Dog finds ‘smoking gun’ from 160-year-old murder case buried in back garden

Stanley the Labrador dug up a blue glass vial in the back garden of his family home in Clyst Honiton, Devon (Pictures: Paul Phillips/SWNS)

When Mary Ann Ashford was hanged for murdering her husband in 1866, things went horribly wrong.

Her execution in front of 20,000 people in Exeter was so botched that it is often cited as being key in ending public hangings.

She took three minutes to die and, according to one account, her hangman William Calcraft had to pull on her legs to end her suffering.