Murder Victim. He received world-wide notoriety by being the victim in the court case of his wife, Edith Graydon Thompson and Fredrick Bywaters as they were tried for his murder. He first met his future wife, Edith Grayon, in 1909 when she was fifteen years old and he was eighteen. After a six-year engagement, they were married in January of 1916 at St. Barnabas, Manor Park. Soon, as their careers flourished, they purchased a home in a fashionable neighborhood in Essex. He was a shipping clerk. In 1920 the couple became acquainted with eighteen-year-old Freddy Bywaters. His wife had met Bywaters years earlier as he was a classmate of her younger brother. After joining in 1920 the merchant navy, Bywaters had stories of his world-wide travels that held his wife's interest. Bywater's personality was the opposite of Thompson's, who was conservative, older, and more mature. In June of 1921, Bywaters and another woman accompanied the couple on a vacation. It was then that a romantic relationship started between Bywaters and his wife. After the vacation, this relationship continued as they met in hotel rooms under fictitious names. At one point, his wife asked him for a divorce, which was almost impossible in the 1920s in England. After learning of this romantic encounter between Bywaters and his wife, he became angry with a heated verbal aggression and physical abuse directed toward his wife. He believed the problem with Bywaters had been resolved. On October 3, 1922 at 11PM, the he and his wife were walking home from the theatre when Bywaters jumped from the bushes verbally attacking him. Bywater pushed his wife to the ground, then repeatedly stabbed him and ran. By the time his wife had recovered from the fall, he had died on the sidewalk. His wife screamed for help and as a hysterical witness, identified Bywaters as the killer to law enforcement. Bywaters was arrested and produced the murder weapon. While searching Bywaters' home, the police found sixty handwritten love letters from his wife to Bywaters and arrested his wife as an accomplice. Bywaters protested repeatedly that he had not planned to kill anyone and that Thompson's wife was completely innocent. The two were tried together. On December 11, 1922, the jury found the couple guilty of murder after a two-hour and fifteen minute deliberation. Both were sentenced to be hung until dead at 9 AM on January 9th. Since this trial and execution, there are been numerous newspaper and magazine articles along with books written on his murder, the trial that followed and the murderers. Recent books: author Rene' Wesis wrote “Criminal Justice” in 1990. Molly Cutpurse wrote two books on the Bywaters-Thompson case: in 2003 “A Life Lived” and in 2010 “The Following Years.” Laura Thompson wrote “Edith Thompson: A Tale of Two Murders” in the spring of 2018. A film, “Another Life,” which was released in 2001, told his story.