Kate Webster – murderous maid feeds fat from body of employer to her children (1879)
Julia Martha Thomas hires Kate Webster as a maid Dubbed the “Barnes Mystery” or the “Richmond Murder”, the case became one of the most notorious crimes in the late 19th-century Britain. Julia Martha Thomas, a widow in her 50s who lived in Richmond in southwest London, was murdered on March 2, 1879 by her maid, Kate Webster, a 30-year-old Irishwoman with a long history of criminal activities. Webster disposed of the body by dismembering it, boiling the flesh off the bones, and throwing most of the remains into the River Thames. The boiled fat from the body however, she retained for her own devious use. In 1879, Julia Martha Thomas lived alone in a small cottage at 2 Mayfield Cottages on Park Road in Richmond, just outside