Deeming DNA question

[wolfie1]

http://www.smh.com.au/good-weekend/frederick-deeming-australias-first-serial-killer-20141003-10ict8.html

Deeming - who was he?

Article discusses issues around DNA and Exhumation of Assumed brother of Deeming, nil DNA match to remains found at burial site Melbourne Goal.

[Rosella]

Frederick Deeming was an English fraudster and murderer of the 1880's very early 1892. Deeming operated in Australia, South Africa and Britain. He was a bit of a ladies man and was already engaged to a young girl when the police found the body of his bigamous wife under the hearthstone of an empty house he'd rented under a false name, in Melbourne.

He had been busy, as, when the police tracked him back to Lancashire, where he'd married wife no. 2, they checked under the cemented floor of the kitchen of a large house he'd rented at Rainhill and Mrs Deeming no. 1 and their four children were found under the cement. He was hanged in Melbourne in early 1892 for the murder of Emily Mather, the hearthstone lady. The Australian Press went wild over this case (as they did in England.) Inevitably Fred was Jack the Ripper to the Press.

[GUT]

Yes I saw that article.

I have never been too sure who Deeming actually was, ie he was tried and executed as Deeming, used the name Bailey [among many many other names] as did the people claimed to be his siblings, I really can't get to the bottom of who he was in all reality.

[Disco Stu]

In short:
Born Leicestershire (explains everything. ) 1853;
Moved to Cheshire around 1860, via Warwickshire then Lancashire (based on birthplaces of siblings);
Married Marie on 28/2/1881;
Moved to Australia around 1881, worked for John Danks (main supplier of Home and Thrifty Link hardware these days);
Returned to UK via South Africa in 1889 and ditched Marie;
Posed as, "Harry Lawson" and married Helen Matheson in Beverly, Yorkshire 1890;
(That's from the records, I can't find him in the 1871 census, though I can find his family and he had a lot of siblings. The murder and subsequent parts of the story are covered pretty well elsewhere.)

Bailey was his mother, Ann's, maiden name. The family seems to have originated in Atherstone, Warwickshire, then moved to Ashby de la Zouche, Leicestershire around 1850. Thomas, the pater familias, was a metal worker. Apparently he died insane in a workhouse in 1889, but that's unverified.

There's no sign of Frederick or siblings being christened with Bailey as a middle name, except for the Thomas in the article. Frederick doesn't appear in the existing non-conformist registers for Leicestershire, so was most likely CoE.

As for the article, it's not very good. Frederick's birth was registered as Deeming, Thomas was Christened by Thomas and Ann Deeming, so aside from straw clutching the DNA evidence proves it's not related to Deeming. Also, Deeming was not Australia's first serial killer.

[Rosella]

Deeming seemed to like the Rev Scott, who was Church of England Chaplain to the Melbourne jail. He was a regular visitor, and the executor of Deeming's will, such as it was.

Deeming defrauded his ex employer Danks of £200 while he was in Queensland working for Williams Brothers, gas fitters in Rockhampton. It was from them that he probably borrowed the Williams name later.

[GUT]

Deeming seemed to like the Rev Scott, who was Church of England Chaplain to the Melbourne jail. He was a regular visitor, and the executor of Deeming's will, such as it was.

Deeming defrauded his ex employer Danks of £200 while he was in Queensland working for Williams Brothers, gas fitters in Rockhampton. It was from them that he probably borrowed the Williams name later.

My Great uncle worked for Williams some years later and the family thought Deeming "borrowed" their name.

[Archaic]

Article about Frederick Deeming

Hi.

This article has additional information about Deeming, and his penchant for entombment in concrete:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2781682/Mystery-100-year-old-skull-Australia-s-serial-killer-onetime-Jack-Ripper-suspect-Frederick-Deeming-entombed-victims-concrete.html

Best regards,
Archaic

[Mayerling]

An interesting sidelight on the Deeming Case links up to some of the researches of Jonathan H. in the last year or so. Guy B. H. Logan (who wrote an important account of Jack the Ripper) was a noted crime writer, who Jonathan discusses to some extent. In one of his books he describes being at the scene (as a newspaper reporter) at Rainhill when the police were digging up the house and finding the remains of Maria Deeming and the four Deeming children (including a baby) killed by Frederick. The account was interesting, but it was misdated by one year by Long - he said it was in March 1893, whereas it was in March 1892.

Jeff

[Rosella]

It was said that the eldest girl, Bertha, I think, woke up while her father was killing her siblings and Deeming strangled her.

One of the early incidents which would lead to the Rainhill discoveries was when a correspondent for one of the Australian papers called in at Emily Mather's mother's small shop, and to his horror, found that she knew nothing of what had happened to her daughter in Australia. The reporter had to break the news of the murder to her.