In the spring of 1896, a bargeman hooked a parcel from the River Thames at Reading. Inside the brown paper package was the body of a baby girl ? she had been strangled with tape. A faint name and address on the sodden wrapping provided the detectives with their first clue in a deeply disturbing case. When two more tiny bodies were discovered in a carpet bag, also dragged from the water, the police launched a nationwide hunt for a heartless and methodical murderer.
This book reveals the relentless police investigation that finally unmasked Amelia Dyer ? Victorian England's most prolific baby farmer and one of its most chilling serial killers ? and brought her to justice after three decades of her deadly trade. Drawing on previously unpublished material, it also uncovers the forgotten stories of her victims: the children, and their desperate mothers, whose lives were shattered long before they ever encountered Amelia Dyer.
This expanded second edition of The Historical Murder Files Vol. 2 draws on newly uncovered material, including the histories of Dyer's victims, her medical reports, her letters, and the interviews she gave while held at Holloway and Newgate prisons.
