EVIDENCE in a notorious 160-year-old murder case may have been unearthed — by a dog.
Stanley the Labrador dug up an old blue bottle in his garden with the words “Not To Be Taken” written on it.
Stanley’s owner Paul Phillips, 49, established it was likely to be Victorian poison.
He then discovered Mary Ann Ashford.
Mary Ann murdered shoemaker hubby William in 1865 by putting arsenic in his tea, lived two doors away at Clyst Honiton, Devon.
She was said to be having an affair and was hanged in front of 20,000 people in Exeter in March 1866.
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But it went wrong and took her minutes to die, hastening the end of public executions.
Paul said Stanley was digging in the same spot for about a year, and has now stopped.
He went on: “If you bought that bottle for the right reasons, like killing rats or something, why bother burying it?
“It’s fascinating we have found a bit of history in my garden from a woman that was instrumental in the end of public capital punishment.”
