Age: 0
Sex: female
Date: 1 Sep 1905
Place: Whalebone Inn, Fingringhoe, Colchester
A dead baby was found in a pond at Whalebone Inn.
The child's legs had been cut off before being put into a sack and weighted down and thrown into the pond. When the body was recovered it was found to have been horribly mutilated and decomposed.
The sack had been weighted down with bricks and iron piping.
A doctor said that the body had probably been in the pond for some months.
The child was first discovered by some boys playing who had been fishing in the pond who had brought to the surface what appeared to be some legs which they threw back in the pond. The next day the landlord of the Whalebone Inn saw the legs floating in the pond and the pond was then dredged and the weighted sack recovered.
see www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk
see Chelmsford Chronicle - Friday 01 September 1905
see Lancashire Evening Post - Friday 25 August 1905