Dog finds ‘smoking gun’ from 160-year-old murder case buried in back garden

When Mary Ann Ashford was hanged for murdering her husband in 1866, things went horribly wrong.

Her execution in front of 20,000 people in Exeter was so botched that it is often cited as being key in ending public hangings.

She took three minutes to die and, according to one account, her hangman William Calcraft had to pull on her legs to end her suffering.

Fast forward 160 years and her story has come alive again thanks to a Labrador called Stanley. 

Owner Paul Phillips, 49, watched him paw at the same patch of ground in their back garden in Clyst Honiton, Devon, for months.

So adamant was the pup that Paul ended up getting his own hands dirty and having his own dig to see what – if anything – was buried under there.

‘I had a rummage around, did some mini-excavation and realised it was a bottle,’ he said.

‘It was a bright blue bottle in perfect, mint condition and said the words, ‘Not To Be Taken’ on the glass.

‘I thought that was cool and did some research, and it came up as a Victorian poison bottle, and then thought, “oh christ”, I remember reading something about a hanging in the village years ago.’

Mary Ann Ashford lived two doors down when she slipped poison into her husband’s tea so she could steal his money and start a new life with her young lover.

Paul said: ‘I went back online and found the old newspaper article about William and Mary Ann Ashford living in Clyst Honiton in 1865 next door to the police station – which is the next door to us but one.

‘It was there I believe Mary and her husband used to live and she was having an affair with a guy that worked at the local bakery.

‘I think our property used to be a big cider barn and there would have been more land.

‘But it is so weird, if you had bought that bottle for the right reasons – like killing rats or something – why would you bother burying it?

‘The fact there was a murder due to poising in the next door down from us – you have to put two and two together!

‘The fact it was buried and not thrown away shows someone was trying to hide it.’

Newspaper reports suggest Will started feeling ill and was regularly given medicine for undiagnosable sickness.

He suddenly died and Mary was arrested by the police officer living next door.

Tests later showed his wife had traces of arsenic and strychnine on her clothes.

Paul said the ‘brutal’ story about Mary’s hanging has left him uneasy with the idea of keeping the bottle inside the house.

He said: ‘It was a brutal hanging so there was no way I want bottle in my home.

‘It is in the garage at the moment which is a shame because its lovely but I bet it comes with some weirdness!

‘My family are totally engrossed with the story, and the neighbour, a dear friend and councillor, loves it too.’

Paul added that Stanley has not been digging in the spot since the discovery and hopes a local historian will help the family find out more information about the unique story.

He added: ‘What is crazy is that Stanley, after he dug the bottle up, hasn’t been digging there since.

‘If there is a local historian who is interested in coming to have a chat and do a bit more digging, that would be great.’

The blue poison bottles began being used in the mid-19th century.

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