Norman Thorne

Norman Thorne (c. 1902 – 22 April 1925) was an English Sunday school teacher and chicken farmer who was convicted and hanged for what became known as the chicken run murder. Thorne murdered his fiancée Elsie Cameron (born 22 April 1898) on 5 December 1924 at his chicken farm in Crowborough, Sussex, and later dismembered and buried her body.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, lived in Crowborough and took an interest in the case. Thorne was hanged on 22 April 1925 in Wandsworth prison in London on what would have been Cameron's 27th birthday.

A BBC investigative programme, Murder, Mystery and My Family, series 3, episode 3, broadcast in 2019, re-examined the evidence with two barristers and a judge. The judge declared his belief that the conviction was safe, and that Thorne did indeed murder Cameron.