the Victorian Master Criminal: Charles Peace and Murders of Cock Dyson

On August 2, 1876, a young policeman named Constable Cock was shot dead while walking "the beat" in Manchester. A few months later, Arthur Dyson, an engineer, was murdered in his own backyard in Sheffield. Charles Peace was Victorian Britain’s most infamous cat-burglar and murderer. He was a complex man: ruthless, devious, dangerous, charming, intelligent, and creative. Katherine Dyson identified him as her husband's murderer, and as the police searched Peace was living a life of luxury under another identity in London. One of these murders became the most notorious and scandalous case of the Victorian age, with a tale of illicit romance and a nationwide hunt for Britain’s most wanted man; the other was to become an infamous landmark in British legal history. These two sensational murder cases would turn out to be tied together in a way that shocked Victorian society to its core.