The men were in so much terror and confusion that they knew not what to do; but Mrs. Hayes quickly thought of an expedient in which they all agreed.  She said that if the head was cut off, there would not be near so much difficulty in carrying off the body, which could not be known.  In order to put this design in execution, they got a pail and she herself carrying the candle, they all entered the room where the deceased lay.  Then the woman holding the pail, Billings drew the body by the head over the bedside, that the blood might bleed the more freely into it; and Wood with his pocket penknife cut it off.  As soon as it was severed from the body, and the bleeding was over, they poured the blood down a wooden sink at the window, and after it several pails of water, in order to wash it quite away that it might not be perceived in the morning.  However, their precautions were not altogether effectual, for the next morning Springate found several clots of blood, but not suspecting anything of the matter, threw them away.  Neither had they escaped letting some tokens of their cruelty fall upon the floor, stain the wall of the room, and even spin up against the ceiling, which it may be supposed happened at the giving the first blow.

When they had finished the decollation, they again consulted what was next to be done.  Mrs. Hayes was for boiling it in a pot till nothing but the skull remained, which would effectually prevent anybody’s knowing to whom it belonged; but the two men thinking this too dilatory a method, they resolved to put it in a pail, and go together and throw it in the Thames.  Springate, hearing a bustling in Mr. Hayes’s room for some time, and then somebody going down stairs, called again to know who it was and what was the occasion of it (it being then about eleven o’clock).  Mrs. Hayes answered that it was her husband, who was going a journey into the country, and pretended to take a formal leave of him, expressing her sorrow that he was obliged to go out of town at that time of night, and her fear least any accident should attend him in his journey.

Billings and Wood being thus gone to dispose of the head, went towards Whitehall, intending to have thrown the same into the river there, but the gates being shut, they were obliged to go forward as far as Mr. Macreth’s wharf, near the Horseferry at Westminster, where Billings setting down the pail from under his great coat, Wood took up the same with the head therein, and threw it into the dock before the Wharf.  It was expected the same would have been carried away by the tide, but the water being then ebbing, it was left behind.  There were also some lighters lying over against the dock, and one of the lightermen walking then on board, saw them throw the pail into the dark; but by the obscurity of the night, the distance, and having no suspicion, they did not apprehend anything of the matter.  Having thus done, they returned home again to Mrs. Hayes’s where they arrived about twelve o’clock and being let in, found Mrs. Hayes had been very busily employed in washing the floor, and scraping the blood off from it, and from the walls, etc.  After which, they all three went into the fore room, Billings and Wood went to bed there, and Mrs. Hayes sat by them till morning.