In 1817 a young girl of no importance called Elizabeth Sheppard was murdered in Mansfield. An ex-soldier called Charles Rotherham, who had fought against Napoleon, was hanged for the crime - then history forgot about them both.
Yet the town at the time erected a monument to this insignificant girl, not at her graveside but at the site of her murder. The monument, oddly, included details of the man hanged for the crime.
The author re-investigated the murder using contemporary records and reconstructions and concludes that the hanged man could have been innocent.
No-one ever spoke up on his behalf, nor was any defence ever presented until the author chose to do so himself.
Elizabeth was forgotten. No descendants would cherish her memory. The author wanted to rectify this and pass the girl's tale on to a family, a family that, prior to his investigation was unknown and lived many thousands of miles away.
If the hanged man was innocent, was it possible from the scant records available to discover what might really have occurred in that small Regency town two hundred years ago? Was it possible, this late, identify the real culprit?
