A slew of mismatched evidence and misled coppers led to the hanging of the wrong man in a mysterious rape and murder case, with a horrifying revelation coming from his father decades later
A man accused of the rape and murder of a 67-year-old farm woman uttered some devastating final words, maintaining his innocence up until his final breath. However, decades later the 21-year-old’s father made a chilling confession that would throw the whole case into turmoil.
Robert Hoolhouse was tragically hanged, before serious questions emerged regarding his part in the crime. He was executed on May 26, 1938, at Durham, convicted for the rape and murder of a farmer’s wife, Margaret Dobson. The small village of Wolviston, Stockton-on-Tees, was rocked on January 18, 1938, by the grim discovery of Margaret’s body on a track to High Grange Farm. The 67-year-old, wife to farmer Henry, had been raped and “severely battered” before receiving two fatal stabs – one to her chest and another to her neck.
The brutal murder left the local community paralysed with fear, with women too frightened to venture out alone and children confined indoors. On the day of her disappearance, the farmer had last seen his wife and mother of their three children around 3pm, for a round of beef sandwiches.
Afterwards, she set off to visit her sister in Hartlepool, trudging through the muddy cart track in her old boots. But, she never made it to the main road.
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As the evening drew to a close with no sign of her return, Henry waited anxiously at the bus stop until the final bus had passed by at 11pm, before reluctantly returning home for what would be a sleepless night.
The next morning, Henry began the search for his missing wife. The North Eastern Gazette reported: “In the morning the animals had to be fed and work had to be done. He started his work at about 5am. Somewhere between 7am and 8am men arrived to thrash his corn.
“At about 10am, after completing his work, he set out to make inquiries. He took a short cut to Wolviston through some fields. Something prompted him to look back.
“He saw something on the ground he could not understand, and found the body of his wife lying on her back with head towards the farm and her feet toward the main road.” An autopsy revealed that the mother of three died within an hour and a half of having her dinner.
As Wolviston was flooded with police and the horrific murder made headlines, Durham County Constabulary issued a statement expressing its desire to speak to a man in his 30s who looked like a farm worker and had been spotted on a bike in the vicinity. The following day, 20-year-old Robert was arrested and charged with Margaret’s murder.
The police’s suspicion that he was the killer was based on an event that occurred three years prior, when the Hoolhouse family had been employed on the Dobsons’ farm and resided in a cottage on the property.
However, after a dispute, Henry dismissed them and evicted them from the land, cautioning them never to come back. At the time of his arrest, police also observed marks on Robert’s face which he attributed to “a spill he had with his bicycle”, while he blamed blood on the cuffs of his shirt on a shaving cut.
His trial later heard that the scratches could have been inflicted as Margaret attempted to protect herself. Police also alleged that the timings of Robert’s alibis on the day the farmer’s wife died didn’t match up with the statements provided by people he claimed to have been with.
However, other evidence and the testimonies of other witnesses which later came to light cast considerable doubt over his guilt. One witness, Margaret Barker, claimed she had been on the same bus as Robert when he was heading to the cinema at 6pm on January 18, which would have been after Margaret’s murder. However, she didn’t notice any scratches on his face.
When Margaret was found, she was still wearing heavy wooden gloves. The police tested these gloves, attempting to replicate similar scratches on a volunteer’s face, but even a secretary with long nails couldn’t inflict the slightest wound.
Another witness, Doris Teale, who lived next to the Hoolhouses, claimed she saw Robert outside his house at the time he was allegedly murdering Mrs Dobson. The footprint evidence was even more compelling. Henry had walked around the body and his prints were clearly visible. Other prints, presumably from the murderer, were underneath Henry’s.
Plaster casts of these prints were made, but they didn’t match any of Robert’s footwear. Furthermore, the description of a man seen at the farm around 5pm on the night of the murder didn’t match Robert’s appearance or the clothes he wore that day. Lastly, there were no semen stains found on Robert’s clothing, despite extensive stains being found on Margaret’s.
Despite all this conflicting evidence, the police were convinced they had apprehended the right man. During the trial at Leeds Assizes Court, prosecutor Mr Paley-Scott KC depicted the horrific nature of the offence, telling the court: “You will hear that whoever it was who had attacked her had battered with his fists into insensibility or, at any rate, into a state in which she, a woman 67 years of age, was no longer able to resist and had then ravished her and, one would suppose, had then decided to kill the only witness of his deed.”
Despite proclaiming his innocence right up until the end, Robert was convicted by the jury after just four hours of deliberation and received a death sentence. Subsequent to his conviction, despite a massive appeal bolstered by a petition signed by 14,000 people hoping to spare him, all efforts failed. Robert met his fate at the hands of renowned hangman Thomas Pierrepoint, executed at Durham.
It later emerged that his father allegedly confessed to Margaret’s murder as his life was drawing to a close. However, because there was no evidence placing him at the scene, some believe his confession was merely an effort to exonerate his son from beyond the grave.
