John "Babbacombe" Lee | The man they couldn't hang

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Hi my name's Kevin Hicks welcome to my YouTube  channel the History Squad. Now today's video   has been voted for by my Patreon members.  Hey guys. This is the story about John Lee   John Babbacombe Lee the man who couldn't  be hanged now I first heard about this as   a young teenager listening to the folk rock  group Fairport convention because they did a   whole uh album about John Lee and so I've  known about it I've been to Babbacombe,   it's down in Devon now a suburb of Torquay I  understand, but it all begins with a murder.   The murder victim Miss Emma Keyes lived in the  most beautiful house right on the waterfront at   Babbacombe Bay, The Glenn. It was a thatched house  I've seen a photograph of it, absolutely beautiful   now she was a dower kind of a lady, a bit  religious, well to do though I'm sure because   she had servants. She had John Lee, was nominally  called her butler. There was a cook, Elizabeth   Harris, that's John Lee's half-sister then  Eliza and Jane Neck who were her lady servants,   so she quite well to do to have those. She was  in dispute with the local fishermen over fishing   rights so she could get quite angry from what I  can gather but there's an extra character here,   he was a caller from the should we call him the  Victorian set from the cliffs above, the well to   do, and that was Reginald Templar a solicitor so  you'll hear a little bit more about him later on.   The brutal murder of Miss Keyes took place  overnight 14th, 15th of November 1884. It   was around about 3:30 in the morning that the maid  Eliza raises the alarm when she smells smoke. She   goes downstairs discovers the body of Miss Keyes  who's been beaten round the back of their head.   She says that John Lee was already there and had  blood stains on his on his shirt. John Lee reckons   he was fast asleep in bed when the maid wakes him  up. Everybody now is awake, the place is on fire.   Miss Keyes is dead. John Lee goes outside smashes  one of the dining room windows cutting his hand   in the process, he says to let the smoke out he  then runs over to the Cary Arms, the local pub,   where the landlord is woken up and he comes over  to lend a hand. They put the fire out but the   landlord asks for a hatchet to help chop some  of the smoldering wood away from the beams. The   hatchet is lifted out of the wood pile and it is  found to be covered in blood the police will match   the hatchet to the wounds later on. What John Lee  does now is he goes and raises the alarm with the   police. The next morning the police searched the  property. In a drawer near to where John Lee slept   they found a razor-sharp knife. Miss Keyes  was found to have had her throat slit so deep   she'd almost been decapitated. Also near to where  John Lee slept, an empty paraffin can was found.   Three fires had been set in the dining room  including one near the body of Miss Keyes.   The police surmise it's to burn the evidence.  John Lee being the only man in the house,   he's arrested, suspect number one. But you  know his own sister actually gave a statement   to say that he’d threatened Miss Keyes and he  threatened to burn the house down and watch   it burn from on top of the cliff. The trial was  swift. Now Reginald Templar, remember that name,   was his original defense attorney but he was ill,  he had a mental illness so he had to withdraw   from the trial, but he now pays somebody else to  defend John Lee. Now his defense attorney, this   new guy brings up a little subject here, he says  Elizabeth, John Lee's half-sister, was pregnant.   Who was the lover? Was there another person  involved? Because the house was all locked up, so   nobody had broken in. Was there another person in  the house? Well they ignored that and John Lee was   found guilty and sentenced to death. He will be  executed by hanging on the 23rd of February 1885. Throughout the trial you know John  Lee, he proclaimed his innocence,   and just a few days before the execution date,  he's visited by a vicar and John Lee confesses to   him that there were two other people involved in  the murder and he’s advised to make a statement,   which he did, which was then sent to  the Home Secretary who refused clemency.   John Lee, he's gonna hang. And  on the day of the execution   it's all set up and guess what Kev has made a  model. Here it is. Now this is what should happen.   The excess rope is tied up, there is the  condemned man he will step onto the trap door,   the hangman will pull the lever and he will  plunge to his death through the trap doors.   That's what's supposed to happen. Let's just do a  quick demonstration of that because I've made the   model and I'm quite pleased with it. The original  gallows had been moved from place to place,   they weren't built purposely just for this  hanging, but what should have happened is quite   straightforward. Now I'm holding the excess  rope I just couldn't quite get it to work,   but all they had to do was press the lever  to remove the bolt, the trapdoor gives way,   job done that's what should have happened,  but what really happened was this. John stands   on the trap door the lever is pulled nothing  happens, he feels the trapdoor give a little bit   but it doesn't go through. The executioner plus  a couple of the guards stamp on the trap door and   it moves a little bit. Can you imagine being John,  waiting for that drop? He is then maneuvered away.   From what I understand is he still has the bag  over his head, they bring in warders to check it   out, they think that this has happened or that's  going wrong so they even shave off a little bit   of the trap door. John is then brought all the way  back on, he stands there and the lever is pulled.   Nothing happens. This poor man is taken to the one  side again still with the rope around his neck for   goodness sake. They check it and they try it out,  they put a sack of concrete on and it works, fine.   So they bring the poor man back. Now the  third time pull the lever nothing happens.   The Chief Constable said  it was actually four times,   well three or four times let's face it it's  enough for any man because the medical officer   steps in now and he says enough's enough. This  man has been through too much. He is taken back   to the condemned cell. Can you imagine  his state of mind? What are they going   to do? They're going to bring me back out? Well  what happens now is the governor of the prison   uh goes to London, meets with the Home  Secretary and his sentence is commuted to life.   John Lee would spend the next 22 years in prison,  but you know he'd always proclaimed his innocence,   all the way through the trial, all the way through  his prison time. He'd even said to James Berry   the executioner just before the attempted first  execution that he would take the secrets of who   was there in his heart to the grave. Well Reginald  Templar, do you remember him? The solicitor,   the man who paid for the defense attorney for John  Lee. Well this is the alternative story from John   Lee. He says the night of the murder four of them  were down in the kitchen, that is his what his   half-sister Elizabeth and Reginald Templar her  lover and the father of her unborn child. This   is a bit of a scandalous thing going on because uh  Reginald is, he's up there, he's one of the toffs.   Elizabeth is just a common cook. Scandal in the  making, unmarried mother all of that, illegitimate   child. John Lee he's also with a young lady  downstairs but having a few drinks, bit of a laugh   they wake up Miss Keyes. She comes down, she is  furious. Oh what's going on? She has a blazing row   with Reginald, he loses his temper and goes into a  rage, a fit. Now don't forget this guy is unstable   and he hits her several times around the back  of the head with a hatchet. He cannot afford   you see to be found out, he would be ruined.  Together now they move the body upstairs,   they set the scene spread the paraffin around  and set fire to the house. That is the alternate   story. Well John Lee though, what if John Lee was  actually innocent? Now don't get me wrong because   he wasn't a good guy. What happened to him in the  end? He becomes a minor celebrity, he sells his   story for a small fortune, he marries a nurse,  they have a child and then when she's pregnant   the second time he abandons her to the workhouse.  He's not actually that nice, and he absconds with   his new lover I believe to the United States  of America and died in 1945 in Milwaukee,   in the northern part of the United States. It's  a heck of a story, the man they couldn't hang.   Well I hope you enjoyed our video there a bit of a  strange story but it's a true one, so if you did,   like, share and subscribe and don't forget to  press the all notification button so you know   what's coming on down the line. A big shout out  to our latest patreon member John Passoa, thanks   very much John for joining our little community  there, without you guys I wouldn't be able to do   these great models so thanks a bunch and thanks  a million to everybody out there. Bye for now.
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Channel: thehistorysquad
Views: 203,803
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Keywords: John Babbacombe Lee the man they couldn't hang, John Lee, John Babbacombe Lee, Babbacome Lee, Babbacome, Babbacombe murder, the man they could not hang, the man they couldn’t hang, the man they couldn’t hang movie, they man they couldn’t hang book, Emma Keyse, execution, failed execution, failed executions, true crime, hanging, survived his own execution, hangman, history, history channel, john babbacombe lee, john lee, true story, the man they couldnt hang
Id: XJOmi0E1gOw
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Length: 11min 59sec (719 seconds)
Published: Fri Jan 06 2023
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