Murder without a body

In 1660, 70-year-old William Harrison disappeared without a trace from the small market town of Chipping Campden in Gloucestershire – feared murdered for the rent money that he had collected. Harrison's servant, John Perry, confessed to having robbed and killed his master and also implicated his mother and brother in the crime. Despite the fact that no body was found, the three were tried, convicted and hanged for Harrison's murder. However, two years later, Harrison reappeared, claiming that he had been kidnapped by three unknown horsemen and sold into slavery in Turkey, from where he eventually escaped and made his way home. As a result of Harrison's case, known as the Campden Wonder, a 'no body, no murder' rule was made to prevent potential miscarriages of justice, and for the three hundred years that followed, people could not be tried for murder in the absence of a victim's body.

Stanislaw Sykut

The 'no body, no murder' rule was eventually overturned in 1954 when Michael Onufrejczyk, a Polish WWII war veteran, was tried and convicted of his business partner and fellow veteran Stanislaw Sykut's murder. In 1953, Onufrejczyk bought Cefn Hendre Farm in Llandeilo, Carmarthenshire, and went into partnership with Sykut. During routine foreign national checks, the police, upon visiting the farm in December 1953, were told by Onufrejczyk that Sykut had sold him his half of the farm and returned to Poland. However, investigations revealed that Sykut had left behind £450 in a bank account and none of his friends knew that he had gone. Sykut had also made legal inquiries about dissolving the partnership and had previously complained of Onufrejczyk's violent behaviour. Convinced that Onufrejczyk had killed Sykut, the police used dogs to search the woods and fields within a 40-mile radius of the farm for Sykut's body. Bogs, haystacks and manure heaps were probed, and the Dulais River was dragged. However, after two months of searching, there was still no sign of Sykut. Convinced that Onufrejczyk had chopped up Sykut's body and fed it to the farm's pigs, the police arrested Onufrejczyk and charged him with Sykut's murder. At Onufrejczyk's trial, the jury heard evidence that over 2,000 tiny human bloodstains had been found in the farmhouse kitchen, along with a bloody handprint. Disbelieving Onufrejczyk's claim that the stains were rabbits' blood caused from skinning, the jury found Onufrejczyk guilty of Sykut's murder, effectively overturning the 300-year-old 'no body, no murder' rule, and Onufrejczyk was convicted and sentenced to death (later commuted to life imprisonment).

It is estimated that there are between two and five 'no body' murder convictions every year in the UK. This is unsurprising given that advances in technology can help to produce a wealth of forensic and circumstantial evidence to indicate that a missing person has probably been killed as opposed to other reasons for death such as suicide or accident, or is likely to still be alive having either been abducted or disappeared of their own accord. However, some cases that have been deemed 'no body' murders by the police lack the evidence needed to arrest, charge or convict a suspect. From 1969 to the present day, 72 documented 'no body' murder cases remain unsolved in the UK. The subsequent posts in this blog will examine and analyse the publicly available information for as many of those cases as possible, separate fact from rumour, and use criminological theory and profiling techniques to see if any potential new lines of inquiry can be generated.

References

Clifford, P. (n.d.) The Campden Wonder. https://www.campdenwonder.com

John, L. (31 December 2023) The Welsh farm murder where the victim is thought to have been fed to the pigs. Wales Online. https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/welsh-farm-murder-victim-thought-28178483

R v Onufrejczk (11 Jan 1955) The Law Reports (Queens Bench Division): 1 QB 388 

https://www.iclr.co.uk/document/1950029761/casereport_85678/html