Anne Naylor managed to slip into the street and appealed to a passing milkman. She begged for his protection: should she be returned to her mistress, she declared, she would perish of hunger and cruel usage. The reprieve proved fleeting. Sarah Metyard, the daughter of the house, seized her by the neck and dragged her back by main force. Her mother pinned Anne across the bed whilst Sarah beat her with the handle of a broom.
The two women carried on a millinery business in Bruton Street, near Berkeley Square. In 1758, five young girls had been bound over to them as parish apprentices from various workhouses. Anne, being of a frail constitution, was unable to perform as much labor as the other girls of her age. This infirmity, according to Borrow, rendered her the immediate object of both women’s fury. She had already attempted to escape on a former occasion; after being brought back, she was locked in an upper room and allowed each day but a morsel of bread and a little water.
Following her second capture, her punishment was converted into an exemplary terror for the other apprentices. A cord was tied about her waist and her hands were bound behind her back; the line was made fast to the door in such a manner that she could neither sit nor lie down. She was kept bound in this fashion for three successive days, being permitted to lie down only at night. For three days and two nights she remained wholly without sustenance, whilst the other girls were made to work in an adjoining room. They were obliged to witness her suffering, yet strictly forbidden to offer her the least relief, under pain of undergoing the very same torment should they disobey.
On the fourth day, Anne began to speak with great difficulty. Her body ceased to move. The apprentices cried out to Sarah: “Miss Sally, Nanny does not move.” Coming upstairs, Sarah replied that she would make her move, and struck her upon the head with the heel of a shoe. Seeing no sign of life, she called for her mother. The elder woman ordered the cords to be cut and took the girl’s body upon her lap; she dispatched one of the apprentices for a phial of smelling salts to revive her.
The apprentices were then sent below. The Metyards soon perceived that Anne was dead and carried her body into the garret. To the other children they gave out that the girl had suffered a fainting fit but had since recovered, pretending she was locked above to prevent any further escape. At noon, Sarah carried up a plate of meat, openly declaring she was taking Anne her dinner. This deceit served a calculated purpose: it sustained the belief that the girl was alive, whilst keeping her entirely concealed from view.
Four days after the murder, they concealed the body in a trunk. They then left the garret door unlocked and the street door standing ajar. An apprentice was directed to go up and call Anne down to dinner, with the promise that if she pledged to behave properly, she should have her liberty restored. The child returned from the garret alone: Anne was not there. The two women straightway feigned a search throughout the premises and gave out that she had fled once more.
Anne’s sister was likewise an apprentice within the house. She gave no credence to the tale. Her sister’s shoes, shift, and other garments still lay in the garret; Anne could not possibly have departed in the manner alleged. She confided her suspicions to a lodger. That word cost her her life. Perceiving that she might disclose what they had done, the two women made away with her and concealed her body. The chronicle mentions neither the precise date nor the manner of this second death. Borrow directly attributes the murder to the young girl’s suspicions; this point remains solely supported by his narrative.
Anne’s body remained for two months inside the trunk in the garret, the door kept shut to contain the stench. On the 5th of December, the Metyards resolved that the remains must be disposed of. That night, they dismembered the body, wrapping the head and trunk in one cloth and the limbs in another, setting aside one hand—from which a finger had been amputated prior to death—to be consumed by fire. Once the surviving apprentices were asleep, the mother cast the hand into the grate, remarking that fire tells no tales.
She had intended to reduce the entirety of the remains to ashes, but the intolerable stench compelled her to desist. She took the parcels to Chick Lane and attempted to cast them down a gully-hole behind a wall. Failing in this, she abandoned them in the mud and water before the grate. The record does not show that this discovery immediately provoked an investigation. The bodies of the two sisters vanished from the house, and years passed away.
Yet the violence between mother and daughter did not abate. The elder woman frequently beat Sarah and opposed her leaving the home. A man named Rooker, who had lodged for a time with the Metyards, witnessed the ill-treatment inflicted upon the younger woman and offered her a place as a servant in his own house. She accepted, despite her mother’s fierce resistance. Later, when he removed to a small inherited property at Ealing, she followed him. The chronicle states that he had seduced her and that she lived with him in the capacity of a mistress. Her mother continued to visit her, perpetually provoking fresh altercations.
On the 9th of June 1762, a violent quarrel broke out at Rooker’s house. The mother struck her daughter, and bitter reproaches were exchanged. Sarah called her mother “the perfumer” and “the Chick Lane ghost”—words that directly alluded to Anne’s remains abandoned near the drain. After the mother’s departure, Rooker pressed Sarah to explain the meaning of these terms. She burst into tears, confessed the murders to him, and implored him to keep her secret.
Rooker at first believed Sarah could not be held criminally responsible, having acted under her mother’s compulsion. Nevertheless, he wrote to the parish overseers of Tottenham, whence the girls had originally been bound out. The mother was apprehended. At the examination before the Bow Street magistrates, Sarah, Rooker, and two former apprentices gave evidence. The elder woman was committed to the New Prison, and the surviving girls were placed under the protection of the parish officers of St George’s, Hanover Square.
At their trial, mother and daughter accused one another in turn, their mutual recriminations serving only to establish their guilt before the court. Sarah, pleading pregnancy in bar of execution, was examined by a jury of matrons, who found she was not quick with child. Both were sentenced to death. Four years had elapsed between the murder and its discovery, according to the chronology of the chronicle; the trial followed swiftly upon the revelation in 1762. Time had not severed the bond of their complicity, but had soured it into mortal hatred, until Sarah at last surrendered the secrets of the house.
On the 19th of July 1762, they were conveyed to Tyburn. The mother swooned before she could be placed in the cart and lay senseless throughout the journey. Upon reaching the place of execution, all attempts to revive her failed, and she was launched into eternity without recovering consciousness. Sarah wept without ceasing from the moment she quitted Newgate until her death. The chronicle records neither what she repented of, nor what her tears could avail the children she had so cruelly used; it leaves only this final tableau of two women, condemned for the same crime, who took such different paths to the gibbet.