The notorious murder of four-year-old Francis Saville Kent rocked Wiltshire in the 1860s for five years before his sister admitted the crime.

As the sound of crickets filled the air on the hot summer's evening of June 29, 1860, 16-year-old Constance Kent murdered her younger brother in his sleep. 

On the morning of June 30, panic rose in Road Hill House as the boy's nursemaid, Elizabeth Gough, awoke to find him missing. 

His body was found in the vault of an outhouse on the property.

Francis was still dressed in his nightshirt and wrapped in a blanket but he had been inflicted with serious stab wounds across his body - Elizabeth was originally arrested for the murder. 

A few days later the police released the nursemaid, Elizabeth, after the suspicions of Detective Inspector Jack Whicher of Scotland Yard moved to the boy's 16-year-old half-sister, Constance.

Constance Kent was arrested on July 16 for murdering the four-year-old boy and held in police custody for a number of weeks. 

However, there was an incredible outcry of public disdain at the authorities for accusing a young lady of high social standing of such a heinous crime.

As a result she was released without trial. 

After the investigation collapsed the Kent family moved to Wrexham and sent Constance to a finishing school in Dinan, France.

Five years after the murder, Constance confessed her crime to an Anglo-Catholic clergyman, the Reverend Arthur Wagner. She stated that she wanted to give herself up and face justice for the brutal crime. 

The Reverend helped Constance with coming to justice and gave evidence before the magistrates but prefaced his evidence by a declaration that he must withhold any further information on the ground that it had been received under the seal of "sacramental confession".

In her confession to the crime Constance revealed the grisly details of the murder and her thought behind the heinous crime. 

On the night of June 29 she had waited until all of her family and the servants were asleep, so that no one would be aware of what was going on. 

She took the child from his bed and commited the murder in the outbuilding to ensure that she would be able to escape the scene of the crime undetected. 

The barabaric and gruesome murder was revealed not to be a spontaneous act but rather one of revenge, it was also suggested that Constance had at time been mentally unbalanced. 

At the time there was a lot of speculation that her confession was infact false, with people pointing the finger of blame at her adulterous father - people assumed he was having an affair with the nursemaid and killed the boy in blind rage. 

This theory is said to have fit with the man's pattern of behaviour who previously had an affair with the family nanny whilst his first wife, Constance's mother, was dying.

Constance went on to live until the age of 100, she served 20 years in prison and later in life changed her name to Ruth Emilie Kaye. 

She never went back on her confession, even after her father's death, nor did she ever give up her silence on the motive for the murder.