Ten-year-old William York lived in a workhouse in Eyke, near Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk, where he shared a bed with five-year-old Susan Mayhew. One morning in 1748 William woke to find that Susan had wet the bed. He took her outside, cut her wrists and elbows, then slashed open her thigh; the little girl bled to death. William was given the death sentence, but chose a career in the navy as a reprieve.

