Discovery Channel

Crime Museum UK - Discovery Channel Brides in the Bath

Brides in the Bath

BRIDES IN THE BATH

George Joseph Smith became known in 1914 as the ‘Brides in the Bath Murderer’. A callous crook, he murdered women he had conned into marriage weeks, and sometimes just days after their wedding. Always insuring their lives and having had them make out a will in his favour, he thought he had found a foolproof get rich quick scheme.

A bath plug (iStockphoto.com)

After his third bride had died in this way, suspicions were aroused and he was charged with murder. Proving how he managed to drown the wives in a domestic bath in houses full of people taxed the pathologist Bernard Spilsbury, but a dramatic demonstration in court convinced the jury of his guilt and he was sentenced to death.

Seeing past the apparent

The second case is that of Kenneth Barlow. Barlow used drowning as a way of masking the true cause of his wife’s death; massive injections of insulin that induced coma and made drowning an easy matter of slipping his wife under water.

Seeing past the drowning to the cause of death exercised the minds of Britain’s finest scientists, but eventually the case was brought to court and a guilty verdict was passed.

Why Do Killers Kill? The eyes of a criminal (Link: Why Do Killers Kill? feature) (DCL)
Criminalists Evidence under a magnifying glass (Link: Criminalists feature) (DCL)
Crime Guide A bloodied knife (Link: Discovery Crime Guide) (DCL)
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