John "Babbacombe" Lee (15 August 1864 – 19 March 1945) was an Englishman famous for surviving three attempts to hang him for murder. Born in

Abbotskerswell Abbotskerswell is a village and civil parish in the English county of Devon. The village is in the north part of the parish and is located two miles (3 km) south of the town of Newton Abbot, from the seaside resort of Torquay and from th ...

, Devon, Lee served in the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

, and was a known thief. In 1885, he was convicted of the murder of his employer, Emma Keyse, at her home at

Babbacombe Bay Babbacombe Bay is a South-East Devon shallow, wide, continuation of the main sweep of Lyme Bay''Road Atlas of Great Britain'', Eleventh Edition, Map 3 which, in turn, to the east is the western end of the Jurassic Coast (mainly in Dorset)''Merr ...

near

Torquay Torquay ( ) is a seaside town in Devon, England, part of the unitary authority area of Torbay. It lies south of the county town of Exeter and east-north-east of Plymouth, on the north of Tor Bay, adjoining the neighbouring town of Paignton ...

on 15 November 1884, with a knife. The evidence was weak and circumstantial, amounting to little more than Lee having been the only male in the house at the time of the murder, his previous criminal record, and being found with an unexplained cut on his arm. Despite this and his claim of innocence, he was sentenced to hang. Having survived three attempts at hanging, his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. He became popularly known as "the man they couldn't hang".

Attempted execution and aftermath

On 23 February 1885, three attempts were made to carry out Lee's execution at Exeter Prison. All ended in failure, as the

trapdoor A trapdoor is a sliding or hinged door in a floor or ceiling. It is traditionally small in size. It was invented to facilitate the hoisting of grain up through mills, however, its list of uses has grown over time. The trapdoor has played a pivot ...

of the scaffold failed to open despite being carefully tested by the executioner, James Berry, beforehand. The medical officer refused to take any further part in the proceedings, and they were stopped. Berry provides a detailed account of the failed execution in his memoirs, ''My Experiences as an Executioner'', noting that the trapdoor was adjusted with a saw and axe between the attempted executions, although in Berry's memoirs and letter to the Under-Sheriff he only mentions two attempted executions. As a result, home secretary Sir William Harcourt commuted the sentence to life imprisonment. The Home Office ordered an investigation into the failure of the apparatus, and it was discovered that when the gallows was moved from the old infirmary into the coach house, the draw bar was slightly misaligned. As a result the hinges of the trapdoor bound and did not drop cleanly through. Lee continued to petition successive Home Secretaries and was finally released in 1907. The only other man in history known to have survived three hanging attempts was

Joseph Samuel Joseph Samuel ( – April 1806) was an Englishman known for having survived his execution attempts. Convicted for robbery in 1795, he was sentenced in 1801 to transportation to Australia, one of 297 convicted felons aboard the vessels , and . ...

, in September 1803. An alternative theory, raised by Ernest Bowen-Rowlands in his book ''In the Light of the Law'', suggests that the trap was blocked by a wooden wedge that was inserted by a prisoner working on the scaffold, and removed when the apparatus was tested. Note that Bowen-Rowlands only cites an anonymous "well-known person", citing an equally anonymous prisoner's confession, and this would contrast with Berry's reputation (noted by prison governors and surgeons) as a meticulous professional.

Later years and identifications

After his release, Lee seems to have exploited his notoriety, supporting himself through lecturing on his life, even becoming the subject of a silent film. Accounts of his whereabouts after 1916 are somewhat confused, and one researcher even speculated that in later years there was more than one man claiming to be Lee. It was suspected that he died in the

Tavistock Tavistock ( ) is an ancient stannary and market town within West Devon, England. It is situated on the River Tavy from which its name derives. At the 2011 census the three electoral wards (North, South and South West) had a population of 13,028 ...

workhouse In Britain, a workhouse () was an institution where those unable to support themselves financially were offered accommodation and employment. (In Scotland, they were usually known as poorhouses.) The earliest known use of the term ''workhouse'' ...

sometime during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. However, more recent research concludes that he died in the United States under the name of "James Lee" in 1945. According to the book ''

The Man They Could Not Hang ''The Man They Could Not Hang'' is a 1939 American horror film directed by Nick Grinde from a screenplay by Karl Brown. It stars Boris Karloff as Dr. Henryk Savaard,Stephen Jacobs, ''Boris Karloff: More Than a Monster'', Tomahawk Press 2011 pp. ...

'', Lee's gravestone was located at Forest Home Cemetery,

Milwaukee Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee is ...

in 2009.

"Babbacombe" Lee ''"Babbacombe" Lee'' is a 1971 album by British folk rock group Fairport Convention, which tells the life story of John Babbacombe Lee, a Victorian-era alleged murderer who was condemned to death but was reprieved after the gallows failed o ...

'', a 1971 album by

Fairport Convention Fairport Convention are an English folk rock band, formed in 1967 by guitarists Richard Thompson and Simon Nicol, bassist Ashley Hutchings and drummer Shaun Frater (with Frater replaced by Martin Lamble after their first gig.) They started o ...

*The case was covered and examined in a 2021 episode of the

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, p ...

series ''

Murder, Mystery and My Family ''Murder, Mystery and My Family'' is a BBC One series featuring Sasha Wass KC and Jeremy Dein KC., which examines historic criminal convictions sentenced to the death penalty in order to determine if any of them resulted in a miscarriage of ...

'', in which the verdict originally reached by the jury was upheld.

References

External links

Detailed history of the 1884 Babbacombe murder
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lee, John Babbacombe 1864 births 1945 deaths 19th-century English criminals 20th-century English people People from Teignbridge (district) English people convicted of murder English prisoners sentenced to death People convicted of murder by England and Wales Place of death missing Prisoners sentenced to death by England and Wales Execution survivors English expatriates in the United States 1884 murders in the United Kingdom

Attempted execution and aftermath

Later years and identifications

Popular culture

Further reading

See also

References

External links