Murder Most Foul Part 1 - Provided by John Wright
According to one chronicler, the Golden Balls hostelry had a dodgy reputation-which is not surprising considering a sensational murder was committed there.
In 1706 a guest was found murdered in his bed with his throat cut and the landlord standing over him with a bloodstained knife. The landlord was arrested, taken to the Castle jail and subsequently hanged.
However, 18 months later it emerged that although the landlord had intended to do the deed, he was forestalled by the dead man’s valet who made a deathbed confession - but not in time to save the landlord’s head.
As might be expected, the tragedy inspired a melodrama ‘The murder at the roadside inn” which enjoyed great popularity for some years.
Acknowledgment to John Owen Oxford Mail 1982
Murder Most Foul Part 2 - Provided by John Wright
On October 8th 1787, David Charteris “a Scotch pedlar” was walking home to Toot Baldon from Abingdon fair and had almost reached his cottage when he was brutally robbed and murdered by four men.
Despite a reward offered by Mr Christopher Willoughby, nothing was heard until 1790 when Richard Kirby, a private in the Berkshire Militia confessed. He named three other men, two of whom were immediately arrested, tried and condemned; Kilby turning Kings evidence for a pardon.
The arrest of the fourth man took longer. A speculative raid by the Bow Street Runners where he might be hiding disclosed evidence that he was on board one of his Brittanic Majesty’s Men of War. Nothing could be done until the ship berthed at Spithead in 1791, when Bow Street Runners arrested the man and returned him to Oxford for trial.
Acknowledgment to John Owen Oxford Mail 1982