For those of you who have listened to previous true crime podcasts  here on this site, you will have listened to the tragic case of Emily Holland – a 7 year old girl who was brutally attacked and then dismembered by a local barber by the name of William Fish.  This event took place during the early months of 1876 and caused a  sensation only topped by that of the famous Jack the Ripper murders that  would occur some 12 years later, due its barbarity and callousness on a  selfless little girl.

So no-one would ever expect something like that to ever happen again and especially within the same town.

How wrong they would be.

On Tuesday, the 8th November, 1892 – 9 year old Alice Barnes had  spent the early part of the day at school and returned home at around  noon. After washing some dishes, she would leave home just before 1pm  with her sister, Mary, to take cows down to the pastures within Witton  Park – something which she did on a regular basis as her father, Edward  had rented out the fields close to his family farm which was situated  around 10 to 15 minutes’ walk away from Witton.

Passing through Selbourne Street and then Spring Lane before finally  making their way down Buncer Lane, Alice and Mary soon reached the  entrance to the park, and upon arriving, Alice told Mary to return back  to the farm and to take a calf that had strayed off into a field with  her, which she did. Mary returned back at the farm around 10 to 15  minutes later but when Alice didn’t return back and after half-an-hour  had passed, her father, asked his son, Thomas, to make his way down to  Witton to see where she was.

As Thomas made his way down Buncer Lane, just one of the few roads  that would eventually lead to one of the entrances into Witton Park, he  came across a small group of people that had gathered on the roadside,  seemingly shocked and horrified at something that was lying on the  ground.

Nearing them, it would soon become apparent, possibly from the  clothing that she was wearing, that that something in question was none  other than his sister, Alice.