What happened to them all?
It is impossible to imagine life going on as normal at Belmount, not just because of the violent death of Robert Snowball, but also with the intense media interest in the months and years that follow. When old John Snowball dies in 1883, a newspaper rumour immediately circulates that he had made a deathbed confession to the killing of his son, but neighbours steadfastly refute the gossip.
The new housekeeper, Elizabeth Nicholson, marries John Snowball jnr, Robert's younger brother, and they move to Benfieldside with their family. Belmount has new tenants, and the events of that dreadful New Year's Day in 1880 begin the slow drift into history.
Following her acquittal, Jane Barron becomes housekeeper for farmer Mr Lowdon of Downhill Farm, Boldon. In the January of 1881 she takes two newspapers to court - the Consett Guardian and the Durham Advertiser - for claiming that she had been admitted to a lunatic asylum along with Joseph, her brother. Once again the case goes in her favour, and she wins more than £40 in damages - about three years' salary in her housekeeper role.
On July 2 that year Jane Barron marries James Charlton of Greenside, a labourer 11 years her senior, and despite being recorded as 'Widow' in that year's census which was taken on April 3, on her marriage certificate she is very specifically down as 'Spinster'. The following two census returns show in the following 20 years she lives at Blackhall Mill and has two children, John William born in 1887 and Jane born in 1891.
But the end of Jane Barron's story is far from the picture of cosy domesticity the census returns up to 1901 would suggest; on the eve of her silver wedding anniversary in 1907, the troubled Jane Barron storms out of the house following a violent argument with her husband. She is found drowned in the River Derwent, taking with her to the grave any guilt she may have had for the terrible deeds at Belmount Farm.
More than eight years on, and this Leeds Mercury filler of July 18, 1888 shows that speculation is still rife.
This handwritten footnote to the story of the Blanchland Murder in an old copy of Tales of Derwentdale explains the "sad end" of Jane Barron's life.
