In 1959 , portrayal artist and travel fancier Malika de Fernandez encounter the serviceman who would become her murderer . Within two hours , Peter Reyn - Bardt , an airline employee , necessitate her to wed him – and she said yes . Within four days , they were married .
A few calendar month later , the marriage broke down , and Fernandez start to travel the world again , now using her new husband ’s airline travel discount . Reyn - Bardt remained at his cottage in Cheshire , England .
Two years afterwards , Fernandez disappeared completely , and Reyn - Bardt became suspect numeral one . Despite exhaustive searches of his property – including digging up his garden in search of her remains – the police were n’t able to determine any evidence of Malika or any wrongful conduct . The case remained unresolved for two decades when issue select an odd twist : part of a torso was discovered within a peat peat bog near the home base of Reyn - Bardt ’s cottage .
At this point , Reyn - Bardt ’s embarrassing lack of knowledge of peat peat bog came back to prick him , and ended with his conviction for her murder .
Peat is create through the decomposition of constituent matter , largely from flora materials such as moss . Whensphagnum moss , in particular , pile up in wetland enough to mold a bog , the stratum of peat form acids that are improbably good at bear on body . Fall into one of these – or get murdered orsacrificedand throw into one of these – and when you get key hundred later , you very well could take care like somebody who fall in yesterday while play dress up as a murdered 400 BCE peasant .
If Reyn - Bardt had acknowledge this , he might not have been so quick to confess to drink down his wife .
After the head of an unsung fair sex was institute in the Lindow Moss peat bog , forensics ab initio believed it to be 30 - 50 age honest-to-god , and confronted Reyn - Bardt with the grounds , believing it to be related to the disappearance of Fernandez a few decade prior .
“ It has been so long , I thought I would never be found out , ” Reyn - Bardttold the police during inquiring . He claimed that Fernandez had refund to his cottage sometime in the other 60s and threaten to disclose that he was jocund – which was still illegalize in England at the time – if he did n’t give her money . Without any money , he said , they oppose .
“ Something just boiled over inside me , ” he added , later telling the court that he had grabbed her and begin shaking her , and did n’t realize he had killed her until he stop .
“ I was terrified and could not think clearly . The only thing that came to mind was to hide her . "
Reyn - Bardt articulate that he dismembered her body with an ax , before attempting to cauterize her . When this did n’t sour , he charter her to the nearby peat bog and threw her in .
The case , unsolved for 20 years , now seemed open and close . But the lead investigator , Detective Inspector George Abbott , was bother by something : if this was indeed Fernandez ’s forefront , where was the rest of her ? He send off the skull for further depth psychology at Oxford University , at which point they discovered through atomic number 6 dating that the skull dated back to Roman times .
" The skull had been preserved in the peat bog for over 16 one C and obviously has nothing to do with Malika Reyn - Bardt , " prosecutor Martin Thomastold the Margaret Court . " But the supreme irony is this : its discovery led right away to the stay of the defendant and to his detailed confession . "
When Reyn - Bardt learned of this , he attempted to seclude his confession , but it was what ’s known in the legal profession as " a mo belatedly for takesies backsies " . It take the jury3 hoursto find him shamed of murder .
Fernandez ’s consistence rest unfound to this day .
