Mummified Body Found After 20 Years

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29246, 2 July 1960, Page 13

Mummified Body Found After 20 Years

LONDON, June 30. A Home Office pathologist described to a Court today how he “softened” the mummified body of a woman who had been dead for 20 years.

He was giving evidence on the opening day of a hearing in which Mrs Sarah Jane Harvey, a greyhaired bespectacled 65-year-old widow, is charged with the murder of Mrs Frances Knight between February 20 and April 30, 1940. She has denied the charge. ' Mrs Knight’s mummified body was found on May 5 by Mrs Harvey’s son, Thomas, in a disused cupboard in Mrs Harvey's home at the seaside resort. Rhyl. Wales. , Dr. Gerald Evans, Home Office pathologist for the area, told the Court that when he made a preliminary examination of the body he found a large portion of it brick-hard and resistant to hammer and chisel. To soften it without- interfering materially with any subsequent examination of its tissues be immersed it in a bathful of a glycerine solution. After some time the skin softened enough to allow dissection. Dr. Evans said mummification, which could be effected by artificial means which were familiar to the ancient Egyptians, might occur without any of these aids If the atmosphere was particularly dry and the body subjected to a current Of air over a long period. He was satisfied this was a natural mummification, and be had conducted no tests to establish whether the body had been deliberately mummified. Asked if he could say whether the body was put into the cupboard before or after death. Dr. Evans said that the evidence was in favour of its being placed in the cupboard shortly after death. He agreed with defence counsel, Mr - Andrew Rankin, that a statement in a daily newspaper on May 17 which said that “some dreadful ritual in which the internal organs were cut out may have preceded the mummification of the body” was “quite irresponsible sneculation.” Mr Thomas Leslie Harvey, a 29-vear-old taxi driver, told the Court he had a recollection-of Mrs Knight lodging at the house

when he was about nine or 10 He thought she was middle-aged, and crippled or partially crippled. He had no recollection of how long she was there or of her leaving,

Until May 5 this year, he had not seen the cupboard open. From time to time the question of whether it should be opened or used came up, .and his mother had told him it could not be used as Mrs Knight had'left belongings which she was keeping in the cupboard for her. On May 5, while his mother was in hospital, he decided, in ah attempt to modernise the house while decorating it, to remove the landing cupboard, but the doors were locked. He forced open a door. “At first I saw something folded up. I didn’t know what it was. It was covered in dust ... I shone my torch into the cupboard and at the same time I thought I saw a human body. “I tried to move some more of the dust and dirt away for closer examination, and satisfied myself I was right,” he said. Mrs Harvey is also charged with obtaining two sums of £2 on May 2. 1940. and April 22. 1960, by falsely pretending Mrs Knight was then alive. Mr D. Prys Jones, prosecuting, said that Mrs Knight's husband left her in 1936. In February, 1940. Rhyl magistrates granted her a maintenance order for £2. Payments were made each week to Mrs Harvey after the receipt it an authority, purporting to have been signed by Mrs Knight, for Mrs Harvey to receive them. Mr Prys Jones told the Magistrates that what appeared to be the remains of a ligature were found by Dr. Evans. At the front of the neck were two portions of string-like material. Another portion of the material with a reef-knot was lodged in the fo’d of the, neeb. Around the neck was a groove consistent with having been caused by a ligature, he said. The case was adjourned untn tomorrow.