#constance kent

[romanisweird]

Felt like drawing meme stuff

[winnielovesscriddler]

I drew trans Kon (Constance) Kent because I don't think we talk about her enough

(not her design from the pitch, rather my own take on her. But I read up on this a bit the other day and it intrigued me)

(not my best work but it wasn't intended to be)

[marzipanandminutiae]

Just William Saville-Kent ThingsTM

when your treatise on the Great Barrier Reef distracts people from that time you tried to run away with your older sister, as teenagers, after she killed your four-year-old half brother as revenge on your stepmother for treating your actual mother badly while Actual Mother was dying (possibly of syphillis)

[fitesorko]

Constance Kent

[insidious-whispers]

In 1865 16-year-old Constance Kent admitted to stabbing and slashing the throat of her 4-year-old half-brother, Francis. During Constance’s trial there was a lot of speculation that her confession was false and she was trying to cover for her father, who was a known adulterer and womanizer and thought to have killed the child in a fit of rage. Another theory is that Constance was covering for her brother, William, who she was very close to. In William’s case the motive is suspected to be jealousy over his father’s love for Francis, who was said to be his favorite child. Constance Kent was sentenced to death, and then commuted to a life sentence, eventually spending 20 years in prison before moving to Australia with William and changing her name. Constance never recanted her confession.

[marzipanandminutiae]

speaking of constance kent, have you read summerscale’s the suspicions of mr whicher?

I have not, but I know it's based on her case!

My main interest in Constance Kent is in her early life story's resemblance to that of Lucille Sharpe- again, I suspect GDT knew about her -but it's wild what happened with her life after that. Like...she murdered a child. Ostensibly to get back at her abusive stepmother, by "taking something she loved away," and that's by Kent's own admission.

And then she turned herself in. After her prison sentence was served, she went to Australia, changed her name, and lived a long rest of her life in relative peace. The nursing home workers, near the end of her life, described her as a sweet old lady. She had an incredibly affectionate obituary.

Again, she murdered. A child. She slit her four-year-old stepbrother's throat in cold blood.

Imagine if your favorite elderly person to visit in the nursing home turned out to have straight-up killed a kid when she was 16.

[marzipanandminutiae]

I've also heard it at least speculated that Constanze Kent's motive was to hide an incestuous affair with another of her brothers, so that seems like another point to her being an inspiration for Lucille

Oh interesting! I’m seeing more speculation that she took the blame for a murder her brother committed, because they were Doing Incest, not that she actually killed the boy herself for that reason. Still very CPeak-relevant, though.

I also found discussions of a 1928 letter she wrote to the author of a book about her case, claiming that her stepmother was abusive and that she killed said stepmother’s son as an act of misguided retribution (on the logic that it would cause the woman more pain than simply killing HER). Apparently she regretted the murder deeply, but wanted to explain herself. Whether it was true or simply a half-hearted attempt to make herself look better, who can say? At least she didn’t seem to deny the Interesting Yet Incredibly Weak Motive; Still Child-Murder of it all. (Source)

So some similarities there, at least in Constance’s story.

[my-52-weeks-with-christie]

Rough on Rats: The Alleged Cimes of 13yr. old Gertrude Taylor

“A jealous hate is different—that rises out of affection and frustration…..I think people more often kill those they love than those they hate. Possibly because only the people you love can really make life unendurable to you.” (Pg. 113) This Crooked House quote references the real-life case of Constance Kent. Who, at the age of sixteen, took her nearly four-year-old half-brother Francis to the…

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