Talk about 'Cold Cases' ...
British detectives said this week they are looking into the 1926 disappearance of a 16-year-old after hearing new evidence about a deathbed confession made decades ago.
The investigation is believed to be one of the country's oldest cold case reviews ever.
Emma Alice Smith disappeared as she cycled between her home and a nearby railway station 83 years ago.
Her disappearance has been unsolved - and her body missing - ever since.
But that could soon change: David Wright, the teenager's great-nephew, said that he came forward to tell police about the confession, a long-held family secret.
Wright said his mother told him that in the 1950s, a man - whose identity has not been revealed - claimed responsibility for the teenager's death, but the confession was never made public.
Police also were not told at the time.
Wright's mother was told about the confession by her aunt, Emma Alice's sister, Lily, who died in 1995.
"A gentleman, on his deathbed sometime in 1952 to 1953, had confessed to killing her sister.
But she felt she was unable to bring it to light because her own father had just passed away," Wright said.
"It was also a very small community and to make an accusation like that would have been scandalous in those days."
Those sorts of things were hushed up or brushed under the carpet."
In December 2007, Wright broke the silence and went to police in Sussex, asking them to look into his great-aunt's disappearance.
Last month, they said they planned to reopen the case.
"I was very, very surprised when they said they would investigate it.
I didn't think anyone would be interested," he said.
Emma Alice had worked as a servant in a large house near her home in the village of Waldron, about 60 miles south of London.
She was the second of eight children; Wright's grandfather was Emma Alice's older brother.
Police said they want to find Emma's body for her family's sake rather than to make an arrest.
"The family are keen to trace the body of Emma, if that is possible, in order that she can be given a proper burial and laid to rest with her close family," said Detective Chief Inspector Trevor Bowles, of the Sussex Police Major Crime Branch.
"A number of local people have already assisted us and have been able to fill in some of the many gaps which exist."
Given the years which have passed, this is inevitably a difficult task.
"Detectives are fitting the cold case investigation around their existing caseload, Detective Inspector Mike Ashcroft said.
He said that officers, using maps of the time, have already identified the likely path Emma Alice would have taken, and that they will begin searching the ponds along the 2.5 mile route between her home and the railway station.
Experts have already assured the detectives that human remains will still be present, even after more than eight decades of decomposition.
"I'm pretty certain that if there's a body in a pond, we'll find it," Ashcroft said.
No comments:
Post a Comment