Between four and four-thirty on the sunny afternoon of June 11th, 1906, in Heathfield, Camberley, Surrey, England, a sixty-two-year-old woman named Caroline Hogg was spotted running through the grounds of her large estate, clutching her bleeding throat and screaming, “I’m murdered, I’m murdered!”
Upon investigation, it was discovered that both Caroline and her sixty-eight-year-old sister Mary Anne Hogg had both been attacked in their home by an unknown assailant. Mary Anne was lying dead in a pool of blood in the hallway, her throat cut so deeply that her head was nearly severed. She had also suffered a terrible wound to the back of her head, and several less severe blows to her temple. Caroline, who would ultimately survive the attack, had also sustained a number of head wounds in addition to a cut throat.
Part of one of the weapons used to assault the women was discovered in Mary Anne’s lifeless hand: the head of a bricklayer’s hammer. The broken handle was found some distance away. Later investigation demonstrated that the hammer had been stolen from a builder a few days prior to the murder.
Also found at the scene was a piece of cloth that was believed to have been wrapped around the head of the hammer as it was used to beat the victims. The knife used to cut the women’s throats was never recovered, though detectives surmised that the killer had washed the knife and his hands in a basin in the Hogg household, which was found to be filled with bloody water. Some even speculated that the knife might have been simply washed and mixed in with the rest of the silverware.
Caroline herself, as well as a handful of neighbors, described the killer as looking like a respectable working-class man, perhaps a bricklayer, who appeared to be in his mid-thirties. He was about five-foot-seven, with ruddy cheeks, dark eyes, and a thick neck. He was wearing a cloth coat and a brown cloth cap. Witnesses at a nearby croquet party told police that they saw the man run across the lawn of the Hogg estate and that he turned his collar up to hide his face when he saw that he was being observed. He subsequently fled in the direction of the nearby woods. Investigators were able to find a series of footprints that they followed for some distance, but the trail was eventually lost.
Though the Hogg sisters were rumored to keep large amounts of money and valuable items in the home, it’s unclear whether robbery was the motive, or whether anything was taken.
No arrests were ever made in the murder and attempted murder of Mary Anne and Caroline Hogg, and the crime remains unsolved more than a century after it occurred.
Crime Immemorial 