Foul Deeds and Suspicious Deaths around the Tees - True Crime BookFoul Deeds and Suspicious Deaths Around the Tees, contains over sixty terrible and gruesome tales, that are set in the locality including; Barnard Castle, Darlington, Middlesbrough, Hartlepool and many of the surrounding villages.In the nineteenth-century, Victorian industrialists built their empires in the beautiful scenery and charming villages of the Tees area, using the river for transport of the commodities that were produced. Small, cramped houses were built to accommodate the rising population and often three or more families would live in one small dwelling. Many of the workers were illiterate and heavy drinkers. Domestic violence and drunken brawls were common amongst the poorer classes. Women and children were often a burden to the breadwinner and were held in low esteem. In a period spanning 100 years from 1799-1899 these well-researched events give an insight into the darker side of our region's history and heritage.Take a journey into the darker side of your area and let your spine tingle, as you read Foul Deeds and Suspicious Deaths Around the Tees.

Newcastle, Gateshead, Morpeyh, Tynemouth and North and South Shields were towns of great wealth because of the many natural resources in the area. Certainly by the eighteenth century, Newcastle had become the most important commercial centre in the north, but, along with the wealth of the merchants and the factory owners there was the dire poverty of the working class. A pall of dark fog would linger over the buildings caused by the pollution spouting out from the chimneys of the ironworks and other industries. Bad housing, sanitation, overcrowding and low wages bred superstition, ignorance and illiteracy. Alcohol was often the only release the poorer classes had from their otherwise hum-drum daily drudge. It was not only the men who would spend all their money in the many beer houses, women also would drink themselves into oblivion, even if it meant their children went hungry. Foul Deeds and Suspicious Deaths in and around Newcastle spans three hundred years of grisly events beginning with the execution of so-called witches. The stories will show the reader the depraved side of their fellow man and give an insight into the darkest side of the history of the area.

Foul Deeds and Suspicious Deaths in and Around Durham spans four centuries, with over fifty terrible tales of man's inhumanity to man, which are related in the pages of this book. In the early centuries superstition and ignorance were often the means by which justice was meted out. If it was believed that a crime had taken place, a person could be tried, condemned and hanged by the side of the road on nothing more than the statement of a neighbor. The nineteenth century saw the development of the coal industry. This brought thousands of impoverished men looking for work. Sadly , the wages were often spent on alcohol and women were often nothing more than punching bags for the drunken abusive husbands as is the case of Dorothy Wilthew who was murdered at Jarrow by her husband after years of abuse. Other cases include; Joseph Hutchinson who murdered his brother and father at Sedgefield later he was found to be insane, a child was kidnapped and later murdered by Isabella Thompson at Bishop Auckland and Maria Fitzmmons was found stabbed to death in Sunderland in 1869 it was to be 13 years before her killer, Thomas Fury, was convicted of the crime .
Take a journey into the darker and unknown side of your area as you read Foul Deeds and Suspicious Deaths in and Around Durham.