Louisa Merrifield

"You just can't get the staff these days" was the plaintive cry heard in many a middle class home in England during the 1950s. Such was the sad case with Mrs Sarah Ricketts, an elderly, bed ridden widow of Blackpool, England. No refined and cultured old lady, her personal habits were dubious to say the least and her favourite meal was glycerine mixed with blackberry jam and washed down with a tot of rum and a bottle of stout. After placing an advertisement for a housekeeper she was assailed with replies but within two days had engaged Louisa Merrifield, a dumpy boot faced woman whose vulgar ways and foul tongue seemed to appeal to Mrs Ricketts. Louisa moved in with her elderly simpleton of a husband and for a few weeks all three seemed to be happy with the arrangement, to the point where Mrs Ricketts changed her will in favour of Louisa. Louisa was however becoming tired of her employers capricious ways and drunken habits so, once the new will was signed and sealed, she decided to speed things along a bit. With the alleged connivance of Mr Merrifield she purchased rat poison and started mixing liberal quantities of it in the blackcurrant jam that Mrs Ricketts would greedily spoon straight from the jar every night. Within days Mrs Ricketts was dead and within a few more days Louisa was under lock and key in Strangeways Prison, Manchester. She was hanged on 18 September 1953, mourned by few.