The Chieftain: Victorian True Crime Through The Eyes of a Scotland Yard Detective

by Payne, Chris

  The murder has caused extraordinary excitement in the neighbourhood of Silvertown. Four thousand persons yesterday went to view the body. They were in most instances permitted to see the remains of the deceased, not only to endeavour to corroborate the identification by means of the clothes, but also to give an opportunity of ascertaining whether any person had seen the deceased walking towards the river bank through the marsh on the day of the murder.98

  As in the Briggs case, information of interest had passed with almost lightning speed in the Victorian working-class community.

  On the same day as the head had been found, the two prisoners were due to appear before magistrates at Stratford Police Court. Köhl, referred to as a ‘sugar-baker’ and now known to be Ferdinand Edward Karl Köhl (’Charley’ to his English acquaintances), and his wife Hannah duly appeared in a densely crowded court:

  Köhl is a dull, heavy-looking man, about 27 years of age. He did not seem in the dock to pay much attention to the proceedings. His wife, on the other hand, a girl of 18, showed that she acutely felt the position in which she was placed. She is the daughter of poor, but respectable parents at Plaistow.99

  A ‘sugar-baker’ was someone employed in the refining of sugar from sugar cane which, in London, was imported from the Caribbean into the West India Docks. In view of its location, London’s East End was the centre of sugar refining in Victorian London, and the industry provided employment for several thousand men. However, the industry ‘was looked on with such dislike that even that pattern of patient drudgery, the Irish labourer, could by no sort of persuasion be brought to undertake it. I was credibly informed that the bribe offered had even taken the seductive form of beer unlimited; but that still, marvellous to relate, the Emerald Islander remained obdurate, and the sugar-bakers were compelled, as has ever been the case, to resort for “hands” to the German labour market.’100 In a sugar-refining factory ‘The heat was sickening and oppressive, and an unctuous steam, thick and foggy, filled the cellar from end to end … Regarding the close, reeking, stifling place, the disgusting atmosphere, the incessant toil and the disgusting conditions of it, the validity of the Irish labourer’s objection became manifest.’101 This had been Köhl’s employment before he had chosen to leave a few weeks previously. It was a job that few would do from choice and some who were employed in the industry might certainly try to find alternative ways of making some money.

  At the magistrate’s hearing the police had assembled their witnesses, including those who had discovered and examined the body. The first witness was Elizabeth Warren of 3 Nelson Place, Plaistow, who had known Köhl as a former lodger at her house. She informed the court that Köhl had brought the murder victim, whom she knew as ‘John’, to her lodgings where he had stayed for some days. She described him as ‘a very handsome young man’ of about 21–22 years of age who (in an uncanny echo of Franz Müller) was planning to travel to New York.102 John was also German and did not speak good English. She described Köhl’s introduction of John to her:

  He asked me if I could oblige this young man by taking him into my place, and he told me that he was a gentleman. I said, ‘Well Charley, if he is a gentleman, our place is only for poor men lodgers’ … I told the prisoner that my lodging was not fit for a person in that station. I ultimately agreed to take him in, and he came. After he had been with me for some time, he asked me to take care of some things for him.103

  John was obviously a trusting soul, as he left Mrs Warren to look after several sovereigns and a gold watch and chain amongst other items; she seems not to have betrayed his trust. After some days with the Warrens, John had moved out to lodge with the Köhls. Although there had been some disagreement on the amount of rent due, it did not appear to have changed Mrs Warren’s belief that John was a very nice young man.

  The next witness was Superintendent Howie, who described his 7 p.m. visit the previous evening to Köhl’s house. The contemporary press report of the magistrate’s hearing did not make it clear what had prompted this visit. However, it subsequently came to light that Köhl had joined the crowds assembling at the Graving Dock Tavern when the body was found. The landlord, William Richardson, had then alerted the police to Köhl’s unusual reaction when shown the body:

  I pointed out to him where the first blow had been struck in the neck; it was within about a sixteenth of an inch of being through. Directly he saw that, he made a turn and took himself to the wall, to take himself away from the body altogether. I said ‘From your appearance I think you know something of this affair’. He had become deadly pale. I had shown the body to other parties previously, but saw no one to resemble the same countenance as the prisoner. I put my right hand on his shoulder, and told him I should apprehend him on suspicion of being concerned in the murder. He dropped his hands and fell against the wall. He never made any reply at all. I then brought him through the house and called Police Constable Wills, and directed him not to lose sight of him.104

  During questioning by Howie, Köhl said that he hadn’t seen ‘John Führhop’ since Thursday 3 November. On that day, Köhl said that the two of them had gone towards London, down to Commercial Road, and Köhl had gone into a sugar-bakers’ factory to enquire about the possibility of work. According to Köhl’s account of events, when he came out John had disappeared; he made a search for him but had not seen him since.

  As this information emerged in court, it was becoming clear that 3 November would be a critical date in the police inquiries. The penultimate witness at the hearing was to throw some further light on that particular day. That witness was a young labourer, Henry Lees, some 13 years of age:

  Last Thursday morning, the 3rd inst, about 10 o’clock, I was at work at Plaistow, and I saw the male prisoner and the young man ‘John’, whom I believe to be the deceased, walking along the river-wall, near the sugar-house, towards Silvertown … I have not seen the young man since … It would be about four minutes’ walk from the spot where I saw the deceased and the male prisoner to the reed beds where the body was found. I saw the prisoner at half-past 4 in the afternoon of the same day, and he said to me that the young man was missing. I replied to him that ‘I saw you and the young man this morning about 10 o’clock walking by the river bank’. The prisoner said nothing at all in reply.105

  No evidence was presented against Hannah Köhl and at Howie’s suggestion she was discharged by the magistrates, leaving the courtroom in a swoon in her brother’s arms. In contrast, ‘Charley’ Köhl was remanded for further inquiry, handcuffed and transported to Ilford Gaol. A large crowd was in the vicinity of the court and it was with some difficulty that the prisoner was conducted to the cab. As Köhl headed off to gaol the rumour mongers in the area were busy; the motive for murder was being suggested as jealousy over Hannah Köhl, rather than theft.

  The following day the inquest into the death of ‘John Führhop’ was held at the Bell and Anchor Tavern, near the Victoria Docks, starting at 6.30 p.m., with many of the same witnesses appearing:

  Very little additional evidence to that produced before the magistrates … has as yet been obtained, but it is understood that Sergeant Clarke of the detective department of the metropolitan force has elicited several important facts which will throw light upon the motives which have led to the commission of this horrible murder, but which at present it is not advisable in the interests of justice to disclose.106

  After the coroner and jury had heard from all the witnesses, and had had the opportunity to question them, the coroner adjourned the inquest for a week.

  Behind the scenes the police were already making further progress in establishing the true identity of the victim. Howie reported to Sir Richard Mayne that ‘from papers found in the trunk of the deceased I believe his name to have been Theodor C. Führhop, late a corresponding Clerk in the house of Neumann and Böcher of Hamburg’.107 He suggested that the police authorities in Hamburg should be contacted to help confirm this. In addition, Howie had set in motion a further search of the reed
bed in the hope of discovering the murdered man’s missing garments and ‘the “knife or weapon” used by the assassin’.108 The initial proceedings of both the magistrate’s hearing and the inquest had demonstrated that the police had reasonable grounds for arresting Köhl, but there was clearly further work to be done to investigate the case against him. Firstly, what weapon(s) had been used to commit the murder? Secondly, could any direct forensic evidence be found to link Köhl to the murder? Thirdly, what was the likely motive for the murder? Fourthly, would Köhl’s alibi – that he had been in the Commercial Road with Führhop on 3 November – stand up to further investigation? These were the main topics on which Superintendent Howie and George Clarke would focus their attention.

  The search of the reed bed on 10 November unearthed a ‘wooden handle of what appeared to be a hammer’, but no hammer head or blade. On the same day another witness, Thomas Hudson, came forward to report that he had seen Köhl and Führhop together in the marshes on 3 November, even closer to the reed bed location where the body was found, than the witness Lees had reported.109 On 12 November two further key witnesses were interviewed by the police, probably by Clarke. These were Mary Wade and Eliza Whitmore, both of whom, with their respective husbands, were lodgers at Köhl’s house at 4 Hoy Street. Both reported that they had seen Köhl in a muddy state in the early afternoon of 3 November. In a newspaper report of the resumed magistrate’s hearing on Saturday 12 November, Mary Wade’s evidence was summarised as follows:

  She recollected Thursday the 3rd inst., when the prisoner left home about half-past nine o’clock. The young German, ‘John’ accompanied him, but they did not return together. The prisoner Köhl came back alone and witness let him in. When he entered she said ‘Good gracious Charley, where have you been to in the mud’. The back of his coat, the elbows, and trousers were dirty. He then asked witness where his wife was, and witness replied ‘She has gone to mangle’. He then went off to the back yard, and brushed off the mud from his clothes.110

  Whitmore’s evidence was consistent with this, confirming that she had also seen Köhl brushing his clothes in the back yard.

  The next piece of new evidence concerned the possible murder weapon. When questioned by the magistrates at the hearing on 12 November, Mary Wade added considerably to the evidence accumulating against Köhl:

  ‘I have lent the prisoner my chopper, which he borrowed every day. He used to keep the chopper two or three days sometimes. He used to keep the chopper in his kitchen … The chopper when I found it was painted over with red paint. It was not so when I lent it to him.’ Sergeant Clarke, the detective officer, here produced the chopper, when the Chairman [of the magistrates] said ‘Why, that is a butcher’s pole-axe!’ Sergeant Clarke answered in the affirmative, and when examined it was found that the chopper had a round head similar to a hammer on the back part of the blade.111

  The chopper was promptly sent for forensic analysis to Dr Henry Letheby, Professor of Chemistry at the London Hospital, who later appeared as a prosecution witness. Meanwhile, Köhl, who had no legal representation and who clearly had failed to understand much of the day’s proceedings, was again further remanded in custody until 19 November. The prisoner was then heard to say: ‘What for then I come to-day? Why you not settle and I go away?’112 There then followed a conversation between the prisoner, the magistrate and Superintendent Howie in which the magistrate commented that ‘it is a great pity he has not got any legal assistance’.113

  For a day or so prior to the hearing on 12 November, Clarke had probably been distracted by having to deal with Baron de Camin’s intervention into the Briggs murder case, but on 14 November (the date of Müller’s execution) he was again actively involved on the Plaistow Marshes case.114 There was still work to be done on the motive for the murder, and on Köhl’s alibi, as well as further confirmation of the identity of the victim. On this last point, Captain Harris, an assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, had been in contact with the police authorities in Hamburg and had just received information that ‘George Führhop … brother of Theodore C. Führhop … declared that by the description received … he undoubtedly recognises his brother’.115

  Between 14 and 16 November, Clarke investigated the large number of pawnbroker receipts that he had found in Köhl’s clothes and at Köhl’s house on the night after the body had been discovered. The detail that materialised from Clarke’s visits to the pawnbrokers was presented in evidence later at the magistrate’s hearing on 25 November and at the Old Bailey trial. In short, the majority of items pledged had been taken into the pawnbrokers by Köhl and his wife using lightly disguised versions of their names. But to whom had these items originally belonged? This aspect would take further work to disentangle. Clarke had one apparently reliable witness, Elizabeth Warren, at whose house Führhop had first stayed when he arrived in London. She had a reasonable knowledge of Führhop’s effects as he had asked her to look after some of his things, and indeed she was able to identify some, but not all, of the pawned items as having belonged to Führhop. Führhop’s relatives would presumably have more knowledge of his possessions, but they were all living in Germany. Finally, and as pointed out in one of Howie’s reports to Mayne, with one exception, all the receipts were for items pawned before Führhop had been murdered. Had Führhop therefore intended them to be pawned or was he unaware that they had been?

  Literally and metaphorically, Clarke already had the key to help answer some of these questions – it was the unusual key that he had found in Köhl’s pockets in Stratford Police Station on the night of 8 November, which proved to be the key to Führhop’s boxes.116 Clarke and Howie had also realised that they had some important potential witnesses amongst the family of Köhl’s wife, Hannah. As early as 16 November, Howie commented to Mayne that ‘from what I have seen of the wife of Köhl and her relations I am inclined to think that they are more likely to assist the prosecution than to aid the prisoner in a defence’.117 That was to prove to be the case. Clarke had already heard from the women, Mary Wade and Eliza Whitmore, that, on the night of 3 November after Führhop had gone missing earlier that day, Köhl went up and broke into Führhop’s boxes using a poker after expressly asking his wife’s cousin, Joseph Skeldon, to go with him. Skeldon later confirmed, as a prosecution witness, that he had seen that the two boxes broken into contained very few items, only a few collars and some old clothes, which would be consistent with the increasing evidence that Köhl had pawned several of Führhop’s belongings well before 3 November.118 Köhl accounted for the almost-empty boxes as evidence that Führhop had left, taking most of his things with him. The reason why Skeldon had specifically been asked to accompany Köhl to break into the boxes was now seen by the police as a ploy to disguise the earlier removal of Führhop’s clothing if, as they had concluded, Köhl had acquired the key to Führhop’s boxes early in October.

  Other members of Hannah Köhl’s family, her mother Esther Williams and her brother Thomas Williams, eventually gave evidence for the prosecution, stating that Köhl was always short of money and that he had either borrowed money from them or had obtained money from them through Hannah. Esther Williams confirmed that ‘he never did any work after his marriage with my daughter. He never repaid me any of the money that had been borrowed.’119 So Köhl had been unemployed since returning from Germany, was financially hard-pressed and had directly and indirectly tapped his in-laws (and others) for cash on several occasions. By asking around the shopkeepers in the immediate area in Plaistow, the police team also unearthed at least one shopkeeper who had seen Köhl with more money than usual on 5 November.120 It was looking increasingly likely that theft was the principal motive behind Führhop’s murder and, as with the other evidence, the finger pointed directly at Köhl.

  Between 17 and 26 November both the inquest and the magistrate’s hearing were resumed. At the inquest on 17 November the evidence that had emerged from the witnesses Mary Wade, Eliza Whitmore and Joseph Skeldon was presented; abo
ut the muddy state of Köhl on 3 November and his opening of Führhop’s boxes on the same day. The other significant new information for the jury came from Clarke – whose evidence on the pawned items had previously been deferred – and from a new witness, John Atkinson, who reported finding a clasp knife about 20ft from the location of Führhop’s body on 9 November. The knife had subsequently been identified as belonging to Köhl, by Mary Wade, who also stated that she had seen Köhl using it at his home as recently as Sunday 6 November. When the inquest was again resumed for the final time on 23 November, Köhl appeared before the inquest jury for the first time, and Dr Letheby of the London Hospital presented the findings of his forensic analysis of the chopper and of Köhl’s clothes. On the chopper he had found wool fibres from clothing, blood (though he was unable to confirm that it was human blood) and human skin; on the clothes he had also found some drops of blood. After the coroner’s summing-up, the inquest jury concluded their deliberations with a verdict of wilful murder, against Köhl.121

  The magistrate’s hearing was concluded two days later at Ilford Gaol, with a similar outcome. For the first time Köhl was represented by legal counsel and the prosecution was led on behalf of the Crown by Hardinge Giffard. The most interesting new witness was Mary Cooper, who had come forward to say that she had seen Köhl near the reed bed on Monday 7 November, the day before the body was discovered. The potential implication of this evidence was that this could have been the day on which the head was removed from the body. Satisfied with the prosecution case, the chairman of the magistrates committed Köhl for trial at the next sessions of the Central Criminal Court, ‘for the wilful murder of Theodor Christian Führhop’.122