Harry Thompson was sentenced to death at Leeds Assizes for the murder of twenty three year old Alice Kaye, who was found dead near Huddersfield, on the 6th November.

Alice Kaye was the wife of a soldier who had enlisted in 1914. Since then she had lived alone at Honley, Huddersfield.

Thompson had met Alice before the war, and she told him that her husband was her brother. While her husband was overseas, Thompson and Alice grew intimate, and he started giving her money in the form of a weekly allowance.

He remained unaware of her marriage but eventually learned in November 1915. On the night of the 6th November, Alice failed to turn up for a meeting with her aunt. The next morning, she was found fully clothed on her bed with a cut throat. There was no sign of a struggle or a break-in.

Two days later, Thompson stopped a policeman in the street and confessed to him that he had murdered Alice. He claimed that he had hoped to marry her but had lost his mind and attacked her when she said she was already married.

Standing before Mr Justice Sankey on the 29th November, he pleaded not guilty and retracted his confession, but was convicted. He was fifty five when he was hanged by Thomas Pierrepoint and Edward Taylor in Wakefield on the 22nd December 1915.

Real-Crime.co.uk