At the time of the "Tamar" murder, Merthyr Tydfil was policed by the newly formed Glamorganshire Constabulary, with Captain Napier as Chief Constable.

The deceased lived at Merthyr in one of twelve single-roomed cottages alongside a tram road  which ran from the town to Abercynon, and traces of which can still be found here and there in the valley.  She lived alone, a widow, living on the parish relief for which she had to travel each week to Llanfabon by means of the horse-drawn wagons which passed along the tram road. 

Her only son, Richard, nicknamed "Dick Tamar," provided her with neither sustenance nor comfort.  Tall and handsome with a reputation of having a "certain way with the women," he had convictions for violence and had served several sentences of imprisonment for violence. 

About 5 years earlier he had been charged with the murder of a girl whose charred body had been found on the hot cinder tips of the iron works, but mainly on the evidence of his mother that he had not been out of her house, the Judge had directed that the case was not strong enough to be put to the Grand Jury.

It would appear from the nick-name "Tamar" and the reported speech of the son, that both he and his mother had come from Cornwall, as had many Cornish families whose breadwinners were experienced miners and sought more secure employment in South Wales. 

Dick Tamar had married the daughter of a very respectable miner from Merthyr, but she had left him very shortly after marriage through fear of violence from her husband and his mother, and had gone back to live with her parents, taking with her the only child of the marriage, a blind boy.

On Thursday, 14th April 1842, the old woman was seen alive by her neighbours for the last time, and on the following day a cloak covered the only window of her cottage.   It was the practice of the old woman to screen the window whenever she left home, generally to Llanfabon for her relief, and it was not uncommon for her to stay away for several days at a time. 

Over a week later, on Saturday, 23rd April, the body of the old woman was found under her bed in the single room she had occupied, screened from view by the bed curtain which hung from the bed frame almost to the floor.  She had been strangled.

The first police officer at the scene was Sergeant 7 James Hume, who had been a member of the trial force in 1840, stationed at Llantrisant, and had become a Sergeant in the Merthyr detachment when the County Force had been formed in October, 1841.  Hume was a giant of a man.  In 1848 the local paper referred to the collapse of a balcony in a local hall commenting, "not so much fun was had since the Corinthian pillars of the Star broke under the weight of Sergeant Hume."

In evidence he said, "I am a Sergeant of Police in the Glamorgan Police.  In consequence of information received I went to the cottage of Tamar Edwards at Merthyr on Saturday, 23rd April, 1842.  I was there at 35 minutes past one.  Thomas Richards and David Richards were there at the door.  I went in myself.  I looked under the bed and the side of it was turned up.  I saw a corpse there.  It was lying on its left side, with the back towards the fireplace.   A cotton shift was on the body and a dark flannel nightgown was thrown over the legs.   The left arm was thrust towards the face and head, and the right arm lay across the chest.  I handled the body.  It was supple.  I observed on the right nostril blood and some other fluid.  Mr Dyke the surgeon came therein about 20 or 25 minutes.

Information had been given to the Police by Margaret ("Peggy"), the wife of Dick Tamar.  While Sergeant Hume went to the scene a statement was taken from her by PC 34 Rhys Thomas.

I lived in the house where the body was found since the night of the 18th April, and did not see the body of the deceased until this morning.  I wanted to go to clean under the bed every day, but my husband would not allow me on any consequence whatsoever, stating that it would do very well, and I said it is sure to be dirty, and he said never mind it will do very well.  I questioned him several times concerning his mother.  He said she was gone to Llanfabon to receive her parish money and that she would be home some of these days with the trams, and I do really believe that if I had seen the body of his mother in his presence that he would really murder me.  I have no doubt that he murdered her.  He stated to me that his mother had gone to Llanfabon since Saturday, 16th April.  I left my husband about 3 months ago and lived with my father at Rhydycar.  My husband came to me at my father's house about two or three on Friday afternoon, 15th April.  I agreed to return home with home on the 18th April, which I did."

Confirmation was quickly forthcoming that her husband had gone to her father's house on the 15th April, the day after the mother's disappearance, to persuade her to return to him, and that she had in fact gone to live with him on the 18^th. However there was no means of testing her statement as to when she first knew that her mother-in-law's body lay under the bed on which she had been sleeping.

Concerning the visit of Dick Tamar to Rhydycar on Friday 15th April, Peggy's father testified as follows:-

Margaret went straight from her father's home to seek her husband at old Tamar's cottage.  This was between 7 and 8 o'clock on the Saturday morning.  The woman next door saw her there.

"I came on and she turned to me from the door and said she had come there as her husband had been at her parent's house on Friday incurring a disturbance, and desired her to come there.  I told her I thought her mother-in-law was away from home, that the cloak was over the window all day on Friday and I had not seen the door open."

On the next day the same woman saw Dick Tamar at the window of the cottage looking in.

"I saw the prisoner put his hand through a broken pane and draw the cloak on one side and look in.  I went on, and he came on.  I told him his wife had called the previous day and asked him if he knew something about his mother, when he had seen her.  He said he had seen her on Thursday night.  I asked him if she intended going from home.  He said she did.  He then asked where Peggy was.   The woman next door said she was in Caedraw with her aunt."

Dick Tamar went to Caedraw the following day (Monday).  The aunt said, "He came about six in the evening.  The first words he said to her were, "Peggy, what art thou doing here?"  She replied she was bound to go somewhere because her father turned her out of doors, because he, the prisoner, had been there on Friday.   Prisoner said, "Why didn't he throw thee over the door while I was there?"  Margaret said it was because he chose to keep her in the house by night and turned her out by day.  He said to her, "Wilt thou come with me home?" and she said she would not, and asked him where he was going to take her, and he said to his mother's house.  She said, "For what, for your mother to throw me over the door as she did before?"  He said, "Let from between me and my mother, my mother is at Llanfabon."  I asked him if there was any fire at the house.   The prisoner said there was coal and wood there to light a fire.  I asked the prisoner if there were victuals there, and he said his mother had made enough bread before she went to Llanfabon.  His wife asked him to hold the little boy that she might tidy herself to go with him.  After that they got to their legs to go out and he said, "Goodnight to you Jane, when will you come to see us at the lower end of the village?"  That was where Tamar lived."

Thus Tamar and his wife went to the cottage on that Monday evening.  The only person who saw them there during that week was a man who called on the following Saturday morning, not long before the body was found.  "I saw the prisoner," he said, "sitting in the corner on the right hand as I went in.   I asked him how he was and lit my pipe at the fire.  I then asked him where his mother was, as I had not seen her that week.  Prisoner said down Llanfabon, and he expected her up with the trams that night.  Prisoner's wife was washing the floor when I went in."

It was Peggy herself who set things moving a little while later.  She said she had not seen the body up to that time.  That may well be so, but the continued absence of the old widow, and her husband's insistence that she should not scrub under the bed must have made her suspicious.  It is most likely that things came to a head that morning while she was washing the floor, that she did take a peep under the bed, and that it was this that made her run to her neighbour next door.  This would explain the fact that when two neighbours returned with Peggy, Dick Tamar had flown and from that moment acted like a hunted criminal. 

Evidence of the finding of the body was given by the woman next door, who said, "Peggy came to my house.  She said she could not think where her mother-in-law was so long.  I went with her to Tamar's room, but before I went I fetched a woman named Martha Walters to accompany me.  We turned up the corner of the curtain which nearly touched the ground.  We saw an elbow.  It was Tamar's right elbow.  She was dead.  I could not say what clothes she had on.  I was too frightened.  The floor had been washed and sanded to the door and close to the tester of the bed."

The hue and cry was on.  Dick Tamar was on the run.  He was seen here and there in the district begging for food, but eluded capture for 5 days.  Even then he was not captured by the police who were scouring the countryside for him, but by the father-in-law:

"On Wednesday morning after the body was found, in consequence of information received from John Hare, I went to the old parish road leading from Cwmcanaid to Clynderis.  I got to Clynderis pond, at the mouth of the pond level.  I went with some workmen and my two sons.  I saw the prisoner in a field there.  I said to him, "Dick, is it here you are?" and he said, "Yes."  I said to him, "You must go with me to the village."  He said, "What for?"  I said, "They want to see you, throw the knife out of your hand."    He was then cutting a stick with it.  "What for?" he asked.  "You are not a fit man to carry a knife, throw it out of your hand or I'll make you," I told him.  Seeing him not inclined to throw it, I told my son, "Give me that mandrill, I'll make him do it."  I went towards him.

Dick cried out, "Here, I'm going."  I said, "You murdered your mother, killed her and turned her under the bed."  He said, "No, I did not, but if I have done so, give me your hand Will."  I said, "What for?"  He replied, "You have two brothers who killed men, and one of them has been hung on the face of the County."  He further stated, "I intended being with you tonight and give myself up tomorrow.  You are pretty proud in catching me because there is money in taking me."  I said to him, "I am proud to take you but I did not hear of any money for taking you."  "Well" said Dick, "I heard yesterday in Talybont there was £30 for taking me.  I became quite frantic and came over here directly."  He then repeated, "You are lucky, Will, to have caught me you know, for I should have been with you tonight and made away with you all."

Dick Tamar's reference to his father-in-law's two brothers as killers, relates to their reputation as "Scotch Cattle."   "Scotch Cattle" was the name given to gangs of ruffians who made raids on the homes of workmen refusing to join one of the newly formed "Unions."  By destroying their homes, and inflicting savage assaults on the men and their families they sought to compel them (and others through fear) to fall in line.  Such attacks were so violent and one-sided that death often resulted.

When, at the preliminary hearing, the prisoner was asked whether he wished to question the witness on this statement, he replied, "No, the witness is too dangerous for me to speak to him.  I would shoot him, I am so angry with him."

At the conclusion of the examination of witnesses before committal, the prisoner was asked if he wished to make any statement, at the same time being cautioned that what he did say would be taken down.  His statement was as follows: "Yesterday fortnight (i.e. Thursday, nine days before the body was found) an old man came to me and said he wished to speak to me.  He said, "Come out."  He did not like to stay in the house because there was another woman there with my mother.  I went out with him.  He said that William Morgan had sent him to ask me to give something towards the child.  I said I was not going to give a penny, that they both kept away from me, that I was willing to take them both.  On Friday morning, I went out of the house at 10 o'clock and up through the village over the Iron Bridge.

After having been to the Dynevor Arms and the King's Head, I went over to Rhydycar, and there was Peggy my wife and my mother-in-law.  She asked me why I was there, if I wanted her.  I said yes.  I told her I was there because a man came to see me.  I remained all day, until her father came home from work.  I told him my business.    He went into a passion and said to her, "I thought you were afraid of him, are you going with him?"  She said she did not know.   There I remained for a good while again, but she did not come.  I went to the village and to the Duke.  I went down from there to the Duffryn, and there I was until the Sunday morning.  I came from there Sunday morning and was by the Lower Furnace on the Monday morning.

I came to my mother's door.  She had told me she intended to go to Llanfabon on Friday, but she said she would stay the night and see if Peggy came there and would not go till Saturday.  I asked Mary Traherne, who lives next door, if she saw anyone there looking for me."

The following is an account of how Dick Tamar went to Caedraw and persuaded his wife to go back with him to his mother's cottage:

"There was no fire there and she went at making the fire.  While she went to make the fire I went out to Evan David's shop.  When I returned there was Peggy in the corner.  She told me my mother was under the bed dead.  I said, "What did you say girl?"  She said again.  I went there and looked.   I got quite distracted and Peggy got hold of me and told me to be pacified.  I exclaimed, "Good God! Who has been here killing my mother?"  We pacified ourselves and then settled to say she was away from home."

Dick Tamar was convicted of murder.  He was hanged outside Cardiff Gaol on Saturday, 23rd July, 1842.  It was a public execution.  The newspapers described it as follows:

A great degree of curiosity had been aroused regarding Dick Tamar's so-called confession, made to the Prison Chaplain earlier in the week, and which had been published in the press.

"I was not alone when my mother came by her death.  There were three present besides me.  My child, 10 months old, was in bed in the room.  My mother died on Thursday night.  When dead two women placed my mother in bed beside my little boy, where the corpse remained until the Monday night following.  The other two persons present besides me and my wife when my mother died were the nearest relations of Peggy, my wife.  These three persons told my father-in-law and my mother-in-law's sister that they had passed the night out on Cefn Coed Cymmer.

I gave my mother a blow on the face because Peggy cried out that my mother was beating her.  My mother fell down under the blow.  Peggy, her mother and brother then said hold on.  My mother did not speak.  She groaned for a time.   I saw Peggy and the other two squeeze her throat until she ceased groaning.  I was in liquor; the three others were not.  This happened about 12 or 1 o'clock.   I cannot tell exactly for there was no clock or watch there.  And now, if Peggy had been allowed to be examined by me in the Hall I would have made all this known.   Peggy asked me to bury her.  I said I would not, I would leave her there as I was afraid to be seen.  I told them they had killed my mother.  They begged me to keep everything secret.  We all remained in the house till dawn of day.  I then went up to Dowlais."