Wisbech Community Forum

 

MURDER MOST FOUL

An old Wisbech murder surfaced this weekend on social media. Someone reported a mysterious memorial which has been placed at the edge of Wisbech Park. It is in the shape of a fairly rough wooden cross, with a laminated message pinned to it.

Speculation about the event it refers to was ended by the keen researcher's brain of Susanah Farmer, who found the following references, in contemporary newspapers far from Fenland. This, from The Nottingham Evening Post:

The inquest on the victims of the Wisbech double tragedy was resumed at Wisbech, Cambs, to-day. They were Doris Florence Reeve, 24, who was found stabbed to death on a footpath near Wisbech Park, and her husband, Walter Reeve, 26, of Low Side, Upwell, Norfolk, found hanging from the luggage rack of a railway coach at Wisbech station. A verdict of Murder and felo-de-se against the husband was returned. At the opening of the inquest yesterday the woman's father said that her married life was not a happy one, and that her husband had ill-treated her and misconducted himself. Divorce proceedings were pending. This from the Western Daily Press:

Within a few hours his wife being found apparently stabbed death, on footpath adjoining the Wisbech. Cambridgeshire, public park. Walter Reeve (26), of Upwell, Norfolk, was discovered hanging from the luggage rack of a railway carriage. The woman, Mrs Florence Doris Reeve, (24), had been living apart from her husband for about two months and was staying with her parents in Wisbech. She was last seen alive at about 11 o'clock on Saturday night, when a friend accompanied her from a cinema to a garage, which only a few hundred yards from the spot where her body was found. Some men who had slept out in the park discovered the body early yesterday. When police officers under Supt. F. Green, of Wisbech visited Reeve's house, they forced an entry, but found the house unoccupied. A few hours later his body was found hanging from the luggage rack a railway carriage siding at Upwell The spot where the woman's body lay was only about yards from the main road through the town to the east coast. The couple had been married about two years and had no children.

Wisbech has been no stranger to horrific murder cases, whether they took place in this century or previous times. In the next blog, read about the Walsoken man who battered his wife with a billhook, then threw her body down a well. You will be chilled at the macabre way he met his death within the walls of Norwich Castle.