Morning guys
I had to look this up (see diary entry)...sounded like something NB would have loved ...especially the last part (where the guy was hanged in 1840 ...NB would have been 13) ...can't bold , screen wobbly
from Wiki
Death and investigation
On the morning of 6 May 1840 Russell's housemaid, Sarah Mancer, discovered the lower floors of the house in disarray. Fearing that a robbery had taken place in the night, she went to the room of the valet, François Benjamin Courvoisier, and found him already dressed. Upon seeing the state of the house, he agreed that a robbery must have occurred; Courvoisier and Mancer then went to Russell's bedchamber, where Courvoisier immediately began to open the shutters, as he always did. Thus it was Mancer who first noticed that Russell was dead; his throat had been cut. The police were summoned; Courvoisier drew their attention to marks of violence upon the door to his pantry, asserting that this was where the robbers had entered the house.
The police, however, came quickly to the conclusion that the "robbery" had been staged in order to draw suspicion away from some member of the household. Numerous small gold and silver articles, as well as a ten-pound banknote, were found to be missing; some of the articles were soon discovered wrapped in a parcel inside the house, which was curious – a thief would have carried them off straightaway rather than leave them behind. The discovery of several more gold articles, as well as the banknote, hidden in the wainscoting and in Courvoisier's pantry cemented their suspicion of the valet. Additionally, a screwdriver in his possession was found to match the marks on the pantry door as well as marks left by the forcing of the silverware drawer.
Courvoisier was put on trial, but the question was whether his guilt could be conclusively proved. His counsel, Charles Phillips, was doing well on the paucity of evidence, and had actually hinted at the guilt of a maidservant in the house, when an inventory indicated that several further items of silverware were missing, and silver matching their description was located in a French hotel in Leicester Square.
This report was conveyed to Courvoisier by his barrister, and he immediately confessed to both the thefts and the murder. Phillips asked his client if he now planned to change his plea from not guilty to guilty. Courvoisier insisted on maintaining the not guilty plea, and said he expected Phillips to continue the defence on that basis. The legal interest in the case arises from Phillips' approach to the judge for guidance. He was forcefully told he could not ask for such advice, so he continued the defence, knowing that his client was guilty and trying to blame the maid for the crime. It led to considerable public criticism of Phillips after the trial.
It emerged in Courvoisier's confession that Russell had discovered his silverware thefts and ordered Courvoisier to resign from the household. Rather than lose his position, Courvoisier decided to conceal the matter by murdering Russell.
Courvoisier had reportedly read William Harrison Ainsworth's novel Jack Sheppard in the days leading up to the crime, and several news reports implied that the novel's glorification of criminal life had led him to commit the murder. However, the concept was not pursued in Courvoisier's court defence.
Courvoisier was hanged outside Newgate Prison on 6 July 1840. One of the huge crowd who attended was the novelist William Makepeace Thackeray, who wrote an anti-capital punishment essay, On Going to See a Man Hanged.
Soon afterwards the murder scene was portrayed in a peep-show at a travelling fair.
