HE could not have been more wrong in his defiance. "They did not see me do it and cannot hang me."

Days later, an executioner did.

Black John Deadman, 60. had occupied the dock at Hampshire Assizes in 1836, charged with the brutal murder of 74-year-old John Hall who had been ambushed and repeatedly struck about the head for a meagre few pence on a country lane that linked the hamlets of Bishops Sutton and Ropley.

Hall, who had eked out a modest living as a letter carrier, was found dead by his horrified grandson after his family had become increasingly concerned about his welfare when he failed to return home, and they had set out to find him. A bloodstained stone lay nearby.

Deadman was known to be virtually destitute. He had been served bread and cheese in the Dolphin Inn, Alresford, and with his last penny bought a mug of ale. Having quenched his thirst, he set off in the direction of the murder scene where a road worker saw him begging.

"He said he had no money or victuals," said William Jefferey who lived in Tichborne. "He was very badly off."

Sophia Pett was a key witness. 

She had been standing near a pond at her Bishops Sutton home when she saw a man washing his hands. An hour later, she had cause to visit the Chequers Inn at Ropley and saw the same figure. "I'm sure it was him,"  indicating Deadman to jurors.

Strangely, the ne'er do well had been able to pay for a satisfying meal of bread and cheese and beer with a shiny half crown. From village gossip, she learnt of the monstruous attack on Hall and alerted the local authorities. 

A manhunt was launched and it was John Shakell, a Bow Street runner, who apprehended Deadman in the Windmill Arms at Ropley, noticing blood on a sleeve. 

But whose was it? 

The waggoner initially passed it off as coming from a bleeding horse, then attributing it from handling a dog that had cut itself. Neither explanation seemed convincing, nor did the prosecution's case which was primarily based on circumstantial evidence.

So, who were jurors expected to believe? It didn't take them long. Deadman, who throughout his trial seemed oblivious to his potential fate, was soon to live up to his name. Ordering his execution, Mr Justice Williams denounced him. "You sent to account an old and unprepared man who never did you any wrong."

Deadman never showed the slightest remorse leading to his hanging at the old County Jail in Jewry Street, Winchester, with the local press reporting: "The unhappy man continued to maintain the same sullen and dogged demeanour he manifested at trial."

That is until he saw the rope. "Then he was nearly overcome with the look of terror."