Woman

The mutilated remains of a woman were found in a gateway in Salamanca Place, Lambeth on 8 June 1902.

The remains were described as having been mutilated as well as boiled and charred.

The official description of the remains was given as:

The body was described as having been roughly sawn into ten pieces. It was said that the head, on which only a small amount of hair remained, had apparently been boiled and her eyes, in the process, had been destroyed. It was also said that some of her upper teeath had the appearance of having been knocked out with a kick.

A doctor said that the body had been subjected to moist heat until the flesh could be stripped off easily and that some of the limbs had been boild for hours, probably, and then roasted. He said there were no cuts on the lower limbs or any marks showing how they had been disjointed. He said the hair had been cut after death, probably to prevent identification.

It was noted that in each nostril there was blood, indicating that the woman might have been suffocated, but that other than that, there was no evidence to show how death occurred.

It was noted that the mutilations demonstrated no anatomical knowledge whatsoever. It was noted that an ordinary saw had been use, not a surgical saw.

It was initially reported that her hands and feet had been missing when her remains were found.

20 arrests were made in relation to her murder.

She was found in the early hours of Sunday morning at the rear of Doultons Works. A man employed at Doulton's Works said that he was going to the works in Salamanca Place from the Broad Street end and in the gateway in the corner he saw a human head and some other remains all piled in a heap. The remains seemed to have been put there carefully, the upper part of the body being placed upon the lower part and the legs and feet. He said that when he had passed earlier at 10pm he felt sure that he had not seen anything then.

A labourer said that he and another man had passed the gateway the night before at about 10pm on the Saturday and saw a man and a woman standing in the gateway but said he would not recognise them again. He said the woman was about 5 feet tall. He said that he was about 12 or 14 yards away and that it was pitch dark. He said that the woman had a white hat with a black band and that the man was about a foot taller. The coroner noted that that would make him about 6 feet tall. He said that he could not tell how the man was dressed but said that he wore a cap and was not dressed like a working man and appeared dressed up saying that he had dark clothes on and that it was very dark.

There was no trace of any clothing on the remains.

It was thought that she might have been a foriegner, possibly French.

It was noted that seven people identified the remains but six of them were found to have been still alive and the seventh was still being searched for.

The inquest into the finding of the woman's remains returned a verdict that the woman was found dead, but that there was no evidence to show under what circumstances she came by her death.

Salamanca Place has since been redeveloped.