In 1943 and '44, the U.S. Army taught pack mule techniques at a mule school set up near Gladwin as part of the West Virginia Maneuver Area.
They tortured her to force her to reveal where the family valuables were hidden and, when she would not tell them, beheaded her in the attic, dragged her body downstairs and dumped it off one of the "Roman Bridges" (a pair of medieval packhorse bridges on the River Gowy, still standing today at the end of Platts Lane in Hockenhull).
In the original deed, John Dyckson is described as a "Caryer", which in the West Midlands at this time, when roads were nothing more than hollow-ways and bridle paths, implied that he owned several trains of pack-horses.