Murder and Execution.

The morning of Monday 25th August 1783 had been one of sunshine and showers. At around 10 a.m. twenty-five-year-old Mary Bax, a well-respected young woman from Deal, began her journey along the ancient highway to Sandwich. The purpose of her journey was to deliver a parcel (sadly, records don’t record its contents). As she passes the "Checker’s Inn" (also known as the "Halfway House") she passes a young vagabond sitting at the road side. Whether Mary took any notice of Martin Laas (all the official records spell his name thus) is not known. But upon spotting Mary carrying her parcel Laas decides to follow and rob her.

He stalks his victim for about half a mile, before finally catching her up. Laas asks for directions to Sheerness. Mary replies that he is a ‘great distance’ away, and when Lass begs for money to ‘bear his expenses’, Miss Bax regrets she has none to give. Unperturbed, Martin Laas accompanies his prey a little longer. The Newgate Calendar reveals what occurred next:-

…[O]n passing a ditch, [he] pushed her into it, and jumping upon her, into mud and water up to his middle, and thus smothered her. He then took a bundle which she carried in her hands, and her shoes from her feet, with which he made off through the marshes, across the country towards Dover.

Unfortunately for Laas his crime was witnessed by a looker’s son (‘Looker being a Kentish colloquialism for a shepherd). The boy, whose surname was Rogers (eleven or twelve-year-of-age), had been sheltering from the rain in a haystack, when he heard Mary’s desperate screams. Upon seeing Rogers coming towards him Laas fled. After discovering Mary’s body lying among the reeds and bulrushes, Rogers then ran toward Deal to raise the alarm. He was immediately taken to the local magistrate, where he explained all.

Martin Laas was eventually caught sleeping in a churchyard in Dover (some more contemporary accounts state it was Folkestone). He was committed to St Dunstan’s Gaol at Canterbury, to await his trial at the next Maidstone Assizes.

The only known illustration of Martin Laas, as featured in the Illustrated Police News of 18 November 1882.

At his trial in Maidstone the defendant behaved with ‘unparalleled audacity’. He showed no remorse; on the contrary he appeared very cheerful. He mocked the court and insulted the witnesses. When the guilty verdict was given Laas gave three cheers and became so rowdy that the judge ordered that the prisoner be chained to the floor of his cell, until the time of his execution. It was during this period that Laas confessed to the murder. He was hanged on Penenden Heath, which until Christmas 1830 was the site for all Maidstone’s executions. Laas didn’t die alone. Also upon the scaffold was John Huntley (convicted of murdering his wife). After the execution Huntley was sent to be anatomized, but the surgeons, according to the Newgate Calendar, had no interest in Laas and his corpse was burned beneath the gallows.