Yet it is not just the murders story itself that was fascinating, it had to be followed by an execution. The older I got the more repulsive capital punishment became to me, yet there was still something about it that gripped me.

When I moved to Cheshire some 10 years ago, I found a reference to a murder in Winsford, where I now lived. I took the opportunity to look up the murder in the old newspapers stored in the microfilm in the local library, and a wider story began to build up. The people and the places were very local, and very real. Although it was almost 100 years ago, the places were all still there, and could be looked at.

I began to try and imagine how things were for the people involved, not just the appalling and senseless murder of a young girl, but what of her family? What of the family of the murderer? Over a period of time the whole picture came together. I found out how the local community came together. The grief of both the families involved, and of the town itself. It was a sad story, with no winners or losers. A tragedy. The more '‘cases'’ I look at the more this becomes apparent. Look deeper into the story of Crippen, and you will realise that could be any of us in his position.

Murderer or Victim? The only thing we can say for certain is that they were people just like us. Ordinary people until they were caught up in extra-ordinary circumstances.

This book is an attempt to look at some of these people, and try to put their story into the context of the times they lived in.

I will not bring that story up to the present, for we can all make our own individual judgements on the standards of today