Post by hi224 on Aug 25, 2019 17:11:10 GMT
In 1959, Peter Reyn-Bardt met Malika de Fernandez and proposed within a few hours of their meeting and they were married within a week. However, their marriage didn't last and they were estranged within a few months. Though they didn't divorce, Fernandez began traveling and they didn't live together.
In 1961, de Fernandez disappeared. Reyn-Bardt was immediately suspected of killing her but though they dug up his garden and searched his house, police were never able to find any evidence of a crime.
In May of 1983, people were harvesting peat in a bog that was within a 300 yards of Reyn-Bardt's cottage and found a portion of a skull with some soft tissue still attached. An initial forensic examination determined that the skull was 30-50 years old. Police confronted Reyn-Bardt with the evidence and he confessed to murdering his estranged wife.
He said that de Fernandez had discovered that he was living with another man and attempted to blackmail him. However, he had no money to pay her off with, and rather than trying, he killed her instead.
He confessed to dismembering her corpse, attempting to burn it, and then when that didn't get rid of the remains, he scattered the pieces into the nearby bog.
However, during the trial, it was discovered that the skull fragment found couldn't have been of de Fernandez since it was carbon dated to be approximately 1,700 years old and dated to the Roman era. They'd found a bog body which is now known as the Lindow Woman. (Caution: The bog body link contains pictures.)
Reyn-Bardt attempted to recant his confession but was still convicted of murder and spent the rest of his life in prison.
His wife's remains have never been found.
This isn't a mystery, per se, since due to Reyn-Bardt's confession we know almost everything other than the location of the body parts but I thought it'd be of interest to this sub. It kind of creeps me out to think it's possible that a portion of de Fernandez's body might be preserved in a similar fashion and 1,700 years from now, they might find her and wonder who she is and how she got there.
[Article with details of the crime and information on how the bog bodies are preserved] (https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/bodies-in-the-bog-the-lindow-mysteries) (contains photographs of other bog bodies)
Contemporaneous news article
Contemporaneous news article #2
Edit:
The Science History article mentioned that Reyn-Bardt had been previously arrested for sex crimes against children, but didn't give many details. I dug a bit more and found out that he and Paul Corrigan had been convicted of abducting a young boy. After his release in 1980, Corrigan went on to torture and kill another child, and then was part of a pedophile ring in his prison. Despite this, he was allowed out of jail for unsupervised shopping trips from 2016-2018.
In 1961, de Fernandez disappeared. Reyn-Bardt was immediately suspected of killing her but though they dug up his garden and searched his house, police were never able to find any evidence of a crime.
In May of 1983, people were harvesting peat in a bog that was within a 300 yards of Reyn-Bardt's cottage and found a portion of a skull with some soft tissue still attached. An initial forensic examination determined that the skull was 30-50 years old. Police confronted Reyn-Bardt with the evidence and he confessed to murdering his estranged wife.
He said that de Fernandez had discovered that he was living with another man and attempted to blackmail him. However, he had no money to pay her off with, and rather than trying, he killed her instead.
He confessed to dismembering her corpse, attempting to burn it, and then when that didn't get rid of the remains, he scattered the pieces into the nearby bog.
However, during the trial, it was discovered that the skull fragment found couldn't have been of de Fernandez since it was carbon dated to be approximately 1,700 years old and dated to the Roman era. They'd found a bog body which is now known as the Lindow Woman. (Caution: The bog body link contains pictures.)
Reyn-Bardt attempted to recant his confession but was still convicted of murder and spent the rest of his life in prison.
His wife's remains have never been found.
This isn't a mystery, per se, since due to Reyn-Bardt's confession we know almost everything other than the location of the body parts but I thought it'd be of interest to this sub. It kind of creeps me out to think it's possible that a portion of de Fernandez's body might be preserved in a similar fashion and 1,700 years from now, they might find her and wonder who she is and how she got there.
[Article with details of the crime and information on how the bog bodies are preserved] (https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/bodies-in-the-bog-the-lindow-mysteries) (contains photographs of other bog bodies)
Contemporaneous news article
Contemporaneous news article #2
Edit:
The Science History article mentioned that Reyn-Bardt had been previously arrested for sex crimes against children, but didn't give many details. I dug a bit more and found out that he and Paul Corrigan had been convicted of abducting a young boy. After his release in 1980, Corrigan went on to torture and kill another child, and then was part of a pedophile ring in his prison. Despite this, he was allowed out of jail for unsupervised shopping trips from 2016-2018.