<p>In December 1811, two households on London’s Ratcliffe Highway were brutally murdered within days of each other. As panic spread through the East End, investigators searched for a killer moving through the dockside streets. A sailor named John Williams soon became the prime suspect but his death would leave the truth uncertain.</p><p>Source Materials</p><p>P. D. James and T. A. Critchley. <em>The Maul and the Pear Tree: The Ratcliffe Highway Murders, 1811.</em> Faber &amp; Faber, 1971.</p><p>Judith Flanders. <em>The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime.</em> Thomas Dunne Books, 2011.</p><p>John Fairburn. <em>Fairburn’s Account of the Dreadful Murder of Mr. Marr and Family, Who Were Barbarously Murdered in Their House on Ratcliffe Highway.</em> London, 1811.</p><p>Peter Ackroyd. <em>London: The Biography.</em> Nan A. Talese / Doubleday, 2000.</p><p>The Proceedings of the Coroner’s Inquest on the Marr and Williamson Murders, London, December 1811. The OldBailey Proceedings Online.<a href="https://www.oldbaileyonline.org" target="_new"> https://www.oldbaileyonline.org </a></p><p>Radzinowicz, L. “The Ratcliffe Murders.” <em>The Cambridge Law Journal</em> 14, no. 1 (1956): 39–66. <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4504366" target="_new">https://www.jstor.org/stable/4504366</a></p><p></p>