Elizabeth Peers

Elizabeth Peers was outraged in a back passage off of Smithdown Road on Sunday 29 October 1905.

She died from shock after being violently assaulted and suffocated.

It was supposed that the killer had gagged her while the outrage took place to stop her from screaming.

She had just left her home on Wendell Street to do an errand shortly after midnight on the Saturday 29 October 1905 but never returned. She had been sent out to buy pork and potatoes at 12.30am for her mother and had been given a plate and 6d for it. The plate was found near her body but no trace of the 6d was found.

When she was found the next day, she was laying on her back with her eyes wide open and her fair hair and clothes saturated with rain that had fallen heavily in the night. When her body was examined there were marks found on her throat and shoulders as though she had been firmly gripped or had received a severe blow and a small quantity of blood was found on the ground near her body.

Newspaper reports noted that her parents were both drunkards and they were censured at the inquest.

When she didn't return her mother said she assumed that she had gone to her married brothers or had met some of her playmates. When the coroner asked, 'what, children out at that hour of the night', the mother said 'yes, plenty in that neighbourhood'.

The newspaper reported that when a neighbour mentioned the next day that a child had been found dead after hearing that the mother's child had been out all night the mother was heard to say, 'God help some poor mother', but did not concern herself about the safety of her own child and instead had some drink.

Elizabeth Peers inquest on 23 November 1905 returned a verdict of murder against some person unknown.

The police were described as having no clue.

Her funeral took place on Saturday 4 November 1905 and was watched by no fewer than 30,000 people. Her hearse and three mourning carriages were driven to the Smithdown Cemetery through crowded streets and in most of the houses along the route the blinds were drawn.