This shocking Kent story comes from Matfield, near Tonbridge. Discover more local history while exploring with our Tonbridge Quiz Trail.
In 1940, businessman Charles Henry Fisher was separated from his wife Dorothy. The couple remained married but led separate lives. Charles had begun a relationship with wealthy widow Florence Iris Ouida Ransom, while Dorothy and their nineteen-year-old daughter Frieda were living at a cottage in Matfield.
At first, the unusual arrangement appeared surprisingly amicable. Charles still visited his wife and daughter to make sure they were all right.
But Florence became consumed by jealousy.
On 9 July 1940 she travelled to Matfield carrying a shotgun wrapped in brown paper. Charles wasn't there. Dorothy, Frieda and their housekeeper Charlotte Saunders were.
Florence enticed mother and daughter into the garden and shot them. When Charlotte ran out, she too was shot. Florence fled - dropping a white leather glove that would help connect her to the crime.
She was convicted of murder and sentenced to death, but further medical assessment found her legally insane. The sentence was commuted and she was sent to Broadmoor Hospital.
A quiet Kent village, a complicated love triangle and one small white glove left behind: the Matfield Murders became a wartime crime story reported far beyond Kent.
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