Ten-year-old Amy Margaret Reeves lived with her family at Kitsmead Cottage, a modest home near Chertsey Common in the village of Longcross, Surrey, England, where her father worked as a gardener. Longcross, a little over twenty-one miles west of central London, was a small, hilly village with no central pub or green, known for its scattered farms and quiet, rural charm. The Reeves family was part of this close-knit community, and Amy, described as a lively and helpful child, was a familiar presence in the area.
On the morning of July 18th, 1911, Amy stayed home from school to assist her mother with household tasks. She was last seen alive by her mother around twelve thirty p.m., playing in the yard of their cottage after eating some bread and butter. Earlier that day, between eleven a.m. and noon, a neighbor observed Amy playing in the yard with a sixteen-year-old boy, Albert Hampton, a gardener from nearby Chobham Street, Chobham, who was a frequent visitor to a house tenanted by his aunt and uncle. This sighting would later become a critical point in the investigation.
Amy’s father, returning home from work around eight thirty that evening, was not initially concerned when he found Amy absent, as she sometimes played late with other children. However, by nine o’clock, when her two brothers failed to locate her, worry set in. Around ten p.m., her father began his own search, leading him to a small, round pond on Chertsey Common, just 200 yards from their cottage. The pond, approximately eleven feet by ten feet and averaging nine inches deep with water and nine inches of mud, held a grim discovery: Amy’s body, lying face down with only her bare feet protruding from the water. She had sustained wounds to her head, and her death was attributed to drowning, likely following a blow that caused her to fall into the pond.
The discovery sent shockwaves through Longcross. Amy’s father, devastated, had found his daughter in a place she was known to frequent, but the circumstances suggested foul play. The inquest later determined that Amy had likely been struck on the head with a stick while standing in the pond, causing her to collapse and drown. The coroner’s verdict was one of “willful murder,” but crucially, it noted there was insufficient evidence to identify the perpetrator.
Suspicion quickly fell on Albert Hampton, the sixteen-year-old gardener seen with Amy earlier that day. Witnesses reported that Hampton had been carrying a stout stick around Longcross on July 18th, and he had even allegedly remarked to someone, “This is a fine stick. I got it from the common. It would make a fine cudgel, wouldn’t it?” A similar stick was later found in a deep hole on Chertsey Common, raising further suspicion. Additionally, a neighbor recalled seeing Hampton walking up a garden path about 200 yards from the pond between two and two thirty that afternoon, looking “flurried” and claiming he had been “lying under the apple tree asleep.”
On the evening of July 19th, a police inspector confronted Hampton in Chobham Street, informing him that he would be taken to Chertsey police station and charged with causing Amy’s death by striking her on the head with a thick stick. Hampton denied the accusation, stating, “I am sure it was not me, sir.” Despite the charge, the case against him unraveled at the inquest. The evidence, while circumstantial, was deemed insufficient to commit him for trial. The magistrate, on August 11th, 1911, discharged Hampton, noting that his contradictory statements about his movements that day had brought suspicion upon himself. The magistrate advised him to be more careful in the future, and Hampton walked free.
The murder of Amy Reeves remains unsolved, more than a century later. The inquest’s verdict of “willful murder without evidence to show by whom committed” meant that no one was held accountable for the crime. The case faded from public attention over the years, but it remains a poignant chapter in Surrey’s history, preserved in local records and memorialized on platforms like Find a Grave, where Amy’s story is documented alongside her baptismal details and the tragedy of her death.
Crime Immemorial 