In the News: Attenborough's garden hides the horrible history of a murder victim fed to children

You might think children and young people have got it tough today but at least they're spared some of the most gruesome aspects of olden times.

The Daily Mail reported on a horrifying Victorian murder case in which the victim – Julia Martha Thomas – was cut up, boiled and fed to street children. The case was back in the headlines more than a century later after Thomas's skull was unearthed in David Attenborough's garden. We're not making this up.

Thomas was murdered by her maid Kate Webster, who went to great lengths to dispose of the body. Acting Detective Inspector David Bolton, whose sterling work led to the identification of the skull, said: "A few days after the murder, some boys said that Kate Webster had offered them some food and said: 'ere you lads I've got some good pig's lard which you can have for free'. The boys ate two bowls of lard, which was unfortunately Mrs Thomas'."