299 London & England — My Favorite Murder

The Road Hill House case is basically the blueprint for the modern psychological thriller. It has everything: a dysfunctional family, a disgraced detective, a shocking confession, and a grizzly crime scene in a mundane location.. Constance Emily Kent was just 16 when she murdered her three-year-old brother, Francis Saville Kent, at historic Road Hill House in 1860.

Sometime during the night of 29—30 June 1860, Francis Saville Kent, who was almost four years old, disappeared from his father's residence, Road Hill House, in the village of Rode (spelt "Road" at the time), then in Wiltshire. Francis's body was later found in the vault of a privy-house on the property. [4] The child, still dressed in his nightshirt and wrapped in a blanket, had knife wounds.. A quiet Wiltshire town became infamously known as the site of the 1860 Road Hill House murder, a case that shattered Victorian complacency and intrigued the nation. Season 37 of Foul Play opens with the harrowing murder at Road Hill House, examining into one of Victorian England's most brutal and mystifying family tragedies. At the heart of this mystery was the Kent family, generally respected.