Amy Margaret Reeves

Amy Reeves was found dead in a pond near Chertsey.

She was found by her father who had gone looking for her when she didn’t return home. He found her lying face down in the pond with only her bare feet out of it. She had wounds on her head.

A 16-year-old boy was charged with her murder but acquitted. He had been seen carrying a stick around the village of Longcross on the day and had said to someone, 'This is a fine stick. I got it from the common. It would make a fine cudgel, wouldn’t it?'

A home office professor said that Amy Reeves had probably been hit on the head with a stick while she was stood in the pond and then fallen down and drowned.

Witnesses said that the boy had been seen carrying a stout stick that day and the stick was later found in a deep hole on the common.