AS part of our weekly Crime Files series, we are taking a look back at the archives to bring you stories from Herefordshire's history.
The following story dates from 1922.

TWO women were shot dead in the home they shared in a Herefordshire village by an estranged husband in 1922.

George Vincent Buckeridge, a Herefordshire bookbinder, appeared before Hereford assizes charged with double murder in February 1923. 
The court heard the victims were his wife and her foster mother, Winnifred Buckeridge and Wilhelmina Sainsbury, who lived together at Pembridge.

The couple had been living apart at the time of the murders on December 29 1922, when Buckeridge paid a visit to Pembridge.

He had called at the house, shooting Mrs Sainsbury with a revolver as he entered her small stone-built cottage, before heading upstairs and killing his wife, who had a child in her arms, the prosecution said.

The pair were both found dead by a witness named Powell, who rushed to the cottage after hearing shots, while the child was uninjured.

OTHER NEWS:

A neighbour and the local pub landlord both told the court that Buckeridge had been making enquiries after his wife, with the landlord reporting that Buckeridge had seemed upset she would not return to him.

Another witness, Ernest Newman, said Buckeridge had told him that he never had a chance to show he wife how much he thought of her.

The couple had quarrelled, it was alleged, after he returned from war service and accused her of keeping late hours.

The 31-year-old was found guilty of the double murder and sentenced to death with a recommendation for mercy after the court heard he had suffered from nervous troubles and that some of his relatives had been in an asylum.

It was announced in March 1923 that the Home Secretary had advised the commutation of his death sentence after the recommendation was forwarded by Judge Avory.