Baby

The body of a newly-born female baby was found in a hedge wrapped up in a parcel near Moulton Park.

The child was found by a shoe operative that had lived at 6 Welford Road in Kingsthorpe at 1.30pm on Thursday 25 October 1923 as he was walking along the Moulton Road gathering a few pieces of firewood.

He said that when he was opposite the new reservoir that he saw a brown paper parcel lying near a hedge.

He said that he pulled three pieces of brown paper off the parcel, each of which was tied round with string, and found a white pillow case in which was wrapped the body of the child.

He noted that the parcel was between the hedge and the wall and could not be seen from the road.

A police sergeant that was called out said that he removed the parcel to Moulton Park Farm where he examined it and found the outer cover to be thick brown paper, quite dry, from which a piece had been cut out as though a label had been cut away. He noted that there was other paper and that the body itself was wrapped in a common cotton pillow case.

He noted that there were no marks of any description on any of the coverings.

At the inquest he produced a piece of tape used as a stay-lace that had been tied very tightly round the neck of the child.

A doctor that examined the child said that it had been a fully developed female newly born child. He said that the piece of tape had been tied three times round the child's neck very tightly. He noted that the body was partly decomposed and that the post mortem revealed that the child had been healthy and had apparently breathed.

He said that the cause of death was undoubtedly strangulation.

He said that he thought that it had been dead for about a week, judging from the state of decomposition and that it had lived for about an hour or so after birth.

The jury returned a verdict of 'Wilful murder against some person or persons unknown'.

It was noted that one of the jurors, a farm bailiff at Moulton Park, who had been present during the first hearing on Friday 26 October 1923, had since died by the time the hearing was resumed on Friday 23 November 1923, although it was noted that he had not acted with the jury on 26 October as he had been a few minutes late.