Age: 50
Sex: female
Date: 13 Jul 1924
Place: Glynder Reach, Capel Curig, Wales
The body of a woman was found in the Welsh mountains.
She was thought to had drowned.
Her body was found by two tourists.
The pathologist that examined the body said that it was that of a woman aged about 50 and that the signs showed death to be due to drowning.
He said that on her left ankle there had been an elastic bandage and a cloth bandage round her left foot, which he said seemed to indicate that the woman had suffered from varicose veins or had strained herself.
He said that both her top and bottom jaws were fitted with false teeth, but that three of the teeth had been broken.
Attached to a small chain round her neck was a pendent and cross, but the cross was not of the form or style usually worn as a religious symbol. She had also had a gold watch.
He said that he was of the opinion that the body had been in the water for at least three months. Her body was described as decomposed.
An open verdict was returned, stating that it was the body of an unknown person found drowned.
It was thought that it might have been one of three women that had gone missing within a radius of twenty miles, or possibly a tourist that had gone into the heights alone and wandered off the beaten track and died .
The three women that were noted as having disappeared were:
However, no formal identification was made.
She had been wearing a long grey coat and under that a dress of bluish material. She had also had a bag with her that had partly rotted away, in which there were a number of articles, including a night dress, underwear and a blouse, that seemed to indicate that she had been a tourist or somebody definitely prepared for a journey.
An account given of the finding of the body by a member of the official search party was:
I should say that the body has been there some months. Under a coat of grey cloth was a blue dress. There were black lace shoes on the feet, and the remains of what I took to be black silk stockings on the legs. There were black mittens or gloves on the hands. In a half-rotted bag were articles of clothing and a pair of red cloth slippers, rubber soled. Each slipper was ornamented by a small buckle.
It is a terribly lonely place where the body was found, wild and bleak at the best of times, and miles from any inhabitation. The Glunder Fawr and Glynder Fach, the Big and Little Gynders, are two of the highest mountains of the Snowdon Range, each rising to a height of over three thousand two hundred feet. It was on the top of the Little Fach's shoulder some three thousand feet above sea level that the body was found.
The search party member said that his own theory was that the woman had been a tourist and had lost her way whilst walking from the direction of the Penygyrwyd Hotel, near Snowdon, and that becoming benighted she had wondered about until exhausted and that death had followed on from exposure.
see www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk
see Sunday Post - Sunday 13 July 1924
