burkitt led her through the occasion three weeks earlier in which the gun had been fired in the dining room she told him that her husband had arrived home at 4am after a night out on that occasion after lunch that day he fell asleep in an armchair she told him she did not think he should come home so late as she was afraid of an intruder who might notice his car gone cecil had reassured her she said by fetching the gun from the bedroom he showed it to her and said you can't hurt people they're only blanks she said as he fiddled with it in his hands it went off i think he was as much surprised as i was she said that they remained seated when the maid entered but that she did not have the gun in her hand she agreed she had pointed out the shot mark and the floor to the maid the following day o'sullivan cross-examining mrs teasdale asked who reloaded the gun after that occasion doris said i don't know i never saw it again when you said you were not fooling you were pretty sure the gun was loaded i was not i meant that i wanted to know where he had been all night i was not referring to the gun she insisted that her husband had said the gun was loaded with blanks the judge interceded here then if you thought this why did you fire to the side i don't know said doris she denied it was her who had fired the revolver on the earlier occasion she also insisted that when she entered the room with the gun in her hand cecil had told her it was loaded with blanks if he had never said that i would not have fired at all the evidence now heard o'sullivan restated the prosecution case to acknowledge the difficulties facing the jury and that there was considerable sympathy for the defendant but that this should not unduly influence their verdict he professed to sharing such sympathy for mrs teasdale himself but stressed the importance of arriving at a verdict based on the evidence of what happened alone she fetched a gun that she could only presume was loaded he said and by her own admission aimed it to one side she had said she had no idea of firing the gun yet she had indisputably done so to no one from 10 am to 4 pm on the day of the shooting did mrs teasdale say her husband had told her the gun contained blanks and she believed it at the very least he said a charge of manslaughter must be returned against her then norman burkett made his final address to the jury he pointed out the prosecution had raised the matter of the husband's neglect of his wife and child but doris had expressed only her love for him that she had wanted him back she had no desire or intention to hurt him she wished only to frighten him into telling her where he had been by producing the revolver she had pointed it to the side when it went off he said intimating that she may not even have pulled the trigger i submit that on a review of the evidence a verdict of guilty on the charge of murder is unthinkable he said i am not going to harass you with the deceased's behavior but i will speak of three things his association with other women his assaults his indifference to his little boy can you imagine any behavior more likely to wound and wound grievously the dearest affections of any ordinary woman yet mrs teasdale he said had shown no venom it is absolutely plain that she never that day intended the slightest hurt or harm to her husband all the background of circumstances from which this unhappy occurrence springs proves it and every act and word afterward put it into the realm of certainty did the deceased man say you cannot hurt me they are only blanks can you doubt it he did say it she did believe it and it governed all her subsequent actions i ask you to say that on the facts proved before you your duty is to return here a verdict of not guilty on all charges norman burkitt sat down there were a number of women in the court who were in tears burkitt had spoken movingly and implored the jury to acquit a decent woman charged with a terrible crime judge travis humphries summing up lasted just over one hour it was simple and directing character examined the evidence carefully and presented the options facing the jury he warns the jury that it would be wrong to acquit doris teasdale out of sympathy for a woman who doubtless had a strong case for divorce against her husband but he also told them if they had any doubt in the matter of her guilt they must return a verdict of not guilty of murder they needed to be satisfied that the prisoner killed her husband by an unlawful act and with the intention of causing death or grievous bodily harm if that satisfaction is established he said you will convict her of murder if you are not satisfied it will be your duty to consider whether you are bound to convict her of a very different offence that of manslaughter on the issue of whether or not she killed her husband unlawfully that cannot be the slightest out of it i tell you quite frankly in my opinion as a lawyer i cannot understand how you can fail to convict her of manslaughter the jury retired at the judge's invitation and considered the matter for a little over two hours when they returned to the courtroom the clerk put the question to them what is your verdict in the charge of murder against doris teasdale the foreman replied in a clear voice not guilty the courtroom breathed the collective sigh of relief doris teasdale would not be hanged the clerk then put the charge of manslaughter to the jury what is your verdict do you find her guilty or not guilty of manslaughter all eyes were on the foreman speaking firmly he declared not guilty there was a roar from the courtroom and a relaxation of tension as all the relief of the moment drained from the gallery press men scribbled furiously people exchanged views with neighbors the lawyers sedately congratulated each other mrs teasdale broke down her hand was on the rail of the dock her head bowed her other hand covered her eyes judge travis humphrey's gavel wrapped sharply on the bench to restore order to the court there were calls for silence from the ushers which were eventually heeded mrs teasdale stepped from the dock a free woman as she was escorted to a small cloakroom to the side of the court she began to sob convulsively her brother was allowed through and he placed his arm around her then her father arrived as she emerged from the court in his company and returned to her parents house to be reunited with her son anthony the matter had been one which rested on two exact points did cecil tears dale as his wife claimed tell her the gun was loaded only with blanks or did he not and if he did did she believe this sufficient to risk firing at him the jury believed mrs teasdale or at least acknowledge that there was sufficient doubt in the matter to acquit her of both charges now more than 80 years after the trial of doris teasdale we are entitled to consider the matter anew without fearing the consequences of our judgment on anyone there are a number of problems with doris teasdale's story the first of these is that sometime around the 7th of december a gun was fired in the house amy kirby attested to this event and mrs teasdale did not deny it amy kirby said that when she entered the room the gun was in mrs teasdale's hand doris denied this her husband discharged the weapon accidentally while handling it he said yet this does not seem to be probable the gun's trigger pull weight was given as five and a half pounds the amount of force required to revolve the chamber to place the single cartridge present there into alignment with the gun barrel and for the hammer to retract to the point of its release it could not reasonably have been pulled by any kind of accidentally applied force a person would have had to have pulled the trigger to rotate the chamber before exerting the residual pressure to activate the hammer release that suggests that the gun must have been fired deliberately it seems highly unlikely that cecil teasdale would have pulled the trigger of what he knew to be a live gun and from the fact amy kirby said that it was in doris's and not her husband's hand when she entered the room it is clear enough that doris was lying the second point is that mrs teasdale said her husband told her the gun was loaded with blanks on the second and fatal occasion too but it had been loaded to her certain knowledge on the 7th of december she had no reason whatsoever for supposing it might contain blanks now if her husband did reiterate his previous claims on the second and fatal occasion that it only had blanks in it she had no reason for believing him as he had misled her previously his alarmed don't fool around when faced with the gun confirm that he believed the gun was loaded with live ammunition as indeed it was and if she had believed it was not loaded with live ammunition then what possible use could the gun be as a threat to her husband why would she fetch a harmless gun and return to point it at him and why as the judge asked her pertinently would she fire to the side as she said she did if she thought the gun was harmless furthermore in consideration of who fired the gun on that earlier occasion given that mr teasdale had no reason for doing so the unlikelihood of his having done so accidentally added to the fact that we know his wife fired it in anger on the 28th of december with fatal results it seems extremely probable that it was fired by her as a warning shot during a quarrel on that earlier occasion too the fourth problem was that amy kirby said she had heard mrs diesdale leave the room her footsteps sounding on the hall tiles then heard her return to the dining room upon which he heard mr teasdale call don't fool around and his wife replied i'm not fooling followed by a shot doris claimed in court those words referred to her being serious about knowing where cecil had been but that doesn't work the syntax of the events is clear the steps leaving the steps returning indicate mrs teasdale had fetched the gun mr teasdale's words on her re-entering the dining room confirmed this don't fool around mr teasdale had plainly seen the revolver i'm not fooling replied mrs teasdale this exchange refers quite definitely to the fact that she had a revolver in her hand the revolver is not incidental to the exchange it is the subject of it then the shot was fired that sequence suggests irresistibly that doris had acquired the revolver used it to threaten her husband and then fired it at or in the vicinity of him the fifth problem is one not heard in court or known until afterwards that is that as mr teasdale lay dying in hospital he called his solicitor and he altered his will leaving everything to his son anthony and excluding his wife it is possible this was a final act of spite but given all the other factors in consideration it seems to suggest that cecil teasdale believed his wife had purposely shot him and was responsible for his impending death initially cecil t isdale had said to those at the scene volkswell and his friend the reverend thompson that there were only blanks in the gun he downplayed the incident it cannot be doubted that he did so as both men swore to this and yet it is curious that he sought to exonerate his wife in this way he may have had a gallant motive but this is not wholly credible more probably he did not realize the extent of his injuries shock can do that he was seeking to avoid the authorities the police scandal all the consequences such an incident would bring in hospital when he knew he was dying his attitude changed and he disinherited his wife his words to those on the scene however probably suggested to doris a possible innocent explanation for her having fired the shot at him it was later in the day on the 28th of december while in custody that she offered the idea she thought there were blanks in the gun and this account she stuck rigidly to thereafter these things taken in some make it extremely probable that doris teasdale did shoot at her husband to cause him harm though probably not to kill him and if that is so then she got away with murder because if teasdale was killed by his wife while she was in the process of committing an act designed to harm him even though she may not have desired to kill him then it was murder the relationship between the couple had founded in 1936 by then words were aggressive it was at the point of physicality we are told cecil had struck his wife on two occasions in the summer of that year the two had quarreled cecil stayed out all night when his wife challenged him on this he openly told her of his affairs one thing is certain the war of words had reached its terminal point around the 7th of december during an altercation mrs teasdale had taken up the revolver and fired it in a moment of spluttering rage she did so at the floor it was not intended to wound or kill him it marked a new phase in their escalating rouse on that occasion both were shocked the ante had been raised but quickly recovering from the deafening sound of the gun and seeing his wife sitting holding the gun in fright cecil said nothing they both sat mute when amy kirby entered in alarm then cecil stood up and walked out without a word that particular exchange of emotions was thus satisfied on that occasion without any harm being done but it had raised the bar in their arguments a new norm had been established and that was very dangerous indeed the following day mrs teasdale sought to explain the alarming incident to amy kirby casually pointing out the bullet mark in the floor amy was assuaged she spoke to no one of the incident there would be no policeman knocking on the door making inquiries of the shooting but the incident festered with doris it would fester because her husband's sins were unpunished the behavior she sought to deter continued in fact it increased and the outcome of the incident had not represented a win for her but yet another defeat she had been belittled as well as humiliated it was an ongoing situation there had not yet been a resolution that was yet to come cecil went out more the rouse continued raising in pitch progressively to an unbearable tension cecil stayed out there was no shortage of parties for him to enjoy at christmas and christmas is a time of family tensions where the repressed hostilities and irritations of the year are brought out into the open by the pressures of families brought into close proximity by the holiday season on the 28th of december cecil returned home at 9 15 a.m he knew there would be trouble perhaps he liked it in some cruel way beating his wife seemed to amuse him sometimes he called her darling ironically and smiled after his transgressions mrs teasdale greeted him with a long practiced sour demeanor amy kirby went into the scullery it must have been an unpleasant atmosphere for her when the couple were at home together she heard them speaking which quickly became raised voices quarrels between couples who frequently argue especially on the same subject and following the same well trammelled paths reach their crisis point by ever decreasing circles more quickly and each argument needs to go a little further than the last one this one did just that and mrs teasdale did as she had done before she may have done it more than once perhaps reaching the point of picking up the revolver and pointing it before the earlier occasion when she actually fired it into the floor only she would know this this time the argument had escalated to the point where words were no longer enough she marched out of the dining room and fetched the revolver and returned to confront her husband to ask him where he had been she hardly needed to know it was a rhetorical question because this wasn't the point she was going to force him to give account of himself her pride demanded it she had the gun in her hand it had been fired last time it must be fired again it was entirely logical that it should be it had now become irresistible that it would be anything less would be bathos cecil teasdale did not say there are only blanks in it there was uncertainty in his eyes a note of fear when their eyes met he had stopped smiling she liked it somewhere deep down it had become her perfect riposte in the arguments she had lost in all the humiliations and degradations he had heaped upon her she saw in that flicker of a moment a sudden power as the gun was pointed at him he turned away instinctively from the gun and she fired she fired not to kill her husband and not to miss him either but to injure him this is because she had fired to miss him before and this was the next logical step there was a huge explosion which left a deafening silence in the room and her husband looking stunned bewildered collapsed to the floor the shock of the gunshot to the body felt only like a thump in his side the shock dulled the pain the room went gray there was a sudden unsteadiness in his legs it caused them to buckle beneath him and he slid down to the floor the sound of anxious footsteps in the hall signaled amy kirby running to confirm her fears mrs teasdale put aside the gun now shocked and panicked into perfect sobriety by what had happened by what she had done she halted amy in the doorway and told her fetch a doctor amy went out and called on james vogwell a dentist being the next best thing to a doctor in the moment of medical crisis and the private events muted in their way that had been contained behind the closed doors of to comforts avenue now became a public matter they were overtaken by the solemnity of official inquiries and by the procedures of the state and its institutions by the doctors policemen coroners and lawyers it is probable that something along these lines occurred on that day between christmas and new year in 1937 but none of this is more than a probable sequence of events and it presents us with the difficulties facing the crown with establishing proof of a matter it is the problem of all proof we may know something of this kind occurred it is logical it accords with what we know of human beings and their conduct and it fits all of the facts we live our lives each day confident of lesser beliefs they are sufficient for us we know for instance that the sound we hear of a woman screaming in a house signals alarm we know if the ground is wet outside it has rained we know it but it doesn't amount to proof sufficient for a court of law the woman screaming may be an aspiring soprano of negligible talent attempting some high note which is beyond her the reason the ground outside is wet may be because our neighbor has been watering his lawn negligently these alternative accounts for daily occurrences seem absurd to us and we seldom consider them but presented with all the solemnity a skilled defense barrister can muster in a courtroom some element of doubt on some critical piece of evidence will lull the most reasonable of us to doubt our grasp on what happened when witnesses are brought forward by the defense to strengthen alternative explanations for those we would normally accept without any doubt we are given pause and so it is with the case of doris teasdale it is possible to state with a degree of everyday certainty that she shot her husband deliberately and in temper and acknowledge it may not be proved to the degree required to satisfy the law in a capital charge it is probably fair to say though that few people were terribly dissatisfied with the acquittal of doris teasdale a dangerous criminal had not escaped justice to be released into the community to continue their wrongful ways if justice had made a slight misstep there would not be a great expenditure of public grief on it after the trial doris teasdale went to live with her parents she had the sympathy of many people in scunthorpe who would probably have said to her well he deserved it but with the passage of time she would become known as the woman who shot her philandering husband whether she had done so accidentally while trying to scare him would become a mere nicety people would say she had killed him because he deserved it and furthermore that she had got away with it it would lend her a certain dangerous heir a woman who had escaped the noose a woman with secrets that could never be divulged she would never again be part of the scunthorpe community because her act and the charges against her even though she had been acquitted would always be with her would define her in their midst doris sold her story to the empire news following her acquittal other articles appeared in which she said she had received four marriage proposals and would marry again when she found the right man when cecil tuesday's will was read as previously mentioned it emerged that on his deathbed he had cut his wife out of his will it seems that on the first of january his solicitor collins was called to the hospital and there found teasdale very ill he told collins that he wished his son anthony to receive everything and also that his cecil's mother should bring up the child not his wife she challenged it in court and a settlement was reached out of court with cecil's family and she gained custody of anthony too the following year in 1938 she married john arthur haynes a leicester dairy farmer and the couple lived in cook's farm enderby in leicestershire up until her death in 1992 [Music] do do [Music] you

Channel: They Got Away With Murder

Views: 125,835

Keywords: Cecil Teesdale, Doris Teesdale, They Got Away With Murder, TGAWM, Mark John Maguire, People who got away with murder, True Crime documentary, Scunthorpe murder

Id: PnRH8egUAPc

Length: 49min 7sec (2947 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 11 2021