The Daily Echo looks back at a trial over the murder of 10-year-old Elizabeth Lacey

“It would be difficult to imagine a place less likely for a cruel and heartless murder” – so wrote the Echo crime reporter after he had visited the scene of one of Hampshire’s grisliest killings.

It was Whit Monday 1908, when two brothers and their sister, holidaying from the smog-ridden streets of London, were gathering roses that hung in clusters from a hedgerow between two sets of cottages in the Vale of Selborne, when they made the gruesome discovery.

Partially hidden under blackberry bushes lay the heavily bloodstained body of ten-year-old Elizabeth Lacey.

In a frenzied attack her throat had been slit almost from ear to ear and she had been knifed 15 times in the neck.

The children ran to the local blacksmith, who carried the body to the nearest cottage to raise the alarm.

The police soon arrived, as did her grieving relatives.

Her father, Frank, a well-built man, was thirsting for revenge.

“I will limb the fellow if I could get hold of him,” he sobbed.

“A poor little girl like this.”

Her mother was equally inconsolable and her grandmother, on hearing the news, promptly fainted.

She had sent Elizabeth up the country lane with a shilling to pay for some butter.

Savage She arrived safely and Mrs May, who she was visiting, reported that the girl was cheerful.

“I gave her two pence change and away she went wheeling her doll’s carriage,” Mrs May recalled, wiping away a flood of tears.

“Being a grandchild we all made a fuss of her and she was bright and happy.”

Tragically on the return journey, she met her savage killer, who after slaughtering the innocent, pushed the doll’s carriage further into the bushes.

The purse, containing the two pence, lay by her body.

Within hours police appeared to have solved the murder with the arrest of 30-year-old soldier Joseph Lackey after their investigation led them to barracks at Whitehill.

He told them he spent much of the weekend drinking in various pubs in the Headley area before returning to the camp. But when his clothing was examined police found marks that appeared to be blood on his tunic and trousers.

Asked to account for the stains he said: “I don’t know, unless it was when I was at Ash. A soldier struck me and made my eye bleed.”

Lackey, who had just returned from service in India with the 1st Battalion of the Welsh Regiment, was arrested and charged with murder. He appeared before magistrate Edward Broadword in his uniform, apart from his boots, walking in socks from the cells in the police station’s dining room that served as the court.

When asked if he had anything to say, he replied: “I do not wish to say anything. I will reserve my defence.”

He was then formally remanded in custody.

News of the murder caused outrage in the district, the parish priest lamenting her demise more than most.

The Rev S F Eyers revealed that the girl had survived a horrific experience when as a four-year-old she had been kidnapped and taken to a public house.

“Since then her parents have found her very timid and nervous and she was fre quently away from school because of her delicate health. But she was a sharp little thing, quite all there and thoughtful beyond her years.”

Two days later, Henry White, the county coroner, opened the inquest into Elizabeth Lacey’s death – in extraordinary circumstances. No building in the locality was large enough to accommodate the public and the hearing took place in the open air on a lawn.

He just took evidence of identification before the hearing was adjourned to June 20. Then he heard from Gladys Leighton how on the day of the murder she had encountered a soldier loitering in the lane. He had asked her the time and made mention of the fact she was picking flowers. When she moved away he followed her.

“I ran home frightened.”

The following day she was taken to Whitehill police station where she picked out one soldier from others in the line-up.

In a clear and confident tone Lackey denied the charge at the outset of his trial at Hampshire Assizes in November.

The prosecution was led by the formidable J A Foote, who denounced the killer as a maniac.

“The man must have been mad and the only reason which could be assigned for the deed was lust for blood, for no other attempt had been made on the girl.”

Proof Outlining his case he alleged that no other person could have been present at the scene and only minutes before the murder he had alarmed two other girls by peering at them through bushes. A paperboy had seen him at nearby crossroads and Lackey’s path would have taken him into the lane where he must have inevitably met the girl.

Medical evidence showed the victim had lost a considerable amount of blood but as there would be no spurting or splashing, Lackey’s clothing would not be expected to have much blood on it.

In interview Lackey admitted he had been in the area but denied going across the murder scene side of the adjacent crossroads.

W H Brodrick told jurors that the prosecution had failed to prove its case and had not been able to prove his movements at the time of the murder, which was essential.

“A soldier had been seen in the locality but witnesses had failed to identify him as the accused.”

Dismissing the medical evidence he submitted that had the wounds been inflicted with a pocket knife, as suggested, blood undoubtedly would have been found on his white cuffs.

“But none was seen by his comrades or by the sergeant on his return to the barracks, nor had any been seen on him.

“The case for the prosecutions rests on theory alone.”

Summing up the case, Mr Justice Lawrence said there was no satisfactory proof Lackey had gone further up the lane than the crossroads.

“Even if he had, it did not follow he had committed the crime. You have to be satisfied that the prisoner committed the crime or whether it could have been committed by some other person who had had a chance of getting away.”

Jurors conferred for five minutes before acquitting Lackey.