Patricia Anne Turner Waites

Patricia Anne Turner Waites was found dead on a beach at St Leonards-on-Sea.

She was a typist and had been working as a shorthand typist at the London Chest Hospital. She was from Birmingham and her parents had lived in Warwick Road, Sparkhill.

Her father said that she had been living in lodgings in Sylvan Avenue, Wood Green, London and that he had last seen her at Christmas 1959 when she spent her holiday with her parents and that the next he heard of her was when the London Chest Hospital sent him a telegram asking him to contact the authorities. He said that the house governor then told him by telephone that Patricia Waites had not been to work since Monday although they said that the hospital later learned that she had left her lodgings on the Wednesday at the normal time to go to work.

Following the communication with the hospital Patricia Waites's father said that he asked his wife to look carefully through the newspapers on Thursday, which she did, and said that as she did so she saw a small paragraph saying that the body of a girl had been washed ashore on the Sussex coast along with a description.

Patricia Waites's father said that he thought that the description, which mentioned a signet ring with the letter 'P' on it fitted Patricia Waites and so he got in touch with the police.

He said, 'It came as a great shock to me. I know of no reason why she should take her life'.

Her inquest was held in Hastings on the afternoon of 2 December 1960 and an open verdict was returned.

The cause of death was given as drowning and the Coroner noted that extensive police enquiries had been made but that no information was yielded to shed light on how she came to be in the water.

She had a number of injuries about her body, but the police surgeon that carried out her post mortem said that they had been caused after her death, possibly by rocks or the beach.