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Albert Gunther

Age: 2 months

Sex: male

Date: 29 Nov 1902

Place: 39 Winns Terrace, Walthamstow

Albert Gunther was strangled with a cord that had been tied around his neck.

His mother, a German cook, had come to England in July 1902 and gone to stay with her married sister. She was confined of a boy and kept at her sisters until 15 November when she took a situation as a kitchen maid in a restaurant at Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square.

She stayed there until 28 November when she returned to her married sisters. The next night she was alone in the house with her baby and when her sister and brother-in-law returned they found the child dead with a cord tied around its neck.

The post mortem revealed distinct marks on the neck and the front of the throat, the centre of the mark being 1¼in wide and braided. There was also a mark that could have been caused by a thumb-nail.

However, the jury returned a verdict of wilful murder against some person or persons unknown. The prosecution confessed that the verdict returned by the jury was an extraordinary one as it was perfectly clear that the only people in the house during the absence of the sister and her husband were the mother and Albert Gunther.

The jury also found that Albert Gunther had died from suffocation through a piece of string being tied round the neck.

Albert Gunther's mother could speak no English.


*map pointers are rough estimates based on known location details as per Place field above.

see www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk

see London Daily News - Thursday 11 December 1902