Alice Holt was the last woman to be executed at Chester in December 1863 after several botched attempts.
Despite Edward Woodward's best endeavours. There does not seem to be much doubt about this case.
Alice was a young widow who became the common law wife to George Holt in Stockport. Due to the American civil war, the cotton industry was on its knees. Many people were out of work.
The slum house she lived in was shared with her mother Mary and four other lodgers.
To make ends meet Alice would pawn George's clothes. Even though her mother was ill. Alice took life insurance out on her mother for the sum of £25. She got a friend to impersonate her to pass the medical for the insurance policy.
Soon Mary fell ill with a stomach complaint. She also purchased arsenic from the pharmacy to clean bugs in the house.
Mary died from gastroenteritis. Its symptoms are similar with arsenic poisoning. Alice claimed on the life insurance policy and gave her mother a good send off. The cost was £14 for the funeral.
It looks like her lodgers might have had suspicions about the arsenic and went to the police. Alice later alleged that George put pressure on her to take out the life insurance. That he poisoned her mother.
Alice was pregnant and gave birth in jail before she was hanged.
This was a decent enough Victorian set drama but I was not convinced there was much of a mystery.