Murder
On 7 April 1779, in the company of close friend and fellow singer Caterina Galli, Ray left her home to attend a performance of Isaac Bickerstaffe's comic opera Love in a Village. She had been approached by Hackman earlier that evening, but when she declined to tell him where she was going he followed her to the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, where he murdered her. Hackman believed that she had taken another lover, William Hanger, Baron Coleraine, whom Hackman witnessed her meeting at Covent Garden. Whether she and Coleraine were involved in an affair has never been established beyond some doubt. Sandwich was devastated by her death. Hackman attempted to shoot himself to death following his murder of her, but only wounded himself, and was arrested. Two days after her 14 April burial, Hackman was sentenced to hang, and the sentence was carried out on 19 April in front of a large crowd in Tyburn, London.
The events surrounding her murder were used in the popular 1780 novel Love and Madness by Herbert Croft.
Read more about this topic: Martha Ray
Famous quotes containing the word murder:
““It’s as plain as plain can be;
This woman shot her lover, it’s murder in the second degree,”
—Unknown. Frankie and Johnny (l. 73–74)
“The most loving parents and relatives commit murder with smiles on their faces. They force us to destroy the person we really are: a subtle kind of murder.”
—Jim Morrison (1943–1971)
“When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport; when a tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)