The grisly discovery that remains a mystery – 65 years on
IT WAS a crime which shocked a small Valleys town – one which still remains unsolved 65 years later.
The naked body of a baby, wrapped in brown paper and sporting horrific facial injuries – thought to have been caused by something sharp, like scissors – was discovered in the grounds of an Aberdare Catholic school by children on their way home for dinner.
The grisly find would kick-start an intensive door-to-door police inquiry, leading to the hunt for a mystery couple who’d been spotted in the area at around the same time the body had been dumped.
However, despite all efforts to track down the pair – one of whom was even sighted some months later in a Bridgend bus queue – the investigation never came to anything.
It’s a disturbing case that would have seemed inconceivable to the locals as they awoke on the morning of Monday, November 7, 1955 – a day which had started out much like any other, with kids to dress, feed and ship off to school for a new week of lessons.
But, at around midday, John Foley – a teacher at St Margaret’s, just off the town’s mountain road over to the Rhondda – was approached by a small boy in his class telling him something had been found in the playground.
Walking out into the yard, he saw a cluster of children gathered around a strange object on the ground, near the high wall at the rear of neighbouring Elizabeth Street.
“It was a baby. It was dead, naked and lying there in some brown paper,” he told the coroner T. Alwyn John at the inquest into the tragedy, held in April 1956.
At the same time, those living near the school premises told of several strange occurrences which seem to be linked to the tot’s body being abandoned.
Gladys Davies, 26, of The Grove, said she’d spotted a couple walking nearby during the previous afternoon, both of whom had begun behaving oddly when they saw her.
“I noticed a lady and a gentlemen coming towards me – she was carrying a bag and there was brown wrapping paper poking out of it,” she said.
“My curiosity was aroused because I wondered how they’d managed to do any shopping on a Sunday.
“But, when the lady saw me, she hesitated and went back a little way, before then coming forward again and turning into a cul-desac. I thought it was very mysterious.”
She went on to describe the woman as being about 30 years old, of average height, with black hair and wearing a small grey hat.
She was in a dark-coloured coat and was carrying a “small, dirty canvas holdall”.
The man with her was said to have long, black slicked-back hair and a loose-fitting trench coat.
“I wouldn’t recognise him if I saw him again,” said Ms Davies, before dropping a bombshell that led to gasps being heard around the court room.
“However, I’d know that woman anywhere – in fact, I saw her again in February... and she saw me too.”
She added that the chance second encounter had taken place in Bridgend when the woman was seen waiting in the queue for a bus to Cowbridge.
Ms Davies informed police about the sighting and officers later flagged down a Cardiffbound bus which had left Bridgend shortly after the time given by the witness – but no one fitting the woman’s description was said to have been on board.
Also giving evidence was Iris May St John, of Elizabeth Street, who told the coroner she’d been putting out milk bottles on the evening of Sunday, November 6, 1955, when she’d spied a man repeatedly taking running jumps at the boundary wall to the school grounds.
“I thought he must be mad and went back indoors,” she said, adding that she’d been unable to see his face properly as a result of the street being so dimly lit.
Glamorgan Hospital in Church Village, Pontypridd, said the child had been born one month prematurely, concluding that he must have died shortly afterwards as a result of injuries to both his mouth and jawbone, most likely caused by a pair of scissors.
It’s also thought he’d been thrown over the wall into the school grounds sometime the evening before – a timescale corroborated by the school’s cleaner, who stated that the yard had been clear earlier that same afternoon.
An open verdict was returned by the coroner in the hope that the mystery couple might eventually be tracked down, thereby giving the police the fresh lead they needed to solve the case.
Nevertheless, the identity of both the couple and the baby, along with an explanation into his death, has never been discovered.
A “cold case”, it still remains open today in the hope that, at some point, the truth might finally be revealed.