Man embellished mum’s house as shock however will always remember what he discovered inside

Leslie Harvey was in for a shock when he decided to spruce up his mum’s house while she was in hospital.

Upon opening a cupboard door at the top of the stairs, the cabbie moved some clothes and was horrified to find the mummified remains of a lodger who had been locked inside for two decades. Suddenly, his sweet-looking 65 year old grandmother, Sarah Jane Harvey, became a murder suspect as her home at 35 West Kinmel Street in Rhyl, North Wales became a crime scene.

Leslie, who lived nearby with his wife and young son, had intended to tidy up and redecorate his childhood home as a surprise. He’d always wanted to know what was inside the towering 6ft 11″ storage unit on the landing, which he was told held leftover items from former wartime tenants who had lodged there.

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However, when curiosity got the better of him in May, 1960, the 29-year-old was met with the gruesome sight of a shrivelled human foot beneath thick layers of cobwebs and dust.

As he pulled back a decaying blanket, a body was revealed. The face had long since been devoured by generations of flies, while moths had ruined the hair and clothing.

The cupboard, which extended from the floor to the loft vent, had created the perfect conditions for mummification due to drafts.

Mrs Harvey, who was initially questioned from her hospital bed, identified the body as that of former tenant Frances Alice Knight.

Mrs Knight, a woman in her 60s estranged from her dentist husband, had been receiving a weekly allowance from him.

She was partially disabled and often complained of severe muscle pain after renting a room from Mrs Harvey during World War II.

One particularly bad night in 1940, Mrs Harvey said she went to make her a cup of tea, only to return and find Mrs Knight dead.

Instead of reporting the death, she moved the body into a cupboard and locked it, fraudulently claiming her lodger’s £2 weekly Post Office allowance, which over the years totalled £2,099.

Mrs Harvey told people that her friend had relocated to a retirement home. However, Mrs Knight’s mummified body was discovered two decades later, doubled up and dressed in a faded nightgown.

A garden spade had to be used to pry her remains loose from the lino on the floor. To allow for a thorough post-mortem, pathologists had to soak the corpse in a glycerine solution for a week until it was pliable enough for internal examination.

Signs of strangulation were evident from a stocking ligature and a groove around the neck, prompting police to investigate the case as a homicide.

During Mrs Harvey’s trial, prosecutors claimed she strangled Mrs Knight with a stocking soon after gaining access to her finances.

In her defence, Mrs Harvey argued that Mrs Knight had been suffering with a bad cold and said it was “common knowledge” to wrap a stocking around the neck to cure throat ailments.

The jury was told that there was no conclusive evidence that the stocking had been used forcefully.

Mrs Harvey was cleared of murder but was found guilty of obtaining money by deception between May 1940 and April 1960. She was sentenced to 15 months imprisonment. On her release, she went to live at a nursing home and died soon after of cancer.

The chilling find and the unresolved mystery of Mrs Knight’s death continue to be hot topics among the residents of Rhyl even after many years.

In a documentary, retired police officer, Raymond Vaughn told UK Horizons about the case. He said: “The case was the most unusual case anybody including pathologies, all the police had ever encountered.

“It was the first mummified body I had ever seen and I shall remember it for as long as I live.”

Programme-makers from Paranormal Investigations UK later visited the address to find that a man who had moved in later fled when he found out the dark secret.

His sister, Tracy Jones bought the property in the 1990s and rented it to her sibling before moving in herself. She said: “My older brother moved out – as far as I’m aware – because he found out about the mummy in the cupboard and he was scared.”

She added: “At the time, it made the house famous and they used to bring day trippers back and forth.”

Tracy’s daughter Cally said she believed the property was haunted by Mrs Knight stating: “You sometimes hear her coming along the landing, she’s quite heavy-footed. Things go missing around the house and she sometimes likes playing with your hairdryer and electrical goods.”

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