So Was William Corder actually Guilty? ************************************** In recent years there have been a number of attempts to suggest Corder was not guilty of the murder. Given this appears one of the most open and shut cases I can think of, and that he confessed, it is hard to see any other possibility. There is however one possibility I think, well perhaps two. At the times rumours circulated Corder was also having an affair with Maria's stepmother, who was not much older than Maria, and she was involved hence her knowledge of the burial site. I find that hard to believe. Other authors have mentioned Corder's criminal associates, and even a gypsy fortune-teller lady, but all this strikes me as nonsense. Corder was there when she died, and covered up the death - but was he actually telling the truth about suicide? Maria seems to have been deeply disturbed that night, and perhaps she did have the pistols - if so, perhaps the handkerchief round her neck was irrelevant as Corder suggested. The 'sword wounds' could easily have been made by Mr Marten as he found the body. As a child I can recall Suffolk farmers using unusual looking 'mole spades' with long slender blades, not unlike those used for tree planting today. Mr Marten was a mole catcher. We know that Mr Pryce probed the ground with the handle of his rake, and found an iron spike, perhaps part of Corder's pickaxe. The wounds in the heavily decomposed body could be many things. So did Maria shoot herself? I find it extremely unlikely, and think not. Corder must have realised if she had covering the matter up would only make things worse, and in an argument as described I find it hard to see why she did not shoot him instead. A second, slightly more plausible theory would be that actually there was some suggestion of a double suicide, and each discharged a pistol at their head, but Corder decided to live and fired his in to the wall. Possible, but there is no evidence for this at all, barring the curious bullet marks in the wooden wall of the barn. No, I am afraid I think Corder was guilty, but fired twice, trying to stop Maria in some kind of violent physical struggle, probably with the intention of scaring her - but maybe with the intention of murder. In his Confession Corder says this, and there seems little reason to doubt him, though he is at great pains to swear before God that he did not make the sword wounds alleged. By Chris Jensen Romer, c2013 **************************************************************************************************** A conspiracy theory ******************* It is a matter of record that William Corder had a close-knit circle of acquaintances both in Polstead and in London. These included a half-Creole dancer and fortune teller with the unlikely name of Hannah Fandago who was probably William's earliest lover; Peter Matthews, the son of the Lady of Polstead Manor, who was also the father of Maria Martin's second child, Thomas Henry; Thomas Griffiths Wainewright, artist, critic, forger and poisoner and Samuel "Beauty" Smith, thief and conman. In his 1967 book, Donald McCormick, analysed the relationships between these characters and the lack of evidence presented at Corder's trial. There do appear to have been several combinations of liaisons continuing between Corder, Fandango, Smith and Maria's stepmother, Ann Martin, up to the time of Maria's disappearance. Several ideas have been put forward as to why the fateful meeting in the Red Barn took place but it seems most likely that one or more of these other parties were also present, hiding at the time. He also looked at the possible causes of death, the apparent inconsistencies in the evidence and for an explanation for Ann Martin's dreams, coming as they did many months after Maria's disappearance. In due time, both Wainewright and Smith were transported to Tasmania for forgery and theft and they were traced there by an earlier investigator, a Mrs Hampson. Their story was told upon condition that it was not revealed until at least twenty years after their deaths. It was confirmed that Smith, Hannah and Maria Martin had conspired to burgle Mrs Corder's house and she met up with William in the Red Barn on the pretext of going away to get married. A struggle ensued in which a pistol was discharged, Maria fell to the ground seriously wounded and William fled the barn. Smith (who had been hiding in the barn with Hannah) saw that she was still alive and in great pain. To silence her, Smith stabbed her to death and between them they put her body into a sack. When Corder returned he thought he had been the cause of Maria's death. The other two did not disillusion him and left him to bury the body. It is thought that the trigger for the revelation of the dreams was the arrest and subsequent transportation of "Beauty" Smith. Ann Martin believed that Corder was responsible for Smith's arrest and the invention of the dreams became her method of revenge. "There can be no denying that Corder was guilty, but technically he may not have been the murderer." What was however probably the greatest irony in the whole case was summed up by "Beauty" Smith in Tasmania when he said "Corder had suffered a grave miscarriage of justice, but if he had escaped the gallows on a murder charge he would eventually gone to his doom on an indictment of forgery". In those days, forgery too was a capital offence. By Alan D. Craxford. **************************************************************************************************** Corder was given the chance to confess in court, but maintained he was innocent. Some people still believe that he did not commit the murder, and was wrongly convicted. Documents in his own hand prepared for his trial (now in private possession) show that this was not so. At one point the text has been crossed out and the story changed: the original version exposed his guilt. At half past eleven on the night before he was to hang, Corder at last confessed. He said that he and Maria had quarrelled about the burial of their child and other matters. A scuffle broke out, he took his pistol from his jacket pocket and fired. Maria fell dead. He denied utterly that he had stabbed her. However, it was felt by many that this was only a partial confession. Corder, true to his nature, kept the full story to himself to the very end. Several arguments have been put forward in Corder's defence: He was not the monster which myth supposed him to be. After all, he stood by Maria when she fell pregnant with his child; Adverse press coverage before the trial was prejudicial to a fair outcome; The trial, sentence and execution were driven by press interest; The evidence against him was all circumstantial, and the trial was a travesty. Mistakes were made and witnesses manipulated; and Ann Marten (Maria's stepmother) was involved and made up the story of the dream to ease a guilty conscience. It has even been suggested that Ann was having an affair with Corder, that Maria found out, caused difficulty, and had to be stopped. Certainly circumstantial evidence could be made to support this view: the dreams started in mid December 1827,a few days after Corder married Mary Moore. It would probably have taken news of the marriage that long to reach Polstead. Was the dream a coincidence? Could it have been the reaction of a woman scorned? http://www.stedmundsbury.gov.uk/sebc/visit/guilty.cfm