Family want killer's skin destroyed

21 August 2004 08:30

One hundred and seventy-seven years ago, in a shallow grave under a barn deep in the Suffolk countryside, the remains of Maria Marten were found, two months after she went missing.

She had been shot and repeatedly stabbed.

Ever since, the 25-year-old woman's death has been referred to as the Red Barn Murder and has become one of the region's most famous murder stories - and the man hanged for the crime was her lover William Corder.

He admitted shooting her but he always denied stabbing her.

Corder, from Polstead, near Sudbury, was convicted after a trial in Bury St Edmunds, in August 1828, and sentenced to death by hanging.

His body was to be anatomised, or dissected.

After his corpse was cut down, it was cut open and laid out in Shire Hall for hundreds of people to gawk at.

And parts of him still remain in the public eye.

As surgeon George Creed dissected the body, he removed Corder's skin - tanned it and used it to bind a grisly account of the murder and trial - and part of Corder's scalp.

They still lie side by side in Bury St Edmunds' Moyse's Hall Museum - but now his descendants are demanding their return.

Corder's skeleton was also sent to London and was stored at the Royal College of Surgeons, who retained it under the Anatomy Act

And last week Linda Nessworthy, whose grandmother's great-great grandfather was also Corder's grandfather, won a great victory when the college gave up Corder's skeleton for cremation.

Ms Nessworthy won following decisions made by the Government's Working Party on Human Remains set up in 2001. Published last year, their findings, clearly state that artefacts cannot be held without descendants' permission.

Although the final decision to hand Corder's skeleton back had to be ratified by Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport Tessa Jowell, his remains were cremated in London last Thursday.

Three years after the family started their fight to have his remains properly interred, Ms Nessworthy of Martham, near Yarmouth, is pleased to have got this far.

And now she wants more.

Yet Moyse's Hall Museum say the artefacts they hold are valuable, showing how our ancestors dealt with crime and punishment.

It is a long-running debate between scientists, who maintain it is important to hold on to such artefacts for our social history, and cultural groups and distant relations incensed their ancestors remains are paraded for the paying public.

Ms Nessworthy launched her crusade to reclaim his remains and - she hopes - clear his name after she discovered she was related to Corder while researching her family tree.

Mental health nurse Ms Nessworthy said: "It was quite distressing to think I am linked to a murderer, which was really quite an infamous tale.

"As I found out more information, I got a little driven by the injustice of it all."

She published a book about it and maintains his innocence, partly because the prosecutor in Corder's trial was the same man who presided over the inquest.

"[Corder] did contribute. He never denied there was a scuffle and the gun went off, but denied he stabbed her," she said.

She said there are other suspects. Corder took up with notorious thief Samuel 'Beauty' Smith, who could also have had a hand in Maria's death.

While her long-term goal is to clear Corder's name, in the meantime she is focused on gaining his remains.

"It is quite horrific to think people are paying to go in and see these sorts of things. I know Moyse's Hall Museum is not happy with our request, but the Working Group on Human Remains report states categorically that permission is needed from member of family [to continue displaying the remains].

"I want the scalp and book-binding cremated."

The working group was set up to look into the rights of ancient human remains following protests from aboriginal groups.

It states where a deceased person is directly related or a link to descendants can be proved through genealogy human material should be relinquished in favour of the claimant, irrespective of the value to science in retaining it.

That argues Ms Nessworthy, means if the descendants haven't given consent for the human remains to be displayed, they should be returned.

The Bury museum views the remains as very important artefacts.

A spokeswoman said: "We have now received a request from Linda Nessworthy for the return of the items in Moyse's Hall Museum and it will now be considered.

"The whole Red Barn collection, including the account of the trial bound in Corder's skin and the part of his scalp, are artefacts of their time and help us to understand how

people thought about and dealt with crime and punishment two centuries ago.

"We will consider the claim carefully and sensitively, with a final decision being taken by St Edmundsbury's councillors as custodians of our local history."

In the grand scale of things, Ms Nessworthy's fight is just a tiny portion of a wider debate.

The UK's museums are stuffed

with thousands of ancient human parts, from hair samples to whole skeletons.

Email A Friend