The Best New True Crime Stories. Mitzi Szereto
light brown hair, was somewhat small for her age and weighed about three and a half stone.”
Volunteers got lamps from the collieries to help with the search.
Several witnesses came forward to say they had seen Freda on the morning of her disappearance. Mrs. Mary Ann Wiltshire, who lived at 141 Somerset Street, was repairing the brassware on her doorstep when she saw a young girl whose clothing matched Freda’s passing her house. The girl smiled and walked on.
Twenty-four-year-old Charles Edward Betts, a baker from 20 Duke Street, was leading his horse and cart from his stable at the Cwm Hotel, Alexandra Road, up Cwm Cottage Road, between 9:05 and 9:10 a.m. As he turned up Cwm Cottage Road, he saw Freda on the pavement opposite the Drill Hall, heading toward Somerset Street. He knew Freda and greeted her with “Hello, Jenny Maud,” which was his nickname for her.
The Mortimers’ maid, Doris Hathaway, told police that at 9:15 a.m. she shouted downstairs to Harold that a customer had entered the shop. It was Freda. There were no more definite sightings of her after she left the store.
Freda’s body was found the next day.
On Sunday, February 6, Edward Thomas Lewis, a colliery ostler, left his home at 7 Duke Street at 7:20 a.m. He walked through the lane between Duke Street and Pantypwdyn Road and found Freda’s body in a sack in an alleyway at the rear of 19 Duke Street, three hundred yards from Mortimer’s Stores. There was clearly no attempt to hide the body. Edward knocked on the door of number 17 and asked Samuel Harding to guard the body while he went to the police. Harding followed him to the station. The lane was a wide dirt track separated from Duke Street by a low drystone wall. Wire fencing formed a barrier on the other side, with a sloped field behind it, leading up to Pantypwdyn Road.
Police Superintendent Henry Lewis, Sergeant Arnold, Sergeant Jones, and Police Constables Cox and Tucker reached the scene in minutes. Freda was carried the one hundred yards to her home, where she was examined by Dr. Thomas Edward Lloyd of Abergavenny, Dr. Simon Simons of Abertillery, and Dr. Thomas Baillie Smith, the chief medical officer of Abertillery.
This wasn’t an accidental death. A cord was tied around her neck, and she had suffered blunt force trauma to the head. Her ankles were tied together, her elbows were bound behind her back, and she was gagged. She had been “sexually outraged,” meaning her killer had also attempted to rape her. Whoever had killed her must have wanted her to suffer for his enjoyment. Her estimated time of death was between 9:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. the day she went missing. Traces of corn chaff were found on her body and inside the sack.
Police searched the area, including a nearby shed belonging to Mortimer’s Stores. Inside they found a chicken coop with corn chaff scattered over the ground, Freda’s handkerchief, and sacking concealing the ax handle used to bludgeon her. As with Freda’s body, there had been no attempt to conceal the evidence. The handkerchief was later identified as belonging to Freda’s younger sister, Doris Ivy. Freda had borrowed it the morning she went missing. The shed was obviously the scene of the murder. The town was in shock. A brutal murder of a young child wasn’t something that happened in Abertillery.
The only people with a key to the storage shed were the store’s owners, Herbert and Rhoda, and Harold. Witnesses stated that Harold was not seen inside the store between 9:15 and 9:40 a.m. Two of Harold’s friends, Levi Meyrick and Francis Mortimer (Herbert and Rhoda’s son), said that at 10:20 p.m. on February 5, Jones had told them he needed to lock the shed and invited them to accompany him. However, as they reached the shed, Jones insisted on approaching it alone. They walked through the lane and spotted a sack lying on the ground. Harold reportedly went over and kicked the sack. Was Freda’s body inside it at the time? If so, this seems an incredibly brazen and disturbing thing to do. Since he was the last person to see Freda and he had a key to the shed, Harold was arrested and held at Abertillery Police Station until the coroner’s inquiry.
On the day of Freda’s funeral, Brigadier Thomas Cloud, national commander of the Salvation Army, gave a short service outside Freda’s home. Her coffin rested on a bier in the street, bearing a wreath from her parents. Cloud said, “Satan has devoured the man who has done this thing and he has become a demoniac worse than the Gadarene Demoniac.” (The Gadarene Demoniac was an unclean spirit who possessed a man from the Gadarenes; when Jesus approached him and asked the unclean for its name, it answered: “My name is Legion. For we are many.” Jesus exorcised the demon and sent it into a two-thousand-strong herd of swine.)
There were approximately one hundred thousand spectators lining the streets. The procession was one and a half miles long and took a half hour to reach Brynithel Cemetery. Businesses were closed for the day out of respect. The Abertillery Urban District Council decided to make a public collection to pay for Freda’s funeral. Her epitaph read:
Freda, daughter of F & M Burnell, who met her death Feb. 5th 1921, aged 8 ½. She has gone to be with Jesus, there she’ll know no pain. She is waiting for her loved ones to be gathered once again.
As Freda’s funeral cortège went past, Harold was sitting on a wall, then went to play billiards at Preece’s Billiards Hall.
During the inquest on Thursday, February 24, Fred Burnell said that Harold Jones visited him at home between 6:00 and 6:30 p.m. the night Freda went missing, to see if she had been found. He returned later in the evening and asked again. Harold had once lived two doors away at number 5 and knew Freda, so Fred assumed Harold was concerned and being neighborly. As Harold was the one who had killed her, his motives for doing this must have been to cause Freda’s father more pain. He knew she wouldn’t be found alive.
A few witnesses at the inquest gave evidence stating that they had heard a child scream on the day Freda died. On February 4 or 5 at 9:30 a.m., Fanny Manuel of 106 Princess Street was in her kitchen, two houses from Mortimer’s shed, where Freda was killed. She couldn’t recall which day she heard the scream. The coroner said, “The next question might appear funny to you, but there is a reason for asking it. Was the scream you heard such as could have been made by a chicken?” (Chickens lived in the storage shed.) Fanny replied, “No sir, I have often heard children’s screams, and this screaming was like it, but it sounded muffled.”
Edith Evans of 10 Duke Street said she was in her back garden at 9:30 a.m. on Saturday, February 5. Her garden led into the lane between Duke Street and Princess Street. She said she heard a child’s scream. She listened hard for a couple of minutes but heard nothing else.
Twenty-three-year-old collier Henry Arthur Duggan of 107 Princess Street said that on February 5 at 9:25 a.m. he was in his backyard, catching one of his chickens and returning it to its pen. He heard a short, loud scream, which ended suddenly as though muffled. He thought it came from Mortimer’s shed, which was at the bottom of his yard. He put his ear to the boarded-up window but heard nothing more. Medical evidence suggested Freda was alive for four hours after her assault. It’s believed Duggan suffered a nervous breakdown shortly after.
Hannah Evans, seventy-two, sold her house and storage shed to Mortimer’s, but continued to live in the house. She said Harold was in the shed every morning between nine and nine-thirty feeding the chickens. Her granddaughter Lilian, who helped her on Saturdays, said she saw Harold Jones leave the shed on Saturday, February 5, at 10:40 a.m., an hour later than usual.
Francis Mortimer often helped Jones with deliveries. They would always wheel a trolley into the shed, load it with feed, then go on deliveries. On the day of Freda’s murder, Francis said that Harold had opened the door, but not very wide, as there was a sack in the way. Harold went into the shed by himself, fetched the potatoes, loaded the trolley, and told Francis to go on ahead without him. This was very unusual, since they always went together. Herbert and Rhoda Mortimer were convinced of Harold’s innocence and said he was in the shop making noise, yet Harold had said he was sitting quietly. Rhoda claimed some of the evidence their son had given wasn’t true. It seems bizarre that she would cover for Harold but tell the police her son was lying.
Freda’s death certificate stated:
“1. That the cause of her death was shock consequent upon (a) rape or attempted rape and injuries to the vulva and hymen (b) injuries to the neck and partial strangulation (c) injuries