On November 12th, 1948, a woman named Irene McNamara left her home in Middlesbrough, England, and went out to her job as a cleaner. She was a widow—her husband had died in 1946—and she worked hard to provide for her three children, which included a twenty-two-month-old toddler named Terence. She left the baby in the care of a relative while she went off to work.
That day, though, a horrific fate was in store for her youngest child. When she returned home, the baby was dead, and later investigation demonstrated that Terence had been the victim of a sexual assault so vicious that his liver had ruptured, causing shock and internal bleeding.
The relative who was watching the child had a boyfriend who was suspected of the crime, especially after the couple later told police that the boy had been kicked by a horse. The case was reportedly investigated, but no arrests were made, and considering the gravity of the murder and the youth of the victim, there was shockingly little media coverage or public outrage. It was almost as though the entire case was simply swept under the rug.
In 1955, it was reported that a friend of Irene McNamara, who lived next door to the couple in charge of watching Terence, reported that she heard the girlfriend of the suspected killer say something to the effect of, “If you ever leave me, I will tell them all about what you did to that child.” The boyfriend was apparently from Guisborough and had a long criminal history, but he died in 2006 and therefore cannot face justice if he was indeed the culprit.
The sickening death of baby Terence is a sadly almost forgotten crime, and remains unsolved more than seventy years on.
Crime Immemorial 