Norman Thorne (c. 1902 – 22 April 1925) was an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

Sunday school A Sunday school is an educational institution, usually (but not always) Christian in character. Other religions including Buddhism, Islam, and Judaism have also organised Sunday schools in their temples and mosques, particularly in the West. Su ...

teacher and chicken farmer who was convicted and hanged for what became known as the chicken run murder.The chicken run murder
Retrieved 4 January 2017 Thorne murdered his fiancée Elsie Cameron (born 22 April 1898) on 5 December 1924 at his chicken farm in

Crowborough Crowborough is a town and civil parish in East Sussex, England, in the Weald at the edge of Ashdown Forest in the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, 7 miles (11 km) south-west of Royal Tunbridge Wells and 33 miles (53 ...

Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...

, and later

dismembered Dismemberment is the act of cutting, ripping, tearing, pulling, wrenching or otherwise disconnecting the limbs from a living or dead being. It has been practiced upon human beings as a form of capital punishment, especially in connection with ...

and buried her body.Walters, Minette (2006) ''Chickenfeed''. 3rd ed. London, England: Pan Books

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for '' A Study in Scarlet'', the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Ho ...

, the creator of the fictional detective

Sherlock Holmes Sherlock Holmes () is a fictional detective created by British author Arthur Conan Doyle. Referring to himself as a " consulting detective" in the stories, Holmes is known for his proficiency with observation, deduction, forensic science and ...

, lived in Crowborough and took an interest in the case.

History

Elsie Cameron, of

Kensal Rise Kensal Green is an area in north-west London. It lies mainly in the London Borough of Brent, with a small part to the south within Kensington and Chelsea. Kensal Green is located on the Harrow Road, about miles from Charing Cross. To the w ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, and Norman Thorne were engaged on

Christmas Day Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year, ...

1922. However, it became apparent that Cameron had psychological problems and Thorne, who had started seeing another woman, no longer wanted to marry her, although he didn't have the courage to tell her. Cameron and her family, who wanted her off their hands, pressured Thorne to settle a wedding date. To try to speed up the wedding, Cameron claimed she was pregnant, although she and Thorne never had sex. On Friday 5 December 1924, Cameron travelled from London to

, to stay with Thorne for a planned weekend visit. He claimed that he had not seen her. He sent a note to her on 7 December asking her why she hadn't come. The police started investigating and witnesses said they had seen Cameron in Crowborough and on Thorne's farm on 5 December. After further investigations the police arrested Thorne on 14 January 1925. The farm was searched and police began to dig up the grounds. Items belonging to Elsie, including her overnight bag, were found. On 15 January Thorne gave a statement to the police admitting that he had dismembered the body and he told them where it was buried. However, he claimed that Elsie had committed suicide by hanging herself from a beam in the hut where he lived. It was discovered that the beam had no marks consistent with those which the weight of a body would have caused. The police also discovered newspaper cuttings in Thorpe's hut about a murder that had occurred on 15 April 1924 on a Sussex beach; one of the so-called

Crumbles murders The Crumbles Murders are two separate and unrelated crimes which occurred on a shingle beach located between Eastbourne and Pevensey Bay, England—locally referred to as "the Crumbles"—in the 1920s. The first of these two murders is the 1920 bl ...

, in which the body had also been dismembered and buried. This finding was alleged to indicate pre-meditation on the part of Thorne. Thorne was tried at the

Assizes The courts of assize, or assizes (), were periodic courts held around England and Wales until 1972, when together with the quarter sessions they were abolished by the Courts Act 1971 and replaced by a single permanent Crown Court. The assizes e ...

(a court) in

Lewes Lewes () is the county town of East Sussex, England. It is the police and judicial centre for all of Sussex and is home to Sussex Police, East Sussex Fire & Rescue Service, Lewes Crown Court and HMP Lewes. The civil parish is the centre of ...

on 11 March 1925 before Mr Justice Finlay. The prosecution was led by Sir Henry Curtis Bennett and the defence by J.D. Cassels. The defence claimed that Cameron had hanged herself and that Thorne had concealed the death in panic. The evidence of Home Office pathologist

Sir Bernard Spilsbury Sir Bernard Henry Spilsbury (16 May 1877 – 17 December 1947) was a British pathologist. His cases include Hawley Crippen, the Seddon case, the Major Armstrong poisoning, the "Brides in the Bath" murders by George Joseph Smith, the Crumbles ...

was that she had been beaten to death. Thorne was found guilty of murder on 16 March 1925. The case received a lot of press coverage at the time. Many people, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, thought that the trial had not proved 'beyond reasonable doubt' that Thorne had killed, or meant to kill, Cameron. An appeal was lodged in March 1925, but it was dismissed the following month.Hanged for murder – but was he guilty?
in ''Sussex Courier'' (KentLive website). Retrieved 4 January 2017 Thorne was hanged on 22 April 1925 in

Wandsworth prison HM Prison Wandsworth is a Prison security categories in the United Kingdom, Category B men's prison at Wandsworth in the London Borough of Wandsworth, South West (London sub region), South West London, England. It is operated by His Majesty's Pri ...

in London on what would have been Elsie's 27th birthday. A BBC investigative programme, "

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 ...

", series 3, episode 3, broadcast in 2019, re-examined the evidence with two barristers and a judge. The judge declared his belief that the conviction was safe, and that Thorne did indeed murder Cameron.

Bibliography

* Normanton, Helena (ed.) (1929), ''The Trial of Norman Thorne: the Crowborough chicken farm murder''. Great Britain (Sussex): Geoffrey Bles * Rose, Andrew (2009), ''A Martyr to Spilsburyism'' in ''Lethal Witness''. Ohio: Kent State University Press * Wensley, Frederick Porter (2005), ''Forty Years of Scotland Yard: A Record of Lifetime's Service in the Criminal Investigation Department'' (pp. 288–291). Whitefish, Montana: Kessinger Publishing. * Walters, Minette (2006) ''Chickenfeed''. 3rd ed. London, England: Pan Books.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thorne, Norman 1900s births 1924 murders in the United Kingdom 1925 deaths Capital murder cases English people convicted of murder People convicted of murder by England and Wales People executed by the United Kingdom by hanging Violence against women in England

History

See also

Bibliography

References