Amelia Dyer: Britain’s Baby Butcher, Part lV

Amelia Dyer

By 1890, Amelia seeking higher profits had started targeting the babies of the more affluent for this would increase her wealth. She now received £50-80 one-off fees. Some speculate that she took this additional risk for she felt that she would not be able to baby farm much longer without being caught.

In this year she arranged to take into her care the illegitimate baby of a governess. This young woman had fallen in love with the young master of the house she worked in—she became pregnant.

She saw one of Amelia’s adverts and moved in with the older woman to hide her condition, Amelia then was able to gain her trust. She convinced the governess to leave her baby in her care.

But the governess returned to visit her baby months later. She quickly became suspicious because the infant she was handed was not hers—it did not have a birthmark on its hip like her baby.

This young woman informed the authorities but Amelia managed to stall them by sending them on wild goose chases—she told the police the couple that adopted the baby moved here-- no they moved there.

Amelia moved to several towns after this but the governess continued to pursue her.

Feeling pressured and in a panic, she fell into another depression, she then drank two bottles of Mother’s Friend laudanum in a suicide attempt. But she survived. This overdose would have killed most people but her extended use of this opiate had given her a cushion.

She was placed in an asylum once more but when she was released she quickly went back to farming and murder.

Amelia had one last breakdown in 1893. She by this time was an expert at feigning insanity—after all she had watched her mother’s spiral into madness. She made repeated statements such as, “The birds were telling me to do it.”

All of her asylum placements were timed to avoid capture by the authorities.

When she was released from Wells Mental asylum in Somerset she quickly recovered. She then landed in a workhouse where she managed to lure an older widow, Jane Smith to a supposed better life—helping unwanted babies.

Workhouse in Somerset.

She told Jane to call her “Mother” and she called Jane “Granny Smith” in order to create an illusion of a mother-daughter relationship in front of prospective clients.

It wasn't long before Granny Smith realized she was just a servant who had to care for all the babies that Amelia brought to their home.

In fact, so many babies arrived and left that Granny Smith could not even learn their names. The neighbors began to notice 6 infants arriving every day.

It was during this period in 1896, that Eveline Marmon responded to Amelia’s advertisement for a nice home in the country.

White edging tape on corset.

After Amelia took possession of Doris she wrapped white edging tape around her neck, making a strangling knot. But the female baby did not die immediately.

Amelia admitted later that she enjoyed watching the tape around little Doris’ neck—but alas it was soon over with. She then took the clothes Eveline had given her and pawned them—she used the money to pay her rent.

The following day, April 1, 1896 Amelia accepted another baby, a one year old boy named Harry Simmons. She was out of tape so she retrieved the tape from Doris’ corpse to strangle Harry.

The next day she put both bodies in a carpetbag weighted with bricks and threw them into the River Thames at a secluded spot at Caversham Lock—but a witness passing by spotted her.

In Part V of Amelia Dyer:Britain’s Baby Butcher suspicions lead to Amelia’s downfall and her ghost is seen in an historic place.

Anne Naylor’s Ghost

This is a true story about two grisly murders, one resulted in a haunting that still occurs today. 

Children at London Workhouse
18th Century

The Naylor sisters, two orphans were residents or inmates * at a workhouse in 18^th century London. It was common practice at this time for children once they reached the age of 12 to be apprenticed out to a local business. 

Anne Naylor, ** and her younger sister were given into the care of a local woman who ran a millinery shop. A Mrs. Sarah Metyard and her daughter Sarah “Sally” Metyard ran this establishment. These two women had five young girls apprenticed to them, but what they provided would not be characterized as “care.”

The girls under the Metyard’s care were often beaten and starved. Both women had hot tempers and enjoyed inflicting pain. Anne unfortunately, was often their primary target for she was sickly and could not keep up with her assigned work. 

At one point Anne managed to escape the Metyard’s house, but they sent a boy, who found her and forcefully returned her to their shop. As punishment Sally beat Anne and then locked her in the attic where she was given only bread and water.

Anne now desperate once more escaped the Metyard’s home. This time Sally brought her back. She viciously beat Anne with a broomstick, and then Mrs. Metyard tied Anne to the Attic door where she was forced to stand for hours during the day. 

She was tied to this door for three days without food or water. Mrs. Metyard pointed her out to the other apprentices warning them that this would happen to them if they ever tried to escape, or disobey her.

On the fourth day, the other apprentices noticed Anne was not moving. They called for Sally. She beat Anne about the head with a shoe, but when she didn’t respond, she called for her mother. Mrs. Metyard tried to revive Anne with smelling salts, but when this didn’t work, the two women realized Anne was dead. 

They locked her body in a trunk in the attic. They made a show of taking food to her for days so the other apprentices would not suspect anything was amiss. They even left the attic door open and the shop door ajar, claiming Anne had run away yet again.

However, Anne’s sister did not believe them. She managed to tell a lodger in the house that she suspected Anne was dead. Furious, the Metyards murdered her as well. ** 

After two months had passed, the two women started to worry the neighbors would wonder about the smell for Anne’s body was still in the trunk in the attic. 

On Christmas day they dismembered the body and wrapped each piece in cloth. At first, they tried to burn these pieces in their fireplace but realizing this caused an odor—they instead took the fragments to Chick Lane and dumped them in a mud puddle near a sewer.

When these human remains were found, it was assumed that it was a body that had been snatched and then dissected by medical students. 

Soon after, witnesses started to see the ghost of a young girl dressed in white in the area where the body had been dumped. 

Other witnesses heard a young girl’s scream. So many people saw and have listened to this apparition that eventually most of this London parish felt Chick Lane was haunted.

The Metyards might have gotten away with this murder if it had not been for Sally confessing. Four years after they disposed of Anne’s body, the two women had a big fight, which prompted Sally to move out and live with a man who was her lover. 

When he mentioned the ghost of Chick Lane, Sally told him what she and her mother had done. Naively, he informed the authorities—downplaying Sally’s role in the belief she would not be accused.

But both the Metyard women were arrested, tried, and found guilty. The judge, when sentencing both women to hang, announced that justice would not be complete unless both their bodies were dissected after death. 

When Mrs. Metyard was walked to the scaffold, she collapsed. Her jailers were not able to revive her, so she was hanged while still unconscious. Sally cried as she took this final walk. Both bodies were put on public display after they were hanged, at Tyburn on July 19, 1768. Their bodies were then dissected at “Surgeon’s Hall.”

Here is a link to the official record.

Farringdon Station

Chick Lane is now called West Street. Many of the 18th-century buildings in this area have been torn down—new ones have replaced them. Despite these changes, the neighborhood is still haunted. 

One hundred years after Anne’s death, in 1758, a prominent London ghost hunter investigated—he experienced the same activity everyone else had—so the site was pronounced authentic. 

Today, near the area where Anne’s body was dumped, stands the Farringdon Station—a stop on the London Underground. Countless witnesses have heard Anne’s screams as they stand on the platform, after the last train leaves. Several people have caught these screams on their recorders.

* People who lived in workhouses were called inmates—this is fitting because these Poor Law institutions were similar to prisons. This is probably why we call prisoners inmates today.

** Anne Naylor was 13 years old when she was beaten and starved to death.

*** It is not known how the Metyard’s killed Anne’s sister or what they did with her body.