Age: 10
Sex: female
Date: 18 Jul 1911
Place: Chertsey Common
Source: www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk
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.
see Dundee Courier - Saturday 05 August 1911
see Dundee Evening Telegraph - Tuesday 25 July 1911
see Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer - Saturday 29 July 1911
see Gloucestershire Echo - Friday 04 August 1911
see Open University