Ruth Ellis: The Last Woman Hanged in Britain
A Life of Hardship
Ruth Ellis was born in 1926 in Wales. Her life was marked by hardship from the beginning. She worked as a nightclub hostess in London, a job that brought her into contact with wealthy men—including David Blakely, a racing driver from a privileged background.
Ruth and David began a tumultuous relationship. He was controlling, violent, and unfaithful. Ruth became pregnant with his child but miscarried after David punched her in the stomach. Despite the abuse, Ruth couldn't break free from him.
The Murder
On Easter Sunday, April 10, 1955, Ruth Ellis went to the Magdala pub in Hampstead, where she knew David would be. When he emerged from the pub, Ruth pulled out a revolver and shot him. She fired six shots, hitting him four times. David died on the pavement.
Ruth made no attempt to flee. She stood calmly and waited for police to arrive. When they asked what she had done, she replied simply: "I shot him."
The Trial
Ruth Ellis's trial began on June 20, 1955, and lasted less than two days. The evidence was clear: Ruth had shot David Blakely in cold blood. She admitted it. She showed no remorse.
Her defense tried to argue that it was a crime of passion, driven by years of abuse and emotional torment. But under British law at the time, there was no defense for premeditated murder. Ruth had brought a gun. She had intended to kill him. That was murder.
The jury deliberated for just 14 minutes before returning a guilty verdict. Ruth Ellis was sentenced to death by hanging.
The Execution
Public opinion was divided. Some believed Ruth deserved to hang for cold-blooded murder. Others argued that she was a victim of domestic abuse who had been pushed to her breaking point.
Petitions were signed. Protests were held. But the Home Secretary refused to grant clemency.
On July 13, 1955, Ruth Ellis was hanged at Holloway Prison. She was 28 years old. She became the last woman to be executed in the United Kingdom.
The Legacy
Ruth Ellis's execution sparked national outrage and reignited the debate over capital punishment in Britain. Many felt that her execution was unjust, especially given the circumstances of domestic abuse.
In 1965, just ten years after Ruth's death, the United Kingdom abolished the death penalty for murder.
Ruth Ellis's case became a landmark in British legal history. Her story highlighted the need for laws that consider domestic abuse and emotional trauma as factors in criminal cases.
Ruth Ellis was the last woman hanged in Britain. Her death helped change the law forever.
TRANSCRIPT:
[00:00:00] In the spring of 1955, a crime of passion unfolded on a quiet London Street. Capturing the attention of an entire nation. At the center was a young woman whose life had been marked by heartbreak, violence and desperation. Her trial would spark national outrage, divide public opinion, and raise uncomfortable questions about justice, morality, and gender.
What followed was a story that would leave a lasting mark on British legal history, and decades later, the case still haunts the public and refuses to be forgotten. Hey guys. Welcome to Moms and Myster, a True Crime podcast featuring myself, Mandy, and my dear friend Melissa. Hi Melissa. Hi Mandy. How are you?
Do we want the, I see your eyes darting around, like you're actually trying to think, uh, do we want the fake? I'm great, Melissa, how are you? Or do we, do we want the truth this week? You give the truth. Bring the truth, preach. Yeah. So this week just, uh, wasn't my favorite week, that's for sure. I did get to go visit my family this past weekend, which it's always really nice.
I don't [00:01:00] get to see my mom very often, probably only a couple times a year. So it's always nice to get up there and go visit her. And it did happen to work out that it was her birthday. The day that I went up to visit, so that was really special. I know she wasn't expecting to see me on her birthday. Yeah.
But unfortunately, the reason that I went is because my grandmother was not doing very well, and she did unfortunately pass away a couple of days ago. So it has just been a little bit of a whirlwind of a week just between traveling and then. Just everything that comes with, uh, losing a family member. Uh, she was 91, so she did live a very long life.
She had a very happy life and I definitely will miss her very much, but I know she is in a better place and I'm so thankful that I was able to get up there on short notice because I did have one day of the trip. The very first day that I got there, I went straight to visit her in the nursing home and she was.
Very lucid that day and recognized me. Mm-hmm. And was able to talk to me a little bit and by the next morning it was just completely different and Wow. Um, [00:02:00] it was only a few days after that, so very thankful I got to go do that. Um, but yeah, maybe not the best week for me. How about you, Melissa? Yeah, I mean.
Fine. I mean, there's not, what am I gonna say? Am I gonna start complaining now? There's nothing to complain about. Um, no, I'm good. Uh, you know, it's been a week and we'll talk about this more on our chat episode over on Yes. Trian. Um, yes. Because we'll have a lot to say. Absolutely. All right. So we will just get into the story for this week then.
The story might be from 1955, but it really is a tale as old as time. It's the tale of a woman scorned. Ruth Ellis was a woman who had plenty to be angry about, beginning with the physical and sexual abuse that she endured at the hands of her father from the time she was 11 years old. And on Ruth's father, Arthur Hornby, later changed his name to Arthur Nielsen was a cellist from Manchester who fathered a total of nine children with a Belgian refugee named Bertha.
Four [00:03:00] of their children died from Scarlet Fever, measles, or other diseases, and Ruth was the fourth of six living children. The large family moved and changed their last name often, which could have been to conceal Arthur's abuse everywhere they lived. He would tell people that the kids weren't even his children, though his abuse affected everyone in the house.
It was Ruth's sister Muriel, who sadly took the brunt of it. By the time she was 14, she had conceived a child by her father who was raised with the rest of the family as a brother to the rest of the children. In 1940, Arthur moved to London for a job as a live-in caretaker, which is an absolutely, oh my gosh, horrific thought.
And at the time, Ruth was 14 years old and she was living in Redding, and she soon made friends with her older brother's girlfriend, Edna. Edna introduced Ruth to a life of alcohol and men. Eventually, both Ruth and Edna moved in with Arthur, [00:04:00] and at that point, Arthur began sleeping with Edna and abusing Ruth at the same time.
At one point, Ruth's mom, Bertha came to visit and found Arthur in bed with Edna, and she then moved to London to keep tabs on him. When Ruth was 17, she fell for a man who was 10 years older than her. This was a Canadian soldier named Claire Andre McCallum. This was in the middle of World War ii, and Ruth was just beside herself with excitement for this new relationship despite the fact that this guy, Claire, was actually married.
Sister described him as being very charming and sophisticated. He took Ruth to plays in the West End and to movies in Soho. Everything just felt like something out of a fairytale or a dream until the point that it didn't. Eventually Ruth got pregnant and Claire promised to marry her after the war. But Ruth's mother was worried about the shame that the pregnancy would bring, and she sent Ruth over 250 miles away to give birth at a hospital near [00:05:00] Scotland.
Ruth delivered a baby boy named Claire Andre or Andy Nielsen. When Ruth returned home with her son, her mom, Bertha turned them away and refused to welcome them back. By this time, Claire had gone off to France with the military. He sent Ruth a dozen carnations and then he just disappeared, and Ruth would later find out about his wife and kids that were waiting for him back in Canada.
After Claire abandoned Ruth and their son, she worked in factories and took clerical jobs to make ends meet, but she had a hard time finding steady work and eventually she sent her son Andy to live with her mom while she looked for work, which is interesting because this is the same mom who was like, Hey, he can't live in my house.
Right? But. Now we can. So from that point forward, Ruth had many troubled relationships, many of which were tangled up with clients. The most serious relationship was with a man named George Johnston. Ellis, a 41-year-old divorced dentist with a drinking problem, and the two of [00:06:00] them got married on November 8th.
But things quickly went sour. George became jealous, violent, and completely obsessed with the notion that Ruth was cheating on him. When Ruth got pregnant with her daughter Georgina, he refused to accept her as his own. The marriage eventually crumbled and Ruth had no choice but to move back in with her family.
Sadly, Ruth's children would endure a life of heartbreak just as she had. As Ruth struggled to find a consistent job. She took a position as a nude model at a mince nightclub, and she later went on to become a hostess. By 1950, she was working as an escort. In 1953, Ruth was working at the Little Club in Knightsbridge.
While working there, she was compelled to take an etiquette class designed to teach her how to be more refined and more upper class, which was something that was very common for women that were working in nightclubs if they wanted to move into more elite circles. At the age of 27, she became one of the youngest [00:07:00] female managers at a club, and she finally achieved financial success, social status, and even celebrity connections.
By the time Ruth started working at the Little Club. Life had already hardened her, and that's when David Blakely entered the picture. He was a well off racing driver who drank heavily, but he managed to charm his way into Ruth's life. Just two weeks after meeting, he moved into her flat even though he was actually engaged to another woman.
At the time, Ruth and David's relationship burned fast and got ugly quickly. It really was built on obsession, jealousy, and betrayal. And Ruth was now seeing that David actually wasn't that charming at all. In fact, he was a very dangerous man. On one occasion, he beat Ruth so badly that she miscarried a pregnancy in 1955, but she kept chasing this hope that he would change and they would someday have a stable relationship.
In the meantime, Ruth started seeing someone else. Desmond, a [00:08:00] former Royal Air Force pilot turned accountant. You don't hear about that a whole lot. No. Ruth and David broke up and they got back together so many times you just could not possibly count them. But each time she believed that David would finally stay.
David Blakely wasn't just anyone. He was born on June 17th, 1929, and he came from a very complicated background. His mom was Irish and his father was Scottish. His parents divorced, but David's mom did get remarried. David had served in the Highland Light Infantry during national service and briefly dabbled in hotel management before he found his true passion, which was behind the wheel of a race car, and that was something that he was actually very good at.
David had been selected to drive an emperor HRG at the Goodwood Races, and he was even lined up to compete in the prestigious LeMans, which I feel like I've heard of, but don't really know what it is. Have you ever heard of it? No, I don't. Oh, [00:09:00] I wouldn't even begin to know. So David lived in Hampstead and to outsiders.
He was a wealthy socialite with a very glamorous life, but behind closed doors. His relationship with Ruth was very toxic and volatile in a way that was simply unsustainable. By the end of 1953, Ruth had gotten pregnant again. This time David offered to marry her, but Ruth really just did not see a real future with him, and she wasn't in love with him, so she just did not think that marriage was the answer to all of their problems.
Instead, she decided to terminate the pregnancy, but her relationship with David still carried on into the summer of 1954, even though Ruth said that at that point she wasn't really taking things very seriously with David. Also keep in mind, David was still engaged to another woman and that played a huge part in Ruth's indifference towards him, I would imagine, right?
Ruth hinted that she wanted to end their affair and said that having him live [00:10:00] with her was hurting her work, but David didn't take it well at all. He just was not ready to let go of this relationship. That summer, David was away racing in LeMans, and while he was away, Ruth started seeing Desmond. She hoped that this new relationship would help her finally move on from David.
But when David returned, Ruth didn't even mention that she had been seeing someone else. At this point though, David must have suspected something because he started becoming even more jealous and suspicious, and he asked Ruth to marry him again and said that he had ended his engagement with the other woman.
I don't understand in these situations how either number one, a baby or number two, a marriage is going to help. Right? Yeah. You've just made it more complicated. Well, and in some cases I wanna be like, have you ever had a marriage or a baby? Because you wouldn't think that if you had, but in this case.
They did. So you know. Right. Yeah, I know. So after the proposal, things only [00:11:00] got worse. David became even more possessive and Ruth started to have suspicions that he was cheating on her after he came home with what she called love bites on his back. Interesting place to have love bites though. I know. I was like, love bite.
Taking what were doing is what I'm thinking. When it gets to the back, I'm like. I, I don't know. I don't know that life. Ruth confronted David and asked him to leave, and David later apologized to Ruth at the club and he professed his love for her, which worked. He successfully pulled her back in. There's the love bombing.
By October of 1954, his jealousy had turned into rage and the abuse have become physical. David was now causing a scene at the club where Ruth worked and resented that she had a job at all. Yet he leaned on her financially. Ruth tried to end things repeatedly and felt physically unwell from the stress of being in a relationship with David.
In December, Ruth moved in with Desmond hoping that would finally help break the cycle that she was in with [00:12:00] David, but of course it didn't. David just wouldn't stay away. He continued to show up at the club and cause problems for Ruth, but despite all of this, she just couldn't shake him off. Sometimes they would stay together at hotels, which was chaotic and painful, but Ruth admitted that she still loved him.
In February of 1955, things turned violent yet again. After David had a night of drinking, he drove Ruth home and then he refused to leave. So a fight broke out and Ruth was left with bruises and a sprained ankle. David sent her flowers and an apology a few days later, and she took him back again. They rented a room together, but before long, Ruth started to suspect that David was seeing someone else just the same pattern over and over again.
Yeah, it's so sad. So she started to follow him, and one night she waited outside of another woman's home until the morning. Then she watched as David walked out and confronted him and told him it was [00:13:00] over. David ended up moving out, but within a week they were back together. By March, Ruth was pregnant again.
This time David acted like he was excited for a little while, but the mood quickly shifted by the end of that same month when he became violent once more. David punched Ruth in the stomach during one fight and she miscarried the pregnancy a few days later. She wasn't sure if the attack was what had caused the miscarriage or not.
On April 1st, she attended one of David's races at Alton Park. On this particular day, David's race car malfunctioned before the race, and he irrationally blamed the problem on Ruth. She said that was actually very common. He would blame her for everything and he would smack her in the face. Yeah, he would punch her.
And she even said there was one time that he lost all control and hit her between the eyes and said that he savagely beat her as she just laid on the ground. It was Easter weekend in 1955 and Ruth was still [00:14:00] recovering in bed from her miscarriage. For the first time in a while, David was being kind and even gentle, and they made plans to spend Easter together that Friday, April 8th.
David left their flat in the morning and promised to be back by 8:00 PM to take Ruth out with his racing friends, the fine leaders. They were longtime friends of David and he had stayed in their home in Hamstead often, and Mr. Fe later was also involved in racing. He and David were actually building a car that was being stored at a garage in Mayfair.
As the hours ticked by that night and David failed to return home, Ruth got more and more anxious and suspicious, and finally that turned into just being furious. Ruth called the fine leaders to see if they knew where David was, but they denied knowing where he was and said that he wasn't there. But Ruth suspected otherwise she thought that he was over there.
She eventually persuaded Desmond, who's the man that she's seeing, you know, other than David, [00:15:00] and she asked Desmond to drive her to Hamstead, where she ended up spotting David's car, parked right outside the find laters. So Ruth goes up to the door and rings the doorbell, but nobody answers. So then she got into a phone booth and tried calling again, but there was again no answer.
Then she called again, and this time somebody did answer, and all Ruth heard in the background was laughter and a woman's voice giggling. Ruth at this point was just overcome with anger, and she picked up a heavy object and smashed David's car windows. The noise jolted the household awake, and David came running outside with Mr.
Fine. Later when they saw the destruction, they called the police, but Ruth fled the scene with Desmond before they arrived. We have so much more to get into after a quick break to hear a word from this week's sponsors. And now back to the episode. So before the break, we were talking about this tumultuous and very toxic relationship between Ruth and David Blakely, and at [00:16:00] this point Ruth is.
Trying to confront David at the Fine Leader's house, but sees his car there and decides to smash the windows in. They call the police and she leaves with Desmond before the police arrive. So that night, Ruth's mind was spinning with rage, heartbreak, and humiliation. She hardly slept at all, and by the next morning she was back in Hampstead, sitting outside the fine leader's house, watching from a distance.
A neighbor who noticed Ruth standing there, kindly invited her in for tea, but Ruth just stood there and stayed fixated on the fine later house. Later she saw what she feared the most. David arriving with the fine. Later he was laughing and comfortable and acting like Ruth never existed. Her distress deepened as she became even more convinced that he was having an affair.
Later that night, she returned again and could hear the sounds of a party emanating from the house. There's music, there's voices, and laughter, and Ruth watches. As David [00:17:00] left at around midnight with his arm wrapped around a young woman who Ruth believed was the fine leader's. Nanny Ruth left, but she went back a short time later.
This time the house was dark. She had no answers, just silence and questions. By Sunday morning, which was now April 10th, Ruth was really unraveling. She dialed the fine laters number at 9:00 AM hoping that David would finally pick up, but it was Mr. Fine later who answered instead, and Ruth said quote, I hope you're having an enjoyable holiday because you have ruined mine.
But still, David never called her. That night after putting her son to bed, Ruth was suddenly struck with what she called a peculiar idea that she was going to kill David. Now, Mandy, peculiar idea, those are words I would not use if I was planning to kill someone. It's very, it sounds like very 1955 language because we wouldn't use peculiar in that sense.
No, I looked it up. 'cause I was like, why [00:18:00] would, what other things are like, earlier I saw like a, a quirky notion. Okay. Still not, that's not, not quite hitting the mark. Yeah, right. An outlandish idea. It was like, that's the one that would've made more sense. Ruth packed a gun and asked Desmond to drive her back to Hampstead, but she did not tell him what she had in store for the night.
That Sunday evening, the fine leaders were hosting a small gathering at their home. The fine leader's house is hopping. Those people stay busy. I'm telling you, they did dinner parties like every other night of the week. Yeah, I'm tired just reading it. So David and his friend Clive left the party to get more beer from the Magdala Pub, which was just around the corner.
Little did they know Ruth was already there waiting just before 9:00 PM a plain closed detective inside the pub noticed Ruth outside peering through a window and another off-duty officer saw her standing outside, but they didn't think anything of it. At around nine 15, David and Clive left the pub and walked toward their [00:19:00] car.
Clive walked over to the passenger side, but before he could open the door and get in two gunshots rang out. Clive then heard David call his name before he saw him collapse face down on the pavement. As Clive looked over to see what was happening, he saw Ruth standing over David. Then she fired multiple shots into David's back.
Officer Thompson ran towards her as Ruth calmly just stood by a wall with a gun in her right hand, and she simply said. Phone the police. Ruth had fired all six of the bullets in her revolver. David was rushed to the hospital, but it was too late. He had three confirmed bullet wounds, one above his left hip, another in his left shoulder blade, and a third in his right leg.
A fourth bullet may have grazed his left arm. There was also a bystander that was hit in the hand by a bullet. A witness told authorities that he saw a man trying to get into a car before being chased by a woman [00:20:00] with blonde hair and a light coat, who then fired shots at the man. Later that night, Ruth sat down with the superintendent and readily admitted what she had done.
She said, I am guilty. I am rather confused. Ruth began to explain that everything started two years earlier when she first met David at the Little Club in Knightsbridge. Ruth was taken into custody and she gave a formal statement before she was taken to jail to await her trial. After her arrest, Ruth underwent psychiatric evaluations, but there was no diagnosis of any mental illness, no history of insanity, and nothing to suggest that she didn't understand what she had done in her statement to the police.
Ruth described the moment she pulled the trigger as David tried to run. She said he ran a few steps and she thought she missed him, so she fired again while he was still running and then again she said she didn't remember firing more shots after the third shot, but she admitted that she must have [00:21:00] done it.
Prosecutors later pointed at this statement as proof of intent. They said this wasn't just a crime of passion, it was planned and deliberate. And Ruth didn't even try to hide or deny it. She told the police that she took her gun, which was given to her about three years earlier in a club by a man whose name she said she did not remember, and she placed it in her handbag before leaving her house.
She also admitted that she intended on killing David. Ruth said that she took a taxi to Tanza Road, saw David's car leaving, and then followed him to the Mag Dola Pub where she waited for him to come out. Ruth was asked why she did it and she said, I do not really know quite seriously. I was very upset.
You think Ruth, that's like the lightest way you could say that? Yes. It would be interesting to hear her actually speak, because I feel like she was just a very matter of fact, like very blunt person, right? Because yeah, clearly you were upset, but it just, it is a strange response. And still it's back in the day.
Right. And also it's in [00:22:00] England, so Right. If you were alive at that time in England, let us know if that makes sense to you. Right. Because it seems quite casual. On June 20th, 1955, Ruth Ellis stood trial at the old Bailey, which is England's most iconic criminal court, and where the country's most serious cases were tried.
Ruth was represented by a team of three barristers. The lead prosecutor in her case was named Christmas Humphreys, and he set the tone for the trial, telling the jury that this was no crime of passion. It was a cold-blooded and premeditated murder. He pointed to Ruth's own admission of guilt when she told authorities that she intended to find David and to shoot him.
The prosecution painted a picture of a woman who was enraged, not because she had been betrayed, but because David wanted to leave her. They claimed that Ruth couldn't stand losing control. She also fired six shots, four of which hit David and one that struck a bystander. One bullet was never accounted [00:23:00] for.
The defense didn't argue that Ruth hadn't pulled the trigger. They admitted that she did. The defense told a story of emotional devastation and said that Ruth had been locked in what they called an emotional prison in this abusive relationship with David that was also poisoned by control, obsession, and abuse.
And they said that yes, she did fire the gun, but it wasn't murder. They said it was manslaughter, driven by a provocation and years of mistreatment under English law. Malice is a key element of murder. If the person kills while in a state of extreme emotional distress that actually clouds their judgment and the charge can be reduced to manslaughter.
Ruth's defense said that she was not a calculated killer, but a woman who was caught in an emotional prison with David, who was also a man that treated her poorly time and time again. They also said David used Ruth. He took her money cheated on her with other women. And she still kept taking him back.[00:24:00]
Their relationship was completely toxic, to say the least, and all consuming. The defense wasn't trying to justify what Ruth did. They just wanted the jury to understand why she did it. They said that shooting David was really the final act of a woman who had been hurt too many times. Desmond testified that he had known David for about three years, and Ruth for two.
He admitted that he and Ruth had been romantically involved in mid 1954. While she was still seeing David, he also explained that Ruth had moved in with him at the end of that year and stayed for about two months before relocating back to Eggerton Gardens, which is where David also sometimes lived. But she kept going back to Desmond's Flat even after she moved out.
Desmond said that on that Good Friday, Ruth asked him to drive her over to the fine leader's house, but David never showed up. And instead the night ended with Ruth smashing his car window and the police being called. Desmond was someone who cared very deeply for Ruth, and he described her as a woman who had [00:25:00] tried again and again to break free from David Blakely.
He testified that Ruth had confided in him about the abuse and that he had seen the bruises on her arms and shoulders himself. He said that he once even tried to help her cover her marks with makeup before they went out. Desmond also testified that he had once taken Ruth to the hospital after an especially brutal beating.
Then came the night of the shooting. Desmond said he drove Ruth to Hampstead that Sunday. He wasn't standing next to her when the shots rang out, but he heard them from a nearby vehicle and when he rushed toward the noise, he did see Ruth standing over. David firing more shots into his back. Forensic expert, Mr.
Lc Nichols from Scotland Yard confirmed what Desmond had seen and his analysis showed that at least one bullet had been fired at close range as there was gunpowder residue on the back of David's jacket. The defense also called a psychologist, Mr. Whitaker, to help explain Ruth's state of mind. He [00:26:00] testified that Ruth saw her relationship with David as being unbearable.
She believed he would never stop cheating on her, and that no matter how much he hurt her, she would never be able to keep herself from going back to him. Mr. Whitaker also pointed out how women tend to process betrayal, and they often find it harder than men to separate their physical relationships from their emotional ones.
He claimed they were more likely to have what he called hysterical reactions when they were overwhelmed. I don't know that you could say that in 2025. Yeah, maybe we don't immediately jump to a hysterical woman. Yeah, that's wild that, I mean, that really was a thing back in 1955. You know, in Ruth's case though, he believed that her emotional instability and sense of helplessness is what had pushed her past a breaking point.
To the defense though, this wasn't just about a crime of passion. It was a story about what happens when someone feels trapped with no way out. Ruth took the stand and testified about what she had done. She didn't try to [00:27:00] hide anything, and she said, quote, it is obvious when I shot him, I intended to kill him.
So why are we having a trial all year? No. So she spoke very candidly about her relationship with David and how they had become lovers within two weeks, despite David already being engaged to another woman, he stayed with Ruth at her flat during the week and spent the weekends elsewhere. From the very beginning, Ruth said the relationship never felt stable and she never felt secure with David.
When she got pregnant with his baby in 1954, she had the abortion hoping that it might finally end things between them. She said that she wasn't deeply in love with him, and she hoped that ending the pregnancy would be a turning point and it would also be the ending for their relationship, but it wasn't.
By March of the next year, Ruth was pregnant again, but she miscarried after one of David's violent outbursts, and afterward he apparently told her that he couldn't afford to support a child anyway. The relationship not only stayed rocky, it turned [00:28:00] more and more possessive and erratic. David would ask Ruth to marry him, but at the same time, he was growing increasingly controlling and jealous, especially when it came to her job at the club.
He had already been unfaithful, but now he was suspicious of her and was hitting her often. Ruth said on the stand that she bruised easily. She spoke about the brief affair with Desmond and how she had hoped that it would finally bring an end to things with David. But when David returned from a trip, he asked her to marry him again and claimed that he had ended this engagement with the other woman for her.
Ruth described the nonstop fighting and told a story about how she once asked David to leave, and he returned cold, distant, and miserable. Then one day he showed up at the club in tears. He was torn because his family didn't like Ruth, but he told her. To hell with my family. At this point in the relationship, Ruth was still legally married and at first she didn't want a divorce, but eventually she agreed and [00:29:00] believed that her future was with David.
Her testimony was raw and painful. Their relationship wasn't just a love affair gone wrong, it was much more than that. It was a relationship that was defined by control, jealousy, and. Emotional instability. And as the trial came to an end, Ruth's defense team made one final push. They asked the judge to consider a lesser charge of manslaughter instead of murder.
The defense had to show three things that Ruth was provoked by, something David had said or done, that she acted out of sudden emotional overwhelm and that a reasonable person might have reacted in a similar way. And that's exactly what they argued. They said Ruth had been pushed beyond her limits and that her actions were not calculated, but the result of a woman who had been tormented by years of abuse, jealousy and betrayal behind closed doors.
The judge and the attorneys debated whether the jury should even be allowed to consider the manslaughter option. Prosecutors said Ruth's case did not [00:30:00] qualify because she had made a plan, brought a loaded revolver and fired it six times. In the end, though, the judge agreed that there was intent and he removed the option to convict her of manslaughter.
It took the jury less than 15 minutes to deliberate and find Ruth Ellis guilty of murder. The sentence was automatic death by hanging. Wow. That shocked me. Yeah. Ruth did not appeal the verdict, but the public tried to appeal the verdict on her behalf. A petition that had over 50,000 signatures was delivered to the home Secretary Major Lloyd George pleading for clemency.
Strangers were begging the parliament to spare Ruth's life. The home office rejected the appeal and Ruth was told that she would be executed less than a month later on July 13th, 1955. Again, always so shocking to me when we do a story from this time period and find out that they were executing people that quickly back then.[00:31:00]
Yeah, you'd be guilty on a Monday and hung by a Friday. It was crazy. It's crazy. Yeah. So Ruth though is, I mean, take this for what you will, but she took the news as well as she possibly could and stayed pretty calm in her final days. She spent time with her mom and her solicitor outside in public. Ruth's supporters launched last minute efforts.
They sent more letters, they made more petitions just doing everything they could in hopes of stopping the execution, but nothing worked. Then on the morning of July 13th, just six minutes before Ruth was to be executed, the prison got a call claiming that Ruth had been granted last minute reprieve. The governor Charity Taylor rushed to confirm this, but it turned out to just be a cruel hoax.
Oh my gosh. I know. I can't imagine all the emotions felt within that moment from everyone, right? Yeah. So that morning though, Ruth had declined breakfast but accepted a glass of brandy. She [00:32:00] asked whether she would be blindfolded and awardees explained that a white hood would be placed over her head instead, before her death, Ruth wrote a letter to David's parents.
That ended with, I have always loved your son and I will die still loving him. At 8:59 AM Ruth Ellis was led to the execution chamber where she was hanged. The staff later said that she was the calmest woman who had gone to the gallows. A crowd gathered outside the prison with some people kneeling to pray while a man recited a psalm.
A violinist played music at the gates. At 9:17 AM a notice was posted on the prison wall announcing that the execution was complete. And upon hearing this news, two women who were outside fainted, Ruth Ellis was the last woman to ever be hanged in Britain. In total, just 14 women were ever executed in the UK during the 20th century at Ruth's inquest [00:33:00] pathologist, Dr.
Keith Simpson confirmed that Ruth died instantaneously and did not suffer. A trace of brandy was found in her stomach, and when the governor was asked whether it was standard to offer alcohol before an execution, she admitted that she didn't know. What I was more interested in knowing is, is it standard to do an autopsy on somebody that was executed?
I felt like that was kind of like the one time we really know what happens to someone. Right. I didn't know we'd have to go through the contents of her stomach. Right. That's why I was surprised. I was like, well, how did they even know that? Or why? Yeah, why is good? Yeah. The execution sent shockwaves throughout the country and it reignited the debate around capital punishment and marked a turning point in the UK's movement to abolish the death penalty.
Ruth had actually become a symbol in a case that just would never be forgotten at the time of her death. Ruth's son, Andy was just 10 years old and her daughter Georgina was only three. Just 33 hours after Ruth was hanged, a life-sized effigy of her likeness [00:34:00] was unveiled at a wax museum. They get things done so quickly back, I mean, how, like when did they start working on the wax figure is what I wanna know.
Like at what point? Because it seems like she was very quickly charged, tried and executed. So like, did they start. Working on this as soon as she was arrested. I don't understand. I know, I, I don't either. So the statue was dressed in a black evening gown and stood in the Blackpool Golden Mile Museum's rogues gallery next to other infamous criminals, including Mass murderer John Christie.
The wax figure became a top attraction drawing in crowds and a prophet, which some felt was uncouth. Madame Teos in London, which is known for its Chamber of Horrors, quickly distanced itself from Ruth's story and said they had no involvement in creating the wax figure and they refused to comment on it.
Local officials and clergy members accused the museum of exploiting public grief and glamorizing tragedy, but no clear law existed that would require [00:35:00] them to take the statue down. Meanwhile, teachers in the local area reported that children had returned to school deeply disturbed after Ruth's execution.
On the day she was hanged. Students had gathered outside and some claimed to be able to hear what was happening inside. Oh my goodness. Yeah. Teachers said that it was a psychological blow to young minds and that the effect capital punishment has on the youth should be considered as a reason to abolish the practice.
Also though, maybe we should abolish the practice of waiting outside of prisons while there's executions happening with children. Yeah. Yeah, maybe. Maybe that's not a day for a field trip. Downtown Labor MP Arthur Lewis announced a plan to push for executions to end immediately in Britain and said that Ruth's story should be a national wake up call.
Even before Ruth was hanged, public protests had swept the area and although Ruth did not join in the petition to save her own life, countless others had fought on her behalf. [00:36:00] The night before Ruth died, she told solicitor Victor Han, that it was Desmond who had given. Her the gun and taught her how to use it.
He even drank with her the day before driving to Hampstead. She said she hadn't mentioned it until now because it seemed like a betrayal. Desmond though denied it all and no charges were ever filed against him, but he later left the country and immigrated to Australia. And we still have more to get into after one last break to hear.
Were from this week's sponsors and now back to the episode. Before the break, we were telling the historical story of Ruth Ellis, who was a woman that was executed in the UK after shooting her on again, off again boyfriend person, if you can call him that. I use that term very loosely, uh, and he was very abusive towards her.
After Ruth was executed, her son Andy, fell into a life of emotional and psychological turmoil. In 1971, the prison underwent [00:37:00] reconstruction and Ruth's remains were exhumed and reburied in Amersham. Years later, in 1982, Andy, who of course was now an adult reportedly destroyed Ruth's headstone, and it was never replaced.
Later that year, Andy took his own life with an overdose. At the age of 37, the prosecutor who had tried Ruth, stepped forward and helped to arrange Andy's funeral. He was laid to rest on June 28th, 1982, and his remains were later buried with his mom. Ru's daughter. Georgina faced her own difficult path in life.
Having been just three years old, she was thrust into foster care and as an adult, she struggled with alcoholism and strained relationships. Georgie married multiple times and had six children, and later three grandchildren. She battled cancer for over a year before passing away in 2001 at the age of 50.
Before her death, Georgie published a book titled Ruth Ellis, my mother, [00:38:00] where she shared her memories and explored how her mom's tragic story had impacted her own life. Years later, Georgie's oldest daughter Laura talked about how Ruth's execution and Georgina's lasting trauma had actually shaped her own childhood as well.
She said that her attitude towards her mom had shifted into a more compassionate place. She said the government allowed Ruth to hang for her crime, and my mother never received any mental health support. I am guilty of underestimating the devastating impact this had on her. Nearly five decades after Ruth was hanged, her case returned to the court once more.
In 2003, the Criminal cases Review Commission referred her conviction to the Court of appeal. They weren't trying to reverse history or of course undo the execution. They just hoped to change what her conviction represented and wanted to see it reduced from murder to manslaughter. The appeal was heard on September 17th, 2003, and it centered around the question that [00:39:00] it haunted the case for decades.
Had Ruth really committed murder in the legal sense or had the wall failed to understand what drove her to pull the trigger? The appeals court listened carefully as Ruth's family and legal advocates introduced the concept of battered woman syndrome, which was of course unheard of in 1955 when Ruth was executed.
Back then, no legal framework existed that recognized the effects of long-term abuse. They cited David's abuse, infidelity, and of course the brutal beating that led to a miscarriage. Back in 1955, the trial judge had ruled there wasn't enough evidence for provocation and that the jury was not allowed to consider manslaughter in 2003, the legal team argued that it prevented the jury from fully considering Ruth's emotional and mental state in the days and years leading up to the crime.
They also brought up the concept of diminished responsibility, which also didn't exist at the time of Ruth's trial. It was [00:40:00] actually introduced two years later. If it was an option in 1955, Ruth's lawyers could have argued that her mental state was so severely impaired due to years of abuse, that she wasn't able to control her actions or form the intent required for murder.
Despite the emotional plea, the crown reminded the court that the intent was clear. Ruth had committed a murder. They argued that Ruth's conviction was legally sound and that her trial had followed the rules and standards of that time. They said that no matter how society's understanding of trauma and abuse had evolved, the court's job was not to rewrite history, but to interpret the law as it stood when the crime occurred.
David Perry said that Ruth's actions were driven by jealousy, not sudden impulse. He said that David had not assaulted Ruth on the day he was killed. He merely wanted to end the relationship, so arming herself with a loaded gun, tracking him down and killing him was in the crown's opinion, [00:41:00] entirely unacceptable.
He reminded the judges that Ruth herself had stated that she intended to kill David. Ultimately, the court stood firm and ruled that Ruth had been properly convicted of murder at that time, despite the fact that modern legal standards might have allowed for a different outcome. And so this appeal was denied for Ruth's family.
Her execution was not the end of anything but the beginning of a lifetime of grief, unanswered questions and quiet battles to reclaim her memory. Her sister Muriel, became the face of the fight and led the charge to overturn Ruth's conviction, believing that she was the victim, not just of David's abuse, but also of a justice system that just refused to see the signs.
Ruth's daughter, Georgie was constantly reminded of her traumatic childhood after her mother was hanged in 1955. Her father George died by suicide in 1958, leaving her an orphan. She was adopted, but she could never forget where she came from. [00:42:00] Her husband said that people would come up to her and ask her if she was Ruth's daughter.
It was just something that haunted her forever. Georgie carried the weight of it all for years, and she struggled with addiction. She struggled with her relationships and in motherhood. The fallout from Ruth's execution rippled through her family, but the legacy continued. In 1957, just two years after Ruth's death, the homicide act narrowed the scope of the death penalty.
1965, the murder abolition of Death Penalty Act effectively abolished it in Britain. Ruth Ellis wasn't the only reason, but her case was a catalyst for this change. Her name became shorthand for injustice, and her story became a symbol of a system that could be pretty merciless. Her life and death have been told and retold in countless ways.
Her daughter, Georgie, as I mentioned before, published a memoir titled Ruth Ellis. My mother and her sister Muriel co-wrote a book called Ruth Ellis. My [00:43:00] Sister's Secret Life Ruth's story was also brought to life on screen in dance with a stranger in 1985 and in 2025 ITV aired A Cruel Love the Ruth Ellis story.
Her final days were dramatized on stage in the thrill of love, which was performed in London in 2013. In March of 2025, Ruth's grandson, Steven launched a new effort to clear her name and to pursue a posthumous royal pardon. The legal team argued that Ruth was failed by the justice system and shared key evidence of David's abuse and Desmond's role in supplying the gun.
They said that the conviction reflected not only legal shortcomings, but also deep rooted society, prejudice against independent women and a lack of understanding around domestic abuse. The firm plans to present new evidence at the Ministry of Justice. They don't just wanna correct a historical mistake, but to put a spotlight on the systemic failure that still exists today.
In a twist of [00:44:00] fate, the pardon request will go to King Charles. That's the same royal who once represented the very law firm now fighting on Ruth's behalf. Wow. Yeah. They said, quote, this isn't just about history, it's about justice, and that's the story of Ruth Ellis. This is an interesting one, that it was such a catalyst to look for change in the way that things were.
Looked at in the courts over in England. Yeah. Well I was gonna say, it's always interesting because we hear, you know, we know a lot about benchmark cases or landmark cases in the United States and like, you know, we've even talked about a few on the podcast, like, this is the case that really started this law, or this is what founded this law.
But you don't really hear a lot of that about, you know, other countries and how every country has similar cases I'm sure that bring about those changes that we have today. Right. You know, and that's the reason that we live in the world we have today is because. People before us have gone through things that have not been pleasant.
Right. I didn't realize that the UK was still had executions in [00:45:00] 1955. Yeah. That just sounds like it wasn't, I mean I know the US still has it, but it just doesn't sound like the uk Right. Does like it Right. When they, when people from the UK talk about the death penalty, it sounds like it never existed.
Right. I didn't realize it was 1955 and I didn't realize we were still hanging people in 1955. I know. Horrific, horrific. So this was definitely a very interesting story. Hope you guys enjoyed it. And that was it for this week. We will be back next week. Same time, same place. New story. Have a great week. Bye.
