The Infamous Tales of Three Lancashire Criminals By Sarah Ridgway Lancashire is famous for its stunning coastlines, beautiful green spaces, good food and its impressive heritage. The region is also home to some notorious criminals’ people may have heard of and others not.
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he area was also home to the most famous hangman in the country’s history, Albert Pierrepoint. Pierrepoint grew up in Oldham then part of Lancashire and executed over 600 people including Ruth Ellis the last woman to be hanged in Britain, in 1955 and several Nazi war criminals. After retiring from the profession, he ran the Rose and Crown pub in Much Hoole, Lancashire. Rounded up below are the stories of three Lancashire criminals whose stories need to be read to be believed, and they all met their fate at the noose of Albert Pierrepoint.
The Blackpool Poisoner Louise May Merrifield was born in Wigan then Lancashire in 1906. At the time of her death, Merrifield had been married three times and wed her third husband Alfred Edward Merrifield in September 1950, he was 68 years old. Merrifield had six children with her first husband Joseph Ellison but two died in infancy. Her second marriage to 78-year-old Richard Weston was short-lived and he died 10 weeks after their wedding of a heart attack. Merrifield had a chaotic employment history, and in the last three years before the murder had held twenty jobs typically in the domestic sector and was often fired due to her poor attitude. In 1946 Merrifield served time in prison for ration book fraud, during which she lost custody of her four children. On 12th March 1953, Merrifield and her husband Alfred began their positions as live-in housekeepers and 202
Louise May Merrifield companions to seventy-nine-year-old Sarah Ann Ricketts at her bungalow in Blackpool. Sarah stood at just four foot eight inches tall and was known to have a temper, she was a widow, and both her husbands has died by suicide. Sarah was soon unhappy with the level of care she received from the pair, as Louise was more focused on drinking instead and was well known in the Blackpool pubs. Despite Sarah’s dissatisfaction, the pair muscled their way into her
LANCASHIRE & NORTH WEST MAGAZINE
favour, resulting in Sarah making a new will leaving her bungalow to the husband and wife. Sarah was known for her love of sweet jams which she ate directly from the jar with a spoon. With sinister motives firmly in place, Merrifield began adding Rodine, a phosphorus-based rat poison to the old lady’s jam. On the 12th of April a month after Louise had commenced employment she had a candid conversation with her friend Mrs Brewer, which would www.lancmag.com
