Somerset Murders

Somerset Murders brings together numerous murderous tales that shocked not only the county but also made headlines throughout the country. They include the cases of Elizabeth and Betty Branch, a mother and daughter who beat a young servant girl to death in Hemington in 1740; 13-year-old Betty Trump, whose throat was cut while walking home at Buckland St Mary in 1823; factory worker Joan Turner, battered to death in Chard in 1829; George Watkins, killed in a bare knuckle fight outside the Running Horse pub in Yeovil in 1843; Constance Kent, who confessed in 1865 to killing her half-brother at Rode in 1860, nearly five years earlier; and elderly landlay, Mrs Emily Bowers, strangled in her bed in Middlezoy in 1947. Nicola Sly and John van der Kiste, co-authors of Cornish Murders in this series, have an encyclopedic knowledge of their subject. Their carefully researched, well-illustrated and enthralling text will appeal to anyone interested in the shady side of Somerset’s history.