The Wife Killer of Watchfield: The Brutal Case of John Carter (1893)

The Wife Killer of Watchfield: The Brutal Case of John Carter (1893)
News of the Times | Episode 584 | 1893
In 1893, the quiet Berkshire hamlet of Watchfield discovered a horror hiding in plain sight.
Rhoda Carter — a young wife with no reason to run — vanished overnight. Her husband, John Carter, insisted she’d gone to tend her pregnant sister. But every part of his story began to crumble.

A locked washhouse.
A fire burning far too hot for a July night.
A nine-year-old boy woken by thuds, cries, and something heavy dragged down the stairs.
And beneath the blacksmith’s floor… a shocking discovery that shook the entire county.

What no one realised at first was this:

Rhoda was John Carter’s third wife — and the last in a disturbing pattern of women who died or disappeared around him.

In today’s episode, we follow the investigation step-by-step — from neighbours’ whispered suspicions, to the police search, to the inquest that exposed a brutal killing, and finally to the execution that confirmed Carter as one of Berkshire’s most chilling murderers.

This case would become so notorious that John Carter’s wax figure stood for years in Madame Tussaud’s Chamber of Horrors.

Along the way, we also explore the extraordinary Victorian reporting that surrounded the case — including a wonderfully outraged commentary from the Illustrated Police News, who never missed a chance for melodrama.

So sit back, settle in, and let us take you to Watchfield, Berkshire, 1893 — a place where life moved slowly… until the night it didn’t.

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