The disappearance of a horse dealer evoked a gruesome murder twenty-five years before. The victim’s legs were witnessed by a small boy.
“COUNTRY NEWS
Northampton, Dec. 22. The following very extraordinary affair occasions great uneasiness in this town and neighbourhood. A Mr. Leppar, a very considerable dealer in horses, left his house in this town on the 27th November last, taking with him 500 l. in order to purchase horses for some fairs in Yorkshire, and leaving thirty horses in his stable, which he had lately bought to serve his customers. The time which he usually took up in performing this journey, was about five days. On the first day of his journey he was seen at Highgate house, about ten miles from Northampton. He left Highgate-house about eleven o’clock the same morning, and no tidings have been heard of him or his horse since. The pits in the neighbourhood have been dragged, and the woods, coppices and ditches searched in vain.. He wore a bay cropped mare, with a white face, two bar shoes before, which has been advertised hitherto to no purpose. – It is remarkable, that a travelling pedlar disappeared within a mile or two of the very spot where Mr. Leppar was seen last, about twenty five years since. When a short time afterwards a little child, about four years old, whose father and mother lived in a lone house in the parish of Holywell, told its playfellows, that ‘he could not help laughing at seeing the pedlar’s legs hang out of their oven.’ This being noised about, the later Mr. Rainsford, of Brixworth, a neighbouring justice, took the parents into custody. The woman confessed that her husband, with the assisstance of some other villains, had murdered the poor man in her house, and had buried him in the garden; but not thinking that concealment of the body sufficient, that they afterwards dug the corpse up, and burnt it to ashed in their oven. For this purpose they had made choice of the night, and had sent the children to bed; but, it seems, the noise which they made awakened the little boy, who, looking through the crack of the chamber floor saw the poor man’s legs hanging out of the oven. This circumstance produced the discovery, and, by the activity of the magistrates, the principals, and several others belonging to the gang, were executed.”
The Stamford Mercury, 2nd January, 1783.