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The Merstham Tunnel mystery 24/09/1905

brad465

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The BBC have this article on a mysterious death in the tunnel that, while never confirmed to be murder, is speculated to have been as a result of being thrown out the train:


On the night of 24 September 1905 a railway inspector walked through the Merstham Tunnel in Surrey to make a routine inspection.

He might have been checking for obstructions on the line, or whether the tracks were in good repair, but what he found was the dead body of a young woman.

Mary Money, 21, had met a gruesome end in mysterious circumstances that are still unsolved to this day.

Former Merstham Society chairman Chris Green told Secret Surrey: "The local GP, Dr Cricket, came out and confirmed that she [Money] was dead...and later on did the autopsy and that revealed rather unsettling facts."

Despite initial theories that she had potentially walked into the tunnel to take her own life, Green said it began to "look more and more that she'd been pushed out" of the train.

A key revelation was the finding that "a foot" of a silk scarf Money was wearing had been stuffed into her mouth.

Another was that all signs indicated she had "hit the tunnel going out backwards of the carriage".

Money, from Surrey but living in London, was spotted on the 21:12 BST service from London Bridge to Brighton on the night of her death - and she wasn't alone.

The train guard saw her with an unknown man, and when the train stopped at East Croydon he observed that they "deliberately turned away as if they didn't want him to interfere".

According to Green, the man "made a dash for the exit" at Redhill.

"There was no sign of any woman," he said.
 
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Mcr Warrior

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So, what was the upshot of this? Was anyone ever convicted of the murder of Miss Mary Sophia Money? Or was a verdict of suicide returned? Believe the coroner's jury was unable to make any determination other than an open verdict, i.e. that she'd died of severe injuries caused by a train. Understand that someone subsequently turned themselves in at Clapham Junction police station in February 1906 and confessed that they'd killed her. However, the confession was later reported as being bogus. So, is this case definitely classified as an unsolved murder?
 

Rescars

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Mary Money wasn't the first murder victim to be found in a tunnel on the Brighton Line. The body of Isaac Gold was found in Balcombe Tunnel in 1881, following his murder by Percy Lefroy Mapleton. Happily open carriages and central door locking make this type of crime less possible these days.
 

Tetragon213

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Depressingly, not the last time an unsolved murder would take place in non-corridor stock.

The Wikipedia article makes claim that, well, to quote from the page,
In 1912 a review of her case revealed a possible motive: "...The interest of the connection is that this sister also accounted for a display out of keeping with her position by false statements of an engagement with her employer. At her death it was discovered she had misappropriated the firm's money." (The connection noted was the tentative identification of her brother Robert Money as the infamous biagmist/murderer Robert Hicks Murray it was felt that Robert Money had been living an life of extravagance before his 1912 murders/suicide-although he was not a suspect in his sister’s murder.
Whether Mary was murdered as some sort of retaliation for an alleged theft, or whether there is a link as seems to be implied between Mary's brother Robert Money and the case of "Robert Higgs Murray" will never be known. It is, of course, also possible that the murderer was none of these, and simply murdered Mary in a robbery gone wrong (BTP notes that she had a purse when she left Clapham, and it wasn't there at the site of the murder).
 

brad465

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Depressingly, not the last time an unsolved murder would take place in non-corridor stock.

The Wikipedia article makes claim that, well, to quote from the page,

Whether Mary was murdered as some sort of retaliation for an alleged theft, or whether there is a link as seems to be implied between Mary's brother Robert Money and the case of "Robert Higgs Murray" will never be known. It is, of course, also possible that the murderer was none of these, and simply murdered Mary in a robbery gone wrong (BTP notes that she had a purse when she left Clapham, and it wasn't there at the site of the murder).
You can go as recent as 1988 for an unsolved murder on non-corridor stock, with that of Deborah Linsley, who was killed while in a 4EPB compartment that couldn't be accessed from the rest of the train.
 

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