Lilian Fleck

Lilian Fleck was found lying in her room in William Street, South Gosforth, with injuries to her head and face on the night of 16 December 1924.

She was taken to hospital but later died.

She had been a house keeper for a man that had occupied three rooms of a tenement property at 8 William Street and had been in that position for 20 years. She had been single but was described as an unfortunate.

She had been seen with a man about an hour before she was found injured but the police were unable to identify or locate the man. However, another man had also been seen to leave her house seconds before she arrived home after having gone out in the evening.

Lilian Fleck had been into town with a friend who said that she had left her at about 10pm. The friend said that when she left Lilian Fleck she was alright and had not said anything to her about meeting any friends and had told her that she was going to get some flowers for the grave of a friend that had died.

A woman said that she saw Lilian Fleck at about 10.30pm talking to a man wearing a dark suit and a light cap.

However, she was also seen at about 10.30pm by a neighbour in the passage to the house going up the stairs. The neighbour said that as Lilian Fleck approached the house with the man that another man went quickly down the stairs and left. She said that Lilian Fleck was slightly troubled with her chest and occasionally coughed when she arrived home.

The neighbour said that her light was on and shining through the open door and that she plainly saw the man that she was with, although said that she only saw him from the side. She said that the only thing she really noticed about him was his extremely light coloured hair, but stated that it had not been the man that she had been living with who later found her body.

She said that she then had supper and went to bed and heard nothing like a struggle.

Lilian Fleck had also been seen boarding a tramcar with a man at about 10.40pm.

Lilian Fleck was found by the man that she had lived with. He said that he returned at about 11.20pm and found no one at home and so went to a fish-shop and returned half-an-hour later and found her lying between the bedroom and the kitchen, dying, noting that he had not been gone more than ten minutes. He said that he first thought that she had been drunk.

He denied that he had seen her on the stairs with a man.

A neighbour that when to the infirmary with Lilian Fleck said that she kept saying:

However, the neighbour said that she thought that she had been rambling as she had also spoke of having been hit in Clayton Street.

A police inspector said that there were no signs of disorder in the house and no bloodstains on the clothing of the man that she had lived with. He said that on the way to the infirmary that she had told him that a man had hit her, but said that she had been incoherent.

The doctor that carried out the post mortem said that her injuries could not have been self-inflicted and that nor could they have been caused by a fall from a bed. He also said that he didn't think that an instrument of any kind had been used.

Her inquest, which was held on 14 January 1925, returned a verdict of murder against some person or persons unknown.