A man, eager to spruce up his elderly mother’s home, unearthed a shocking discovery that turned out to be a crime scene.
Leslie Harvey set out to revitalize his mother’s Welsh home with some minor renovations while she, Sarah Jane Harvey, was in the hospital. Little did he know, she had been harboring a secret from everyone, including him.
As a child, Leslie had always been curious about a tall storage cupboard, measuring 6 ft 11 in, located in the upstairs hallway. At 29 years of age, he finally decided to investigate its contents.
In May 1960, Leslie mustered the courage to open the cupboard, only to be met with a gruesome find inside.
His mother, then 65, had always claimed the cupboard contained British wartime memorabilia from previous tenants.
Upon opening it, Leslie discovered a mummified body hidden beneath layers of dusty clothes and cobwebs.
The cupboard’s configuration, extending from the floor to the attic vent, created ideal conditions for mummification. Inside, Leslie found a curled-up body clad in a nightdress, its face unrecognizable due to generations of insects.
With this discovery, Mrs. Harvey became the primary suspect, and authorities visited her at the hospital to determine the identity of the body.
Raymond Vaughn, a retired police officer, described the case as one of the strangest he had ever encountered.
During questioning, Mrs. Harvey disclosed that the body belonged to Frances Alice Knight, her former tenant.
Frances, in her 60s, received a weekly allowance from her estranged husband while residing in Mrs. Harvey’s home.
She was disabled and had lived there during World War II.
Mrs. Harvey recounted that one night in 1940, Frances was upstairs while she went to make tea. Upon her return, Frances was dead.
Instead of alerting authorities, Mrs. Harvey confessed to moving the body into the cupboard, continuing to collect Frances’ £2 weekly allowance fraudulently, and telling others Frances had relocated to an elderly home in Llandudno.
Pathologists, after soaking the body in glycerine to enable examination, discovered evidence of strangulation—a ligature mark around the neck, possibly from a stocking.
When the case went to court, Mrs. Harvey managed to avoid prosecution by presenting a different narrative.
She claimed Frances had been suffering from a cold and that it was common at the time to wrap a stocking around one’s neck to alleviate symptoms.
With no evidence to counter this claim, Mrs. Harvey was acquitted of murder charges.
However, she faced charges for obtaining money by deception between May 1940 and April 1960 and received a 15-month prison sentence.