Beware of Parcel Post from Walter Horsford

Annie Holmes of Huntingdon, UK, a 38-year-old widow and mother of three children, received a special package in the mail on January 7, 1897. She had been having a love affair with her 26-year-old cousin, Walter Horsford, a well-to-do farmer from nearby Spaldwick. A few months earlier, in October of 1896, the youthful farmer had married another cousin, Bessie Mash. Alas! Annie got pregnant, and Walter didn’t want his new wife to learn of the affair, so he offered to provide Annie with something to end the pregnancy.

Walter went to a local pharmacy and purchased strychnine, telling the druggist that he needed to rid his farm of rats. Instead, he prepared a special tonic for Annie to help her end the pregnancy. Annie dutifully followed the instructions which Walter included with the tonic [“one dose, take as told” and “take in a little water, it is quite harmless”]. Not long after imbibing the potion, Annie was screaming in agony. Her daughter called the doctor who arrived to find Annie dead. Walter’s abortion tonic had indeed been successful but the evidence at the scene pointed to murder, and Walter was arrested and eventually put on trial.

Having been found guilty, Walter was sentenced to death by hanging, which occurred on June 28, 1897 in Cambridge prison. TrueCrime Library reports that while imprisoned, Walter “wrote to his wife and the prison governor confessing the murder, and adding that he had murdered another girl, named Fanny James, eight years earlier. Horsford had sent her a tonic through the post, too, and when she died the inquest verdict was Death through eating a hearty supper.”

Fanny James was his former fiancée whom Walter impregnated and murdered in 1890 when he was 19 years old. She died in agony shortly after receiving the daily post with a missive from her lover Walter. In addition, Walter apparently gave a glass of beer to one of Fanny’s male relatives, who died also in agony shortly after consuming the beverage.

Investigations also revealed that yet another girlfriend, with whom Walter was intimate, died after reading one of his missives that had just arrived in the post. In all, he allegedly poisoned four people to cover up his philandering and various impregnations. His natal chart ought to be of interest to astrologers.

In 1001 Notable Nativities Alan Leo gives the birth data of Walter as March 2, 1871 with an Asc of 7 Aries 30 and an MC of 3 Capricorn. Here is a close approximation of the birth chart described by Alan Leo.

Walter Horsford, serial killer

Walter was born on a Jupiter day during a Jupiter hour. Jupiter is a traditional symbol of children and procreation.

Aries rises with Chiron closely conjunct the horizon. Asc-ruler Mars in Libra opposes Chiron (the wounded healer) and Venus in Aries. Venus rules his 7th house of partnerships. Mars rules the 8th of death. The Venus-Mars mutual reception probably relates to his ease in finding new romantic partners whom he could impregnate and murder (exchanging 8th house death with 7th house sexual partners). Mars in Libra, and Venus in Aries, are each in the sign of their detriment, so the mutual reception did not foster their best behavior.

Saturn, dignified in Capricorn, conjoins the South Lunar Node at the MC, squares the planets near the horizon, and opposes the Moon in Cancer in the 4th. This Cardinal Grand Cross dominates the chart. I was unable to find much biographical information about Walter online. One wonders what childhood influences could have led to his becoming an amorous serial killer. Between ages 5 and 6, by primary direction Neptune would have crossed the eastern horizon as the Saturn-South Lunar Node conjunction crossed the MC. This must have been a difficult period in his life. He committed an early murder (Fanny James) at age 19 as Pluto was crossing the eastern horizon by primary direction.

Interestingly, on the day of his execution by hanging, his secondary progressed Sun exactly conjoined his natal Ascendant.