Red Barn Murder Documentary

Here is a brief documentary about the Red Barn Murder in two parts.

PART 1


PART 2

Red Barn Book Covers and Title Pages

Here are some scans of book covers/title pages used with permission from Stewart P Evans.

These are scans of books from his own collection.

I found them on an interesting forum thread on the Casebook: Jack the Ripper site.

Sally Sloane

I found this on Warren Fahey's excellent Australian folklore site. It's the lyrics of a song based on the murder that have travelled all the way to Australia and were sung by Sally Sloane. Her recollections about the song:

"You know there are bits in it I can't remember where her body was tied up in a sack and mangled with many a dreadful wound. The cook, I think, mangled her up and put her in the bag. Her mother dreamt the same dream for three weeks and the neighbour with his pickaxe is part of it too. Anyhow they dug the ground and there they found where she was. "

Link to the lyrics

Link to information about Sally Sloane

William Maginn

Peter Haining in Buried Passions suggests that the book that transformed the original story into a more theatrical 'villain verses innocent maiden' that pervades the public perception of the murder was not the James Curtis book (written at the time of the trial and famously bound in Corder's skin). It was rather a book by William Maginn called The Red Barn. This version of the story apparently is quite similar in content to the plays that were performed about the murder. The plates below were originally from The Red Barn (by way of Peter Haining's Buried Passions).

Differing Views on the Murder

Maria Martin was murdered then buried in the barn.

The depictions below give an impression of where the body was buried.

(from the St. Edmundsbury Borough Council website)

(from Buried Passions: Maria Martin and the Murder in the Red Barn)

Supposedly Maria Martin's father, Thomas Martin was motivated to search for Maria's body by his wife, Ann Martin (Maria's step-mother). It is commonly thought that she had a succession of dreams that convinced her of Maria's fate and final resting place. It has been argued that she had prior knowledge of the murder and, in order to take revenge on William Corder, she fabricated the dreams as means to tell people without incriminating herself. In this version of events her relationship to Corder was obviously different, it suggests that she was in cahoots with Corder and was fully aware of Maria Martin's death. This leads me to wonder then why Corder didn't accuse Ann Martin of being involved. The other option was that she was so convinced of Corder's guilt, she used the dreams as a ruse to convince everyone that what she believed was true.

Donald McCormick (writer of The Red Barn Mystery: Some New Evidence on an Old Murder) posits that the murder was a tangled web involving a host of characters, but chiefly had Samuel 'Beauty' Smith, a criminal who eventually was transported to Tasmania, as the real killer (Corder supposedly shooting her, but not fatally). But both these explanations like any other views about the murder that include a third party, make you wonder why (if any of them were true) Corder remained tight-lipped.

POLSTEAD

Polstead is where Maria Martin was murdered. She also lived in Polstead for most of her life with the exception of some alleged wayward fluttering around London and elsewhere. The red barn, where the deed took place, is no longer there. Nowadays the farmland where it sat is just that, farmland. I had an opportunity to visit Polstead and using a map I got from Moyse's Hall in Bury St. Edmunds I took a look around. Since then I have found a few other maps in books.

(From - The Red Barn Mystery: Some New Evidence on an Old Murder)

Along with a cohort I had a look for the red barn and managed to find the area where it was. According to the map I was looking at and the little I read about its location I figured it to be about 50 metres or so off the road we were on (Martin's Lane). But since it was on private property decided not to venture any closer. Since it was burnt down in 1842 there is nothing to suggest anything much ever took place there, except grazing.

We also stopped at St. Mary's Church, where Maria Martin was buried. Her tombstone has been gradually chipped away to nothing by souvenir seeking visitors. I found a picture of the location where Maria Martin was buried before the tombstone had completely disappeared. The remnants are slightly below the cross hair.

(from Buried Passions: Maria Martin and the Murder in the Red Barn)

There's little to suggest that the churchyard is anything other than the final resting place for the people of Polstead. Although there is a weathered wooden panel that is fixed to a shed around one side of the church.

ABOUT

This blog is a way for me to provide a few musings about the Red Barn Murder. I won't outline what actually took place. This has already been done to a very good standard on the St Edmundsbury Borough Council website. There are a lot of images, mainly taken from the St Edmundsbury site, on the net. I have found a few others which are from out-of-print books I have managed to get hold of. I will endeavour to put these on soon.

(from Buried Passions: Maria Martin and the Murder in the Red Barn)