Bio

Frederick Hinson was a 32-year-old carpenter, born around 1837. Although he already had a lawful wife in his native Scotland, he was living at Wood Green, in the historic county of Middlesex (an area now part of north London), with a woman named Maria Death, with whom he shared a household as husband and wife. During the autumn of 1869, Hinson came to suspect that Maria was having an affair with a man named William Douglas Boyd.

Murder Story

On October 4, 1869, Hinson waited for Maria Death and William Douglas Boyd outside Wood Green railway station. As the pair walked out, he violently attacked Boyd; Boyd's life was saved when a passer-by pulled Hinson off him, allowing Boyd to flee the scene. Hinson then dragged Maria back to their home, where he shot her in the chest with a gun before beating her about the head. Believing her dead, he reloaded the weapon and went out in search of Boyd. He found Boyd hiding in a stable and shot him dead there. Immediately afterward, Hinson made a weak attempt to cut his own throat, but was arrested at the scene by a passing police officer and charged with the double murder of both Maria Death and William Douglas Boyd.

Hinson was tried at the Central Criminal Court (the Old Bailey) and was sentenced to death on November 26, 1869. He was executed by hanging at Newgate Prison on December 13, 1869, by the executioner William Calcraft. As with all English executions after the Capital Punishment Amendment Act of 1868, the hanging was carried out privately within the prison walls rather than in public.