Baby

The skeleton of a new born baby was found buried in a Cornish graveyard at St Euny Church, Carn Brea, Redruth.

It had been found in an unmarked grave in the corner of the churchyard.

The police said that they were trying to trace a mystery woman that had been seen clearing undergrowth and erecting a small mound of stones and who had for the last year been seen visiting the church and marking the spot with jars of flowers.

The inquest, which concluded on Thursday 29 January 1987 recorded an open verdict on the child.

It was stated that the remains would be reinterred.

The remains of the child had been in a plastic bag inside a pine box.

The Coroner said:

It was noted that the area that the remains were found had been an area formerly used for the burial of still born infants from the former maternity wing at Redruth Hospital.

The grave had been marked with stones and a jam jar containing wilted flowers, but the inquest heard that there were no records of such plots and that it was a mystery as to how the woman had known which part of the churchyard to tend.

A former sexton at the churchyard said that still-born babies had previously been buried along the edges of the graveyard and that once or twice a baby that had died soon after birth had been buried amongst them. He added that it had been on such an occasion that he had, believing the infant should have had a Christian burial, that he marked a  grave with stones and later placed a jam pot there.

Two gravediggers said that in 1986 they noticed that an area of ground had been cleared and fresh flowers had been left.

A woman that had lived at Glebe Farm, Churchtown, Redruth, said that she had watched an attractive woman and three men clear away the undergrowth from the grave and that after that she noticed that the woman continued to make regular weekly morning visits.

She described the woman as:

• Aged 30 to 40.
• Over 5ft 5in tall.
• Light brown permed hair.
• Extremely well dressed.
• Very attractive.

She said that the three men had worn jeans and had been in their 20s.

A retired pathologist said that the body of the child had been in the grave for not less than 2 years and not more than 25 years. He said that when he visited the scene that an obvious clue had been an umbilical cord clip, the presence of which led him to believe that the baby had been less than five days old at the time of internment. He said that the remains were of an approximately full term baby, possibly still-born, but from a birth that was attended by a person with some medical knowledge.

A Coroner's officer said that he had discovered that the clip had been manufactured in America and handled by a Danish firm and that they had been in use in the area between 1965 and 1978, the year the maternity wing at Redruth closed.

A funeral director had said, before his own death at Christmas, that the burial of babies had taken place at two churchyards, one of them being St Euny.

He had said that the bodies were placed in pine boxes, which sometimes had a chipboard top, which it was noted would decay more quickly than the softwood sides.

The Coroner's assistant said that attempts had bene made to trace the woman seen visiting the grave, but without success, and added:

However, when the Coroner recorded an open verdict, he suggested that the former sexton might have been confused when he said he had marked out the grave, noting that there were no records and that it would have been impossible for anyone to have identified any particular grave.

The Coroner then added:

He said that it could be surmised that the remains were likely to have been those of a full term baby that was lawfully buried between 1965 and 1978.

It was noted that the remains would be reinterred at the graveyard.