Edward Rust

Alfred Rust, Edward Rust and William Rust were murdered.

William Rust was the father and Alfred Rust and Edward Rust were his sons.

Another son, a 20-year-old warehouseman, was charged with their murders.

He initially confessed to their murders but later said that he saw his father cut his own throat and then helped him upstairs where he saw his other brothers’ dead. He said that he confessed to prevent a scandal.

He had gone to Stepney Police Station and handed the police a blood-stained razor and said that he killed them because his father was going to kill a man that had been carrying on with his mother.

He was tried for the murder of his father at the Old Bailey but found not guilty and no evidence was offered with regards to the murders of his brothers and he was discharged.

The prosecution had said, 'In committing this dreadful act, one might imagine that he saw red, to use a common phrase, and that he thought the best way out of the difficulty caused by what he believed to be his mother's infidelity was to kill those who were suffering and would suffer for the indignities such conduct would place upon them'.

It was alleged at the court that the warehouseman had seen his mother with the other man and had then gone mad and cut his father’s throat and then the throats of his two brothers.

His sister said that on the way to the police station that her surviving brother had said to her, 'Please remember I didn't do it. I am going to take the blame'. She added that William Rust had a razor that he would sharpen at three or four in the morning and would say that it was for his children's necks to save them from being tortured by their mother.