MASSACRE RETOLD
“He was spotted by a local police constable named Tooze, who alerted Sergeant McGrath who had seen Garcia when he was arrested for the burglary back in 1877. McGrath immediately recognised the fugitive, and Garcia was promptly handcuffed and locked up in the Newport police cell.”
According to a Press Association telegram, Garcia was found to have been carrying at the time of his arrest a large clasp-knife, several items of female clothing, the mechanism for a clock, and bread.
When Garcia was taken to Caerleon to be charged with murder before the magistrate, he was hissed and booed by an angry mob.
The coroner’s inquest on the murdered Watkins family opened at the White Hart, Llangibby, on July 19.
After the 12 jurors returned from a visit to the family cottage, the local doctor was ready to give details of the injuries: the throats of William Watkins and his wife had been cut with a a loaf of
“formidable knife”, and the same instrument had th then been used to “massacre the three children in a murderous frenzy”.
The knife found on Garcia was found to be too small and blunt to be the murder weapon, so it was believed “that after stunning William Watkins, the murderer had seized one of the kitchen knives to decimate the family”.
The inquest returned a verdict of wilful murder against Joseph Garcia, and he was committed to stand trial – which took place in Gloucester to avoid local prejudice.
A newspaper report said that thousands visited the cottage and people took parts of the home as souvenirs.
The trial of Joseph Garcia began on October 30, 1878, at the Gloucester Assizes.
His defence said that Garcia found the dead family and took some items, but did not kill them.
Mr Bondeson wrote: “The jury never left the box, but arrived at a verdict of guilty after just a few min- utes of discussion. Baron Bramwell put on the black cap and sentenced Garcia to death. He was executed at Usk Prison on November 18, 1878, amidst much public uproar: the executioner Marwood was toasted by the mob at the Crown Inn and the Three Salmons, and three rousing cheers were given as his train steamed out of Usk Station.”
He added that there has been doubts over Garcia’s guilt, including no eyewitness testimony and that Garcia had no motive to commit murder.
A writer of several unsolved murder mystery books, Mr Bondeson said he became interested in the Llangibby Massacre in 2001 after visiting the Usk Rural Life Museum.
Mr Bondeson said: “The Llangibby murder house was razed to the ground a year or two after the massacre, since no person would live there.”
He added that the four older surviving children could have living descendents today.
Victorian Murders by Jan Bondeson was published by Amberley Publishing on December 15, 2017, and is available for £14.99