Murder Monday #12 Peasenhall Murder
Rose Harsent, a servant girl at the Providence home, was stabbed to death by an unknown assailant on May 31, 1902. Even though she wasn't married, she was six months pregnant. While it was initially reviewed as a suicide, local clergyman William Gardiner was eventually arrested for Rose's murder. Allegations soon began to rise that Gardiner was the father of Harsent's unborn child and that they had an affair the year prior. Since Gardiner was somewhat prominent in town, he was the foreman at the local seed drill works, and he had a wife with six children, it would make sense why he wouldn't want the affair to be made public, and it didn't help that his home was within sight of the Providence house.
Gardiner was tried twice for the murder, but no verdict was ever reached. During the first trial, the jury was split 11 to 1, in favor of guilty, and the second trial was split 11 to 1, in favor of not guilty, and then the prosecution issued a writ of noelle prosequi, which basically means the prosecution drops the case but isn't technically acquitted.
Gardiner died in 1941, but in recent events, a theory that Gardiner's wife committed the murder and that she would have confessed if her husband was convicted.
Like all unsolved murders, I will be talking about what I personally think happened in a video tomorrow, for those of you reading this the day it comes out, and I will post the video on this post (or you could always just subscribe to my channel 😁)
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