Gill’s Hill Cottage, the place where Probert lived, was about two miles from Elstree, and was approached by a narrow road called Gill’s Hill Lane. Some country people passing in the neighbourhood of this lane about eight o’clock in the evening heard a shot fired and deep groans as if some one was injured. They also heard voices and the wheels of a cart or gig moving. Near nine o’clock Thurtell arrived at the cottage alone, and giving the horse and gig to the servant, went out to meet Probert and Hunt, with whom he soon afterwards returned.
Hunt being a stranger, was formally introduced to Mrs. Probert and a Miss Noyes who was staying at the house. The whole party supped together, and spent the evening in jollity. Hunt sang several songs, and Thurtell produced a gold hunting-watch which afterwards proved to be Weare’s, and, taking off the chain, offered it to Probert for his wife, but he declining it, Thurtell put it round the lady’s neck himself. It was after midnight before the ladies retired, and the sleeping accommodation being limited it was arranged that Thurtell should sleep on some chairs and Hunt was to occupy the sofa. A drawing of the sofa forms one of the illustrations in the Observer, and proves how thoroughly every circumstance of the horrid tale was followed up and exhibited to the public. All this time the body of the murdered Weare was lying behind a hedge in the lane.
Mrs. Probert’s suspicions had been aroused by several strange circumstances. A vague and horrid alarm took possession of her, and when she retired to bed she stole to the head of the stairs and listened to the talk that was going on below in the parlour. She heard her husband and his two visitors apparently dividing money, burning papers, and making mysterious plans to conceal something dreadful that had been done. Then the parlour door was opened, and the frightened woman stole back to her room. She heard two of the men go to the stable and bring out the horse. Afterwards, hearing a noise in the garden, she looked out of the window, and it being a moonlight night, she saw a man dragging something large and heavy along the garden walk towards the fishpond. Then followed a hollow sound as if something had been thrown into the pond.
That night, when Probert went to bed, he found his wife sitting up and crying. She questioned him about the mysterious sounds she had heard, but he told her that he and his companions had only been out trying to net some game. In the morning she renewed her inquiries, but he only replied, ‘Don’t torment me; you make my life miserable.’ He seemed in low spirits, and went moping round the garden and about the pond. Going into the kitchen Mrs. Probert observed the gig cushion drying at the kitchen fire, although there had been no rain the night before, and the cook was surprised to see in the stable a wet, ripped-up sack hanging on a nail.
| THE COUCH ON WHICH HUNT SLEPT AT GILL’S HILL COTTAGE. FROM THE ‘OBSERVER,’ NOV. 10, 1823. |
Early on Saturday morning two labouring men were busy in Gill’s Hill Lane repairing the road, when two gentlemen passed them on foot. At the bend of the lane they stooped down and appeared to be looking for something among the dead leaves and brambles. Coming back they had some conversation with the road-menders, and afterwards passed on up the lane towards the cottage. A short time afterwards one of the labourers found at the spot where the gentlemen had been looking an open penknife covered with blood, and a little further on a pistol with hair sticking to it, and also bloody. These articles the man gave to his master the same morning when he came round to inspect their work. About noon they saw the two gentlemen from Probert’s drive away in a gig. They both looked hard at the spot where the knife and pistol had been found, but said nothing.
Mr. Nicholls, the road surveyor, to whom the knife and pistol had been handed by the man who found them, went to the magistrates at Watford and told how and where the articles had been found. The magistrates at once sent information to Bow Street, and two of their number immediately went to Gill’s Hill Lane, where they discovered spots and gouts of blood on the bank and under the leaves, and there was a gap in the hedge where a body seemed to have been dragged through. The field was also much trampled. They at once came to the conclusion that a murder had been committed, and took instant measures to trace the guilty parties. The police seized Probert and Thomas Thurtell at Gill’s Hill, and searched the house and premises. John Thurtell was apprehended at the ‘Coach and Horses,’ in Conduit Street. Marks of blood were found on different articles of clothing belonging to him. At Hunt’s lodgings various articles belonging to Weare had been found. Weare being missing it was suspected he had met with foul play at the hands of these men. A billiard-table keeper in Spring Gardens proved that Mr. Weare had called upon him about three o’clock on Friday, October 24th, and told him he was then on his way to join Thurtell in the Edgeware Road, as they were going down to Hertfordshire for a few days’ shooting. Thurtell, on being questioned, admitted he knew Mr. Weare, but said he had not seen him for eight days.
It appeared by the disclosures afterwards made by Thurtell’s two confederates that Thurtell had shot Weare while they were riding in the gig down Gill’s Hill Lane, leading to the cottage where Probert lived. Weare jumped out of the gig, crying he would pay Thurtell all he owed him if he would only spare his life. Thurtell jumped out of the gig and ran after him. He got Weare down and cut his throat with a penknife, and then struck him on the head with a pistol. He then dragged the body through the hedge and left it there. The same night Thurtell and Hunt went out from Probert’s cottage to bring the body away, but they found it too heavy. Probert and Thurtell then went and brought the body on the horse, and put it in the fishpond with stones in the sack to keep it down. They afterwards removed the body from the fishpond and sunk it in a deep pond by the side of the Elstree road.
The cold-blooded indifference of the perpetrators of this atrocious crime was most extraordinary. The murder was committed on Friday night, and on Saturday Thurtell and Hunt returned to London and dined with Thomas Thurtell and Mr. Noyes, Probert’s brother-in-law, at the ‘Coach and Horses,’ in Conduit Street. They were very jovial, and next day (Sunday) the whole party met again at Proberts’ house in Gill’s Hill Lane, when the afternoon was spent in playing at cards. On Sunday night Thurtell and Hunt went to dig a grave to bury the body, but the dogs were barking, and they were afraid some one was about. On Monday, while Hunt engaged Mrs. Probert in conversation, Thurtell and Probert got the body out of the fishpond, and cut off the clothes. Then they all three carried it to the garden-gate and put it into the gig. A grave half dug was found in Probert’s garden, but the soil was hard, and it is supposed that Thurtell and Hunt were afraid of the noise pickaxes would make.