It was shortly after 4.30pm on a midsummer's afternoon that William Hall, his son Thomas and a friend Timothy Pitman arrived home from Sunday service.

The young Hall pushed the front door open and let out a bloodcurdling scream. His father ran in after him to discover his wife lying in a pool of blood. Her throat had been hideously slashed.

But why she had been butchered remains unclear.

Was the killer mad or acting under orders? No one will know.

The wife of an Isle of Wight master boot maker, she was highly popular in the village of Shalfleet.

There was no sign of a struggle, she had not been violated and the perpetrator appeared to have left empty handed.

News of the murder quickly spread and relatives, neighbours and friends gathered to console the family as the deceased was laid out in the best room.

A few hours later, a man called Joseph Gosling was riding along a dusty lane towards Ningwood when he came across a group in earnest conversation.

Seeing the rider approach, one of them, John James rushed forward and shouted, “Joseph, have you heard the news? My mistress is dead, horribly murdered.”

James bade farewell to the others and after Gosling had helped him to mount his horse, they rode on together in the fading light.

“Tell me more as we travel,” Gosling urged.

But as they trotted along the trail, Gosling realised something, somewhere, was not right and became increasingly apprehensive of the 20-year-old apprentice's account.

How did James come to know so much of the murder's most gruesome details when he claimed to have spent the day at Yarmouth with his sisters and had only just met the other men.

It was just after 10pm when the pair reached the Hall household. James went in first, to be comforted by a tearful Elizabeth Blow.

“Rough usage here today,” James remarked.

“Yes, the worst luck,” she replied.

Gosling signalled Hall and his son to come outside and reported his suspicions.

Thomas Hall immediately returned and confronted James: “Oh, John, Oh John, you have deprived me of my tender mother.”

Shocked and silent mourners then heard James admit his guilt. “My hand did it. But I would have murdered her or any other person there at the time. It was done with a hatchet.”

Blow then took hold on a lantern and the apprentice, accompanied by several men, indicated where the murder weapon had been hidden.

“Aren't you sorry for what you have done?” Gosling demanded.

“No, I'm not sorry for myself but for her children.”

“You'll be hanged,” said Blow.

“I wish it,” he sighed, describing how he had carried out his murderous assault on Mrs Hall as she swept the chimney corner.

He was detained by the Island authorities and at the conclusion of the coroner's inquest was committed for trial at Hampshire Assizes in Winchester.

The hearing took place three weeks later on July 12, 1812, when a succession of witnesses could not explain why he had butchered Mrs Hall.

“I have known James for three years,” Blow testified. “He has never displayed any signs of madness and every Sunday he attends the Methodist meeting.”

The prisoner could - or would - not elaborate on why he had committed the crime.

Jurors never left their box to consider their verdict and found him guilty James was ordered to be hanged and dissected.

The nearest he came to giving an explanation was one of his sisters in the condemned prisoner's cell.

“I don't why I did it but was ordered to” - and said no more, taking his secret to the grave...