The Wicked Boy: An Infamous Murder in Victorian London

In the summer of 1895, thirteen-year-old Robert Coombes and his little brother Nattie were seen spending lavishly around the docklands of East London - for ten days in July, they ate out at coffee houses and took trips to the seaside and the theater. When their aunt grew suspicious and forced her way into their home, she discovered the badly decomposed body of their mother in an upstairs bedroom. The boys were arrested for matricide and sent for trial at the Old Bailey, where Robert confessed to having stabbed her.

The judge sentenced him to detention in Broadmoor, the most infamous criminal lunatic asylum in the land. Yet Broadmoor turned out to be the beginning of a new life for Robert - one that would have profoundly shocked anyone who thought they understood the Wicked Boy.