“Autefelia causeth La Fresnay an Apothecary to poyson her Brother Grand Pre and his Wife Mermanda, and is likewise the cause that her sayd Brother kills de Malleray her owne Husband in a Duell. La Fresnay condemned to be hanged for a Rape, on the Ladder confesseth his two former Murthers, and sayes that Hautefelia seduced and hired him to performe them: Hautefelia is likewise apprehended. And so for these cruell Murthers they are both put to severe and cruell Deaths.”

Featured on PDR in the collection John Reynolds’ Book of Murder Tales (1621–1635)

We don’t know the year of John Reynolds’ birth or death, but according to the Dictionary of National Biography, he “flourished” between 1620 and 1640, at which time he must have been in his thirties and forties (give or take a few years). Born in Exeter — and known to his contemporaries as “John Reynolds, merchant of Exeter”, to distinguish him from other writers of the same name — he traveled on business to France, Spain, and probably Italy, where he collected the stories that make up his six-volume Triumphs of Gods Revenge and the Crying and Execrable Sin of (Wilful and Premeditated) Murther — one of the earliest examples of “true crime” writing in English.