Frederick Morse - a failed suicide pact?

34 year old Morse was a quarryman at West Hatch, near Yeovil, who lived with his parents at Slough Green, near Taunton in Somerset. Also in the household was their granddaughter 12 year old Dorothy Winifred Brewer, who was Morse’s niece. Dorothy apparently looked much older than her years and was a well developed girl. On the 21st of February 1933 her grandparents found out that she was pregnant. They suspected Morse was responsible, something which he strongly denied.

Dorothy’s body was found the following day the River Rag at Curry Mallet near Taunton, caught on a low hanging tree branch. She had drowned but there were no signs of violence. Morse was questioned by the police and told them that he had gone to work as usual at the local quarry and had arranged to meet Doris at lunchtime.

They walked to the Bell Inn, where Morse had two pints and Dorothy a lemonade. Before leaving Morse bought half a bottle of rum. They then walked to the river where Morse told Dorothy to stay in a shed, as it was raining, while he inspected his rabbit traps. When he returned, she had vanished. He had been seen later on that afternoon in the village of Curry Mallet, shivering with cold and soaking wet.

On March the 1st 1933 Morse was charged with the murder. He then made a second statement in which he claimed that they had made a suicide pact and that after drinking the rum had both jumped into the river. They both changed their minds but after getting himself out he was too exhausted to save Dorothy.

Morse was tried at the Somerset Assizes held at Wells before Mr. Justice Goddard on the 7th and 8th of June 1933.

Here he retracted his second statement and reverted to his former version of events. The prosecution claimed that whether he had intentionally drowned Dorothy, or whether she had died in a suicide pact, if two people agreed to commit suicide and one of them dies, the survivor was guilty of murder.

(This remained the law until 1957)

The jury were unimpressed with Morse’s defense and convicted him of willful murder after deliberating for just over an hour. He was then transferred to Horfield Prison in Bristol for execution as Somerset no longer had an execution facility after the closure of the one at Shepton Mallett.

His appeal before the Lord Chief Justice and Justices Humphreys and Roche was dismissed on the 12th of July and he was duly hanged at 8.00 a.m. on Tuesday the 25th of July 1933 by Thomas Pierrepoint, assisted by Thomas Philips. Morse weighed 166.5 lbs. and was given a drop of 6’ 8”. The LPC4 form noted that he had a “thick, muscular neck.”

The crowd estimated at around 200, surged forward when two warders walked out and put up the official notices. The first read: "I, Daniel Beresford Maunsell, surgeon of His Majesty's Prison of Bristol, hereby certify that I this day examined the body of Fred Morse, on whom judgment of death was this day executed in the said prison, and that on examination found that the said Fred Morse was dead. Dated this 25th of July, Daniel Beresford Maunsell.

The second read : We, the undersigned, hereby declare that judgment of death was this day executed upon Fred Morse at His Majesty's Prison, in our presence. F. W. Gwilliam, Governor. Ivor R. Watkins, Chaplain." The inquest was held before the Bristol City Coroner, Mr. A. E. Barker. It revealed that Morse had unsuccessfully petitioned the Home Secretary for a reprieve which had been rejected on the 21st of July.

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