Set in stone, 18th-century clue finally yields killer

Times
By Lewis Smith

NESTLING in the grass behind a 13th-century parish church lies a tombstone inscribed with an extraordinary accusation.
“It was C_____s B_____w that brought me to my end,” it charges. “With half a Pint of Poyson He came to visit me. Write this on my Grave That all that read it may see.”

That Sarah Smith, who died in 1763, should so publicly accuse a man of murder yet refrain from giving his full name has long perplexed and intrigued the inhabitants of Wolstanton, Staffordshire.

For more than 240 years the killer’s identity has remained a mystery to all but a handful of people who are long dead.

But now an amateur historian believes that he has identified the man who, it seems, not only escaped the hangman’s noose but went on to prosper before dying of old age.
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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,174-1419998,00.html

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Just kidding - my sisters are very bright!

But now an amateur historian believes that he has identified the man who, it seems, not only escaped the hangman’s noose but went on to prosper before dying of old age.

Jeremy Crick has spent the past two years researching the inscription and is convinced that “C_____s B_____w” was a wealthy tenant farmer named Charles Barlow. He says that the inscription appears to be a last attempt by Miss Smith’s family at getting some sort of justice after her death.

Mr Crick has found no sign, despite a trawl through the records, of anyone being arrested or charged with Miss Smith’s murder.

Mr Barlow’s position as the wealthiest tenant farmer in the district would, Mr Crick says, have made him an influential and dangerous enemy.