Cut up and boiled to feed street children: Horrific fate of Victorian murder victim whose skull was found in David Attenborough's garden



A skull discovered in David Attenborough’s back garden belonged to the victim of a gruesome Victorian murder, a coroner has ruled.

Widow Julia Martha Thomas, 55, was attacked in 1879 by her maid Kate Webster who pushed her down the stairs, then strangled her, chopped up her body, boiled it and gave the dripping to local children to eat.

Webster was tried and sent to the gallows but the skull lay undiscovered until October last year when workmen at TV naturalist Sir David’s £1.5million home dug it up while building an extension.

Killer: Kate Webster who murdered her elderly employer after she returned home from church on a Sunday evening. The victim's skull was found in David Attenborough's garden

Yesterday, more than a century after the murder, the West London Coroner Alison Thompson formally recognised the skull as that of Mrs Thomas.

She also recorded a verdict of unlawful killing and the cause of death as asphyxiation and head injury.



Mrs Thomas’ skull can now finally be given a proper burial. She lived at almost exactly the same spot as Sir David on a road in Richmond, south west London.

After reviewing records of the murder of Mrs Thomas, along with census records and radiocarbon testing, police were able to provide the coroner with compelling evidence that the skull was hers.

Testing showed it belonged to a white female of roughly menopausal age, missing its teeth, and it was laying on Victorian tiles.

Carbon dating of the remains dated the skull between 1650 and 1880 partly because the bones had a marine dating, meaning the person would have eaten a lot of fish, consistent with Londoners at the time.

The truth will out: Finally the mystery behind Mrs Thomas' death has been solved

Mrs Thomas was a devout Presbyterian who had employed Irish born Webster as a maid two months before the murder. They did not get on as Webster was a drunkard and had spent her life in and out of prison for offences including burglary.

THE BARNES MYSTERY: WHO WAS KATE WEBSTER? Born Catherine Lawler in 1849 near Co.Wexford, Ireland, she claimed to have acquired the name Webster from marrying a sea captain and was in trouble with the law from an early age.

She was just 18 when she got a four-year sentence for stealing in Liverpool.

Her life as a cleaner began when she moved to London when she was released. However, she regularly abused her position and stole from her employers.

She gave birth to a son in April 1874, but was abandoned by the father, a Mr Strong, and went back to thieving.

For five years she pilfered the houses she worked in, sometimes using the surname Lawler to throw people off her track.

Then in 1879 she began working for Mrs Julia Thomas in Richmond, London . Their relationship was initially a good one, but Webster's drinking and bad temper led to her being fired and ultimately to Mrs Thomas's gruesome murder.

On March 22, 1879 Mrs Thomas returned home from church when she and Webster became embroiled in a fight and in a ‘fit of rage’ Webster pushed her down the stairs.

Acting Detective Inspector David Bolton told the coroner: ‘Realising she had injured her she proceeded to strangle her to stop her from screaming and getting her in trouble. Webster decided to do away with the body and used a razor to chop off the head. Having decapitated her she used a razor, a meat saw and a carving knife to cut the body up.

‘The dismembered body was put into a copper laundry vessel and she proceeded to boil up the body parts of Mrs Thomas.’

Records from the Old Bailey trial show witnesses talked of the ‘stench’ and noticed Webster cleaning and making frequent visits to the pub.

Having completed the task Webster put most of the body in a box which she tied together and enlisted an unwitting Robert Porter, the son of a former neighbour, to help her carry the box to the Thames.

As he walked away he heard a splash, but thought nothing of it until the ‘mass of white flesh’, at first believed to be butcher’s off-cuts, was discovered in the Thames at Barnes Bridge, leading to the murder being dubbed the ‘Barnes Mystery’.

Webster dumped a foot in an allotment and assumed the identity of her former employer, taking her money, her jewellery and even her false teeth which were in a gold plate.

Gruesome: Builders unearthed a skull, believed to solve a 131-year-old riddle, in globe-trotter Sir David Attenborough's garden

Scene of the crime: The gruesome murder took place near this pub

It is believed she put the head in a Gladstone bag which she carried with her as she sold off Mrs Thomas’s belongings before dumping it.

An element of mystery remains as there is no record of where the rest of the childless woman’s body was laid to rest, the inquest heard.

ADI Bolton said: ‘A few days after the murder some boys said that Kate Webster had offered them some food and said ‘ere you lads I’ve got some good pigs lard which you can have for free’. The boys ate two bowls of lard which was unfortunately Mrs Thomas.’

Webster fled to Ireland with her young son, but was followed and arrested. When a jury convicted her after an hour’s deliberation she claimed she was pregnant but this was a lie. As she awaited her execution she tried to implicate her son’ s father but these were also lies.

When the decision was taken not to commute the sentence, she finally confessed with a priest present.

Yesterday the coroner said: ‘Putting all the circumstantial evidence together there is clear, convincing and compelling evidence that this is Julia Martha Thomas.’

Despite extensive attempts by ADI Bolton, who was commended by the coroner for his work, no family of Mrs Thomas could be traced.