Margaret T Kirby

Margaret Kirby was found dead in a sack in the street about half a year after she disappeared.

She was last seen by her brother going off with a well-dressed man that had asked her if she wanted some sweets on 6 January 1908.

Her body was found decomposed and scantily clad in a sack in Great Newton Street, Liverpool early in the morning on 11 August 1908. It was thought that she had just recently been dumped there.

Examination of the houses nearby to where her body was found showed that she had only a short time earlier been removed from a cellar nearby. They found several items of her clothing there on the floor as well as hair and pieces of decomposed flesh.

When they examined the cellar they found that dust had gathered there thickly on the wood and they found hand prints in it that were photographed.

It was noted that whilst police had searched 4-5000 empty houses, they had not searched the one that her body had been lying in.

The police asked for information from anyone that had sold, lent or given away a sack matching the description of the one used, but said that unfortunately it was a canvas sugar bag with no distinctive marks and resembled thousands of others like it in daily use in Liverpool.

Margaret Kirby's mother had died two weeks before she vanished.