Iris Watkins (Unsolved Murder)

It was a damp August evening in 1925 when 21 year old Iris Watkins made her way to the post box at the end of the lane. The two letters that she posted made it to their destination the next day, but Iris never returned home. The small South Wales town of Blackwood became a hive of activity, with many locals joining in the search and the community full of rumours regarding what had happened to the young shop assistant. A little over a month later Iris’s body was found in a brook on the outskirts of the town, but that was just the beginning of the mystery.

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British Newspaper Archive
Dundee Evening Telegraph
14/07/1925
Dundee Courier
30/09/25
Western Morning News
30/09/25
Birmingham Daily Gazette
16/08/25
24/08/25
29/09/25
30/09/25
Gloucestershire Echo
25/09/25
Western Mail
14/08/25
25/08/25
28/09/25
01/10/25
03/10/25
05/10/25
09/10/25
10/10/25
12/10/25
20/10/25
25/11/25
04/12/25
10/12/25
11/12/25
15/12/25
15/01/26
05/02/26
23/02/26
18/03/26
Belfast Telegraph
29/09/25
Edinburgh Evening News
25/09/25
Daily Mirror
26/09/25
Sunday Post
27/09/25
The People
26/09/25
Nottingham Evening Post
28/09/25
Western Daily Press
28/09/25
John Bull
18/09/25
Hartlepool Daily Mail
23/09/25
Aberdeen Press and Journal
23/09/25
29/09/25
Shields Daily News
28/09/25
Daily News London
24/09/25
29/09/25
Northern Whig
23/09/25

http://www.unsolved-murders.co.uk/murder-content.php?key=3674&termRef=Iris%20Watkins

https://www.southwalesargus.co.uk/news/11396176.gwents-forgotten-past-history-reveals-rough-justice/

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Unsolved-1925-Murders-Pat-Finn/dp/1542373166

Transcript

Iris Watkins

Wednesday 12th August 1925 was a wet and windy evening in the town of Blackwood, Monmouthshire, South Wales. 21 year old Iris Grace Watkins finished her shift as a shop assistant at Tomkyns Stationers on the High street at 7pm. She walked home with her friend, Doris Cabbell, the pair stopping on the way to buy some fruit before saying goodnight to one another. Iris spent the evening composing letters to send to her brother in nearby Pontyclun and her sister in Bournemouth, on the south coast of England. When she had finished these, Iris completed a crossword puzzle, before putting on a Burberry raincoat over her pink dress and fetching her fawn hat from the hall. She called to her grandmother, with whom she shared the house, that she was just popping to the post box and would be back in a minute. It was 9.15pm and dark as Iris made her way down Hillside Crescent in the summer rain. Several witnesses, including neighbour Phyllis Jones, saw Iris en route to the red post box which was situated only 100m away at the bottom of the lane. 

After ten minutes or so Iris’s grandmother, 68 year old Catherine Watkins, began to worry. She was very close to Iris and had raised her since she was born. Iris’s mum, Edith, had not been married when she fell pregnant. Due to the social pressures and cultural norms of the time it was common practice for children born to unwed parents to be brought up by relatives.  

As time wore on the doting grandmother knew that something was wrong. Iris was not given to acts of spontaneity and would never just go somewhere without saying anything, particularly after dark. Concerned, she immediately began seeking help from the police, relatives and members of the community to go out into the night and search for Iris. 

Blackwood was a close-knit mining community with many responding to the call. Soon dozens of people, including miners from the local collieray, were scouring the nearby mountainside, calling into the wind hoping for a sign of Iris. The search party returned dejected and confused.  Iris had vanished without trace into the stormy Welsh night. 

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The day following Iris's disappearance her siblings received their respective letters in the post, confirming that she had made it to the post box. Local police considered the possibility that  Iris had been involved in some kind of accident or that she had taken her own life. Obviously both of these last theories would require a body and initial searches turned up nothing. I think it is fair to say that police thought the most likely scenario was that Iris had gone away somewhere of her own volition but they were stumped as to her reasoning. Iris's grandmother described her granddaughter as happy with no cares or troubles and could think of no reason why she might want to run away or for that matter do harm to herself. The remaining possibility was that Iris had come to harm at the hands of another person or persons.

Within twenty four hours of Iris's disappearance her grandmother was convinced she had been abducted and was being held against her will. She was adamant that Iris would have made contact by now if everything was ok. 

Iris’s grandmother informed the police of a young man who had visited Blackwood from Cardiff over the previous months in order to form an acquaintance with her granddaughter. The man, who had friends in the town, liked Iris but was nervous to talk to her. He had asked a friend to knock on her door for him. The friend refused and told him he needed to do it himself. The man eventually built up the courage to do so but there was no reply, so he slipped a note under the door written in shorthand. 

Relatives of Iris managed to track down an address for the man and travelled to Cardiff on Thursday the 13th August, the day after Iris’ disappearance, to confront him. When they arrived in Cardiff they looked for assistance from the local police. However, the police told them that the address they had been given did not exist. It was a terrible blow for the family who thought they had a genuine lead.

It's worth mentioning now that when I refer to the family of Iris I am referring to her grandmother Catherine and mother, Edith.  I should first say that I only found two references to Iris grandmother's name. One one occasion it is given as Charlotte and the other Cathrine. It could well be that she went by both, as one was a middle name. I have decided to use Catherine. 

Although Iris lived with her grandmother she had always had contact with her mother, Edith. In one contemporary newspaper article Iris is described as being passionately fond of her mother. Edith had the surname Morris and lived with her husband William on the outskirts of Blackwood. This man is described in newspaper accounts as being Iris’s father, but they had no relationship with each other. He obviously wasn't her biological father and had made the decision to have nothing to do with her. Iris and Morris did not speak and apparently this had always been the case. They had never uttered a word to each other. Iris had only visited her mother’s house once in the last 12 months, her mother would come to Iris’s home in order to meet with her. 

Over the course of the next five weeks the search continued, with Iris’s image being displayed on local cinema screens across South Wales. Information about the disappearance was also broadcast on BBC radio. There were reports that Iris was spotted alive and well 23km south-east of Blackwood in the town of Newport. These reports could never be verified and Iris did not return home.

One morning Iris' grandmother woke up to find an anonymous letter postmarked Newport. The author of the  letter said Iris had been kidnapped for ransom but that they now realised the family was not well-off and so she would be returned on a certain date. The letter was signed “The Silent Strangers”. The community waited in hope for the time to come when Iris would be returned. Alas the date and time passed with no sign of Iris and the letter was later confirmed as a mean- spirited hoax.

From shortly after Iris went missing there was a lot of involvement by spiritualists and mediums in this case. This was not uncommon for the time but in this instance it has particular prominence. A local leader of the Blackwood spiritualist church said it was their belief that Iris had been murdered and had been buried somewhere. Many locals bought into this idea and the weight of these dark predictions loomed heavy on the town. As we will see, however, some were very critical of these pronouncements and later claimed they derailed the investigation.

The Blackwood mystery, as it became known, also attracted the attention of newspapers across the UK. Mabel Horner wrote a column in John Bull Magazine in September 1925 about a spate of missing persons cases across the UK. She pointed to the fact that many of these people were young women or girls who were never seen or heard of again. In the article Horner talks about how she fears organised human trafficking is behind these disappearances. She adds this is not a new issue but one that has been going on for decades. The Great War curtailed a drive to tackle this problem but now was the time to put the issue back on the political agenda. Mabel Horner passionately called on people to wage a war on the international rings that were entrapping and enslaving young girls. One of the cases Horner mentioned in the article was that of Iris Watkins. As it turned out Iris had not been the victim of human trafficking; however something equally horrific had occured. 

The night of the 21st into the 22nd September witnessed torrential rain and small streams surrounding Blackwood were flooded, with some even bursting their banks. The inclement weather and rise in water levels led to the discovery everyone had feared.

The Cwmgelli Brook made its way from higher ground belonging to a colliery, through a culvert to a field at the back of a row of cottages. This was on the outskirts of Blackwood, about 1.5 km from the town centre. It was a lonely, bleak area. The brook, which normally measured only a metre wide and 45 cm deep, was used as a natural sheep dip. It was here that a local resident, Mrs Tedstone, found the body of a young woman lying half submerged in the little stream. 

Police Sergeant Lewis Williams was at the scene quickly  to find  the body lying flat on its back with the legs pointing down stream and the head towards the culvert. He could see no obvious signs of injury. A raincoat was wrapped around the head and shoulders with only one arm in a sleeve. The shoes and stockings were present but other than a few scraps of material she was naked. The body was in a considerable state of decomposition but Iris’s grandmother confirmed that it was her granddaughter by identifying a bracelet and pair of brown leather shoes Iris was known to be wearing the night she disappeared. The odd thing was that this area had already been searched numerous times over the past month. Where had Iris been all this time? It was speculated that the body had been inside the culvert and the heavy rain had flushed it out. The inference being that someone had hidden it there. Another theory suggested the body hadn't been hidden in the culvert but had been carried and placed in the brook not long before being discovered by Mrs Tedstone.

The area where the body was found was not known to be frequented by Iris. Iris’s grandmother Catherine said Cwmgelli was not a place Iris would walk to on her own. It's worth mentioning here that Iris’s mother Edith Morris lived only a stone's throw away from this location with her husband William. Though as I have already said, Iris rarely visited their house. 

In a matter of days a civilian who helped to move the body from the stream leaked to the press that when Iris was moved a small pocket mirror fell out of her hand. The significance of this remains unknown. A man's straw hat was also said to have been found discarded nearby. Further searches of the stream also turned up a hat and belt but Catherine Watkins said they did not belong to her granddaughter. 

A post mortem was carried out by a team of four doctors led by Dr H T Evans. Following this prodcedure, rumours circulated that sensational evidence was going to be presented at the inquest, which was to open on Friday the 25th September.

When proceedings opened the coroner was quick to say that this was not the moment for details and theories, as he wanted the police to have time to collect evidence, but he did want to hear some of the medical findings. Dr Evans said he was positive that Iris was not drowned. Her lungs showed no sign of having taken on water, they were still buoyant. This information threw doubt on any notion that Iris had died by suicide or an accident.It was unlikely anyway as the stream was not very deep and it would be an unusual place for someone to choose to take their own life. The Sirhowy River is a much larger waterway which  runs right next to Iris’ home. It made no sense for her to travel to Cwmgelli, alone in the dark, if this was her intention.

Dr Evans gave details of other injuries. The right knee cap was dislocated and the lower jaw was almost completely torn from the upper. There was no sign of a fracture or injury to the top of the skull. He concluded that for now he could not determine the cause of death. When asked by the coroner if Iris could have been poisoned he replied that further testing was needed on the internal organs to make a judgement.

Dr Evans stated that the level of decomposition meant that death had occurred more than three weeks prior to the body being discovered. A waxy substance known as Adipocere was found on the body. The Dr explained that this was only found on bodies that had been exposed to the air for some time. If Iris’s body had been in the water for the full six weeks she had been missing this would not be present. There were certain parts of the body: the neck, thighs and lower abdomen, where decomposition had occurred at a faster rate than in other body parts. This could be because those areas had experienced bruising prior to death.

Catherine Watkins told the coroner that Iris was a cheerful young woman who was not in any trouble of which she knew. She said in the past two young men had sent her letters but she herself had never seen Iris with any male friends and she claimed Iris didn't go to or return from dances with gentleman companions. She could think of no reason why anyone would want to harm her. The coroner asked if Iris was in the habit of riding pillion (as a passenger) on a motorbike. She answered, no. As we shall see, Iris did have male friends. Whether Iris was able to hide that knowledge from her grandmother or whether the older lady was attempting to protect her granddaughter's character from the judgemental chatter of a small town, I am not clear. 

The inquest was paused in order for police enquiries to be carried out within the community and for facts to be established. It was to reconvene on the 8th October.  

The police heard from a young woman ,Alice Clarke, who is described as a close friend of Iris’s. She said she had a premonition when her friend first went missing that something bad had happened. Alice had been with Iris the day before she disappeared and she’d seemed happy and had not mentioned that anything was bothering her. Alice said that she could think of only one man that Iris had exchanged correspondence with but that she was not in the habit of going out with men at all. Alice did mention a holiday in Llanberis which involved Iris riding pillion with some people they were staying with. This is obviously where the coroner's question at the inquest came from. That Iris may have been harmed by someone she had met in this way was seen as a possible line of enquiry.

Police were keen to investigate the inside of the culvert to see if they could prove their theory about the body being hidden there. The owner of the colliery works situated nearby volunteered to lead the search. As a miner, Benjamin Bowditch had the experience required and, together with another civilian and two police officers, including Police Sergeant Lewis Williams, they parted the brambles that grew at the lower entrance of the culvert and, moving against the flow of water, went inside. Bowditch went first to lead the way with a lamp tied to his cap. 

The tunnel was no more than a metre wide and the four men had to make their way completely doubled over. About 10 metres from the entrance they came across a sturdy piece of timber that looked like it had come from the colliery works. After a  further 10 metres they discovered a stone slab which was approximately 60cm by 30cm. It was very heavy and Benjamin Bowditch required a lot of strength to move it. The slab didn't block the entire tunnel; water could get by on one side. The culvert was made out of smooth brick and there were no other similar stone slabs inside. It may have been cut in a nearby quarry, though this could not be confirmed. 

Benjamin Bowditch later said where the slab was found there lingered a bad smell similar to where the body was found. Near the slab they found some bramble branches with strips of torn silk in them. The silk was confirmed by Catherine Watkins as matching the clothes worn by Iris on the night she disappeared. 

Iris's body had definitely been in the culvert. It looked like someone had dragged the body into the tunnel and her clothes had caught on the bushes. They had then used the slab to prevent the body being washed out the other side of the culvert. The piece of timber was used to prop the slab in place. The heavy rains shifted the stick and the excess water was easily enough to move the body around the slab and out the other side of the culvert.

An eyewitness account that came into the police appeared to support this theory. A few days before Iris's body was found a local woman had struggled to sleep and had got up in the middle of the night and wandered over to the bedroom window. When she looked out she saw a bright light coming from near the culvert entrance. At the time she assumed it was miners at the colliery doing overtime work and thought nothing of it. In hindsight she wondered if it was someone taking the body to the culvert.  

If this were true then surely whoever had put the body there was local and had intimate knowledge of the area, especially to be able to navigate at night. Even with a lantern or torch it  would have been difficult to climb the steep muddy track leading to the culvert. They would also have needed a motor vehicle to transport the body by road to the upper end of the culvert. Motor vehicle ownership was rare at this time. In the mid 1920’s there were less than 400, 000 cars on the road across the whole of the UK.

The weight of the stone slab, while not impossible for a single man to carry, would have meant the person would have had to do at least two trips into the culvert as they could not have carried the body and the slab at the same time. Or it could mean the involvement of more than one person in the disposal of the body.

Less than a week after Iris’s body had been found, the buzz around Blackwood was that some extraordinary clues had been gathered by police and an arrest was imminent. No specific information was released by Monmouthshire police but newspapers were full of speculation that Iris had been murdered following an attempted sexual assault.  Her body had then been hidden somewhere before being placed inside the culvert, possibly only a few hours before it was found. The high rainwater had washed the body out of the culvert to its resting place in the brook at the back of the cottages.

Rumours were  spreading about various sightings of Iris with young men around the time of her disappearance. One involved a sighting of a mysterious stranger seen speaking to Iris underneath a railway bridge on the night she disappeared. This was later said to be a misidentification. Another witness put Iris with an unidentified man, said to be from Blackwood, on a road leading to the town on the evening she diappeared. Yet another report came in of a car parked near a hedge where the body was found five days prior to that event. The witnesses said he had passed the car and greeted the occupants but had received no reply. It was an odd place to be stopped and the witness said he would have enquired further if he had had someone with him.

Despite all these circulating stories the days ticked by and no arrest followed. The talk in the press that the police had obtained sensational evidence that was going to break the case had been overexaggerated. Police seemed to have few leads and no ideas regarding what had happened. Scotland Yard was rumoured to have been called to assist local detectives in getting the mystery solved, but Monmouthshire Chief Constable Victor Bosanquet denied this had happened and said at this time it would do little to aid the police investigation.Still, when the 8th October came around there was much anticipation amongst the town that answers would be forthcoming when the inquest resumed.

When the day finally came the coroner's court heard testimony from a large number of witnesses from Blackwood and further afield. Farmer David Morris of Oakdale said he had seen Iris on September 10th, two days before she disappeared, by a gate near his farm. She was in the company of a young man. He said he did not know the name of the young man but recognised him by sight as a local. The farmer explained that he told the young couple they were trespassing but he said Iris disputed this fact and told him they had used a public footpath. The young man said nothing during the exchange. The farmer said he had seen the young man again near the gas works in Blackwood a week or so later. Farmer Morris had greeted the young man, who did not reply.  This young man was described as being 173cm (5ft 8inches) with medium brown hair and a toothbrush moustache. He had patches of red on his cheeks and the rest of his exposed skin was sunburned. He wore a cap and a brown suit and had a large nose. 

Next the court heard from Frederick Lewis, who was an accountant and rented a room at Iris’s grandmother's house. He said he had spent the evening on the 12th August with Dr Macauley (one of the doctors present at Iris’ post-mortem) and had returned to his lodgings at 11.15pm. Shortly after he arrived, Mrs Watkins, (Iris’s grandmother) had entered the house with two other ladies and informed him that Iris was missing. Frederick Lewis went to Iris’s parents home in Cwmgelli to ask them if they had seen Iris. William Morris (who as I have mentioned is always erroneously described in newspaper reports and in the coroners court as Iris’s father) answered the door. When Mr Morris was asked if he knew of Iri’s whereabouts he paused slightly before answering in the negative. Frederick Lewis told the coroner that it looked like William Morris had consulted his wife (Iris’ mother) before answering and she had told him not to be definitive in his reply.

Doris Cabbell, who had walked home from work with Iris the night she disappeared, gave evidence. She said she only knew of Iris having two previous boyfriends, a Mr David Phillips and Mr Rickard. Iris had not mentioned anything to her friend about meeting a man later that evening.

Edith Morris, Iris's mother, was next to give testimony. She confirmed that Iris had only visited her home once in the last 12 months and that Iris did not speak with her husband William Morris. She then gave some interesting evidence concerning a conversation she had with Alice Clarke, Iris's closest friend, on the 13th August, less than 24 hours after Iris had gone missing. Alice had requested Edith look through a drawer in Iris's bedroom and locate a bundle of letters and destroy them. When Edith asked for what purpose Alice responded that there was no reason in particular but did say they were letters sent from a man called David Phillips. The same man Doris had described as Iris’s former boyfriend. Alice told Edith Morris that she just didn't want people seeing the letters.

Alice Clarke was also called to give her side of these claims. She is described in newspapers as being a reluctant witness. She  completely denied saying  the letters were from David Phliips instead insisting that she had asked Edith to destroy the letters sent from herself to Iris. 

William James Morris, the man referred to as Iris’ father,  then gave evidence. He confirmed he had never spoken to Iris in his life and she had never spoken to him. On the 12th August he said he was in the local pub, arriving sometime between 7 and 8pm and leaving at 10pm. This was later amended to 9.45pm as a witness put him at Blackwood conservative club at 10pm. He left there at 11pm and went to a cousin's house for some food. He confirmed that he did not join in the searches for Iris. When he was asked when he last saw her he replied he had no idea.

Next to be heard from was David Phillips, who had written letters to Iris and was described as a former boyfriend. He said he had first met Iris in November 1924. Since then he had met up with her around twelve times, the last occasion being in the second week of May 1925. It was revealed that David Phillips was the man who had posted the shorthand note under Iris's door and  the man Iris's family had travelled to Cardiff to find the day after she went missing. David Phillips said that Iris had talked to him about being fed up with her job and said that she wanted to get out of Blackwood. On the night of the 12th August he was in Cardiff staying with his aunt and uncle, which they both attested to.

Catherine Watkins, Iris's grandmother testified. She was asked by the coroner about the relationship between Frederick Lewis, the man who lodged with Catherine, and Iris. She said they hardly ever spoke and that Frederick Lewis barely said more than three words a day to anyone.

Several other men who were acquaintances of Iris were also heard from. George Halliday, who had met Iris on June 24th 1925 and again on the 30th July, William Robbins, a friend of Halliday who had first met Iris in May 1925 and finally Luther Smith who was a friend of Robbins. George Halliday and Wiilaim Robbins were both at a dance in Ystrad Mynach 6.5 km away from Blackwood on the night Iris disappeared. Many witnesses put them there. Luther Smith’s alibi was less solid, as he said he was at his home all evening but this could only be confirmed by the young man's father. Mr Rickard, who was said by Iris’s friend Doris to be a former boyfriend, was mentioned too. He had left Blackwood on the 3rd August and did not return until long after Iris had disappeared.

Extraordinarily, on the second day of the reconvened inquest the mystery man who was seen by farmer David Morris talking to Iris at his farm gate came forward. His name was Patrick Keely and he admitted that he had been there but said the young woman with him was not Iris. The coroner did not ask him to reveal the actual woman's name in court but the story was checked out and confirmed.Farmer had to admit he had made a mistake.

The medical evidence at the inquest proved controversial, as there was disagreement between Dr H T Evans and another Dr who was also present at the post mortem, Donald Macaulay.One thing on which the Drs did agree was that after an examination of the major organs no poisonous substances were present in Iris’s body when she died. After this came the divergence of opinion. Dr Evans stated that it was his belief Iris had been killed by an act of violence following an attempted sexual assualt. Dr Macaulay disagreed. 

Dr Evans said that while Iris's dislocated knee, and detached jaw bone may be the result of natural decomposition, taken as a whole  it was far more likely they were the result of violence. He stood by his earlier comments, made two weeks previously, that Iris did not drown. The waxy layer, adipocere, found on the body showed that the body had not been in the water very long and had therefore been stored somewhere before being placed in the culvert. He said she was likely killed on or near the day she went missing. He did not rule out suffocation as cause of death but said it could have been shock caused from the attempted sexual assualt. He stressed attempted sexual assault because  the post-mortem found that Iris had not been raped and her hymen was still intact.

Dr Macaulay’s conclusions were markedly different. He pointed to a safety pin found attached to some strips of dress still clinging to Iris’s body and said this showed that her clothes had not been forcibly removed, instead they had been ripped and torn by the flow of the river. He said he saw no evidence of the waxy substance, adipocere, on the body. In the UK he said it takes longer than six weeks for this to form on a decomposing body even in the height of summer. He believed the body had been in water since Iris had died and the cold flowing water had prevented some parts of the body decomposing as quickly as those that were not under the water. Decomposition rather than violence explained the damage to the knee and jaw. Dr Macauley did not rule out the possibility that Iris died by drowning. Though he could not determine a cause of death and wanted to keep an open mind.

Dr Makay, another doctor present at the post mortem was asked for his opinion. He had seen evidence of adipocere on the body and thought that bruising caused by violence was sufficient to have caused the accelerated areas of decomposition.

When summing up for the jury the coroner said that he was satisfied with most of the witness testimony but strongly suspected that Iris's friend Alice Clarke was holding information back. Her actions on the 13th August, so soon after Iris went missing, along with her belief early on that something bad had happened to her friend was in his eyes suspicious. He said he thought it improbable that Iris had harmed herself deliberately, but due to the length of time the body had been exposed to the elements one could not be sure violence was used. Just before the jury departed the coroner told them that he favoured Dr Macaulay's medical interpretation over that of Dr Evans.

The jury comprising 9 people deliberated for thirty minutes before returning wanting clarification on the albi given by the lodger Frederick Lewis. Lewis claimed he had been with Dr Macaulay on the evening in question (the very Dr who had just given evidence and concluded that Iris’ injuries had not been caused by violence).The jury wanted to know if the police had followed up on this. Police SuperIntendent Richards of Monmouthshire police confirmed that it had been investigated and he was satisfied with the albi Frederick Lewis had given. The jury foreperson asked the corner if he would accept a majority decision. He said he would but it could not be less than 7. The jury was currently split 6-3. 

The jury came back shortly after and the foreman announced that seven were agreed that Iris Watkins’s death was the result of wilful murder by person or persons unknown. The shocked corner asked upon what evidence this decision was made. The foreperson responded that he didn't think it was based on any evidence. At that moment another jury member spoke up and said it was based on the medical evidence.

The foreperson, Mr Lewis Jones, and a Mr Jeremiah had been the two opposed jury members to the majority decision. Jones said he agreed that violence may have been involved but there was no proof of wilful murder as that implied premeditation.If it was spur of the moment it did not meet the requiremnts for wilful murder. Reading that in the press reports, it struck me as an odd thing to say straight after a verdict, it could possibly allude to rumours or hearsay going around the town about what had really happened. 

The coroner , W R Dauncey said he was legally bound to accept the verdict but wholeheartedly disagreed with the decision. When quizzed on their verdict by a member of the press one of the jury members, a local farmer, was quoted in the Western Mail as saying,  “Laymen as a rule know more than lawyers”. 

Nationally there was criticism of the decision by those in the legal and law enforcement profession. Some thought the influence of spiritualists had created a charged atmosphere and had possibly influenced the jury members. In Blackwood itself few locals questioned the jury’s verdict. The feeling was that a killer was in their midst and needed to be brought to justice. The matter was far from over.

Journalists from the Western Mail continued to put pressure on the Monmouthshire Chief Constable Victor Bosanquet to seek assistance from Scotland Yard to solve the case, but his response was always that it would do no good without additional evidence. He maintained that the case was still open but admitted that unless something cropped up it was likely that the mystery surrounding Iris's death would never be solved. Many local people did not find this a satisfactory response.

Political pressure began to mount and local socialist MP Charles Edwards asked the Home Secretary about the case in parliament. He wanted the Home secretary  to force the Monmouthshire police to re-investigate the case or to ask Scotland Yard to intervene. Nothing came of these requests but the following month in December 1925 Scotland Yard did say they had passed on new evidence to the Monmouthshire police. 

This new information was based on four new witnesses who were prepared to share what they knew. Monmouthshire police denied receiving anything of substance, saying it was just the ramblings of spiritualists and mediums. I cannot find all the details of this new evidence but it does seem that the solicitor A E Timbrell, who was acting on behalf of Iris’s grandmother and mother, was handed information from a medium concerning the death of Iris. I found one newspaper article about what the spiritualist divulged, but half of the article had been destroyed. This is what I made out. 

The medium had used a purse that had belonged to Iris in order to connect with her in the spirit world. The medium then received a message directly from Iris. It involved something about a secret and an argument about insurance. Her death resulted from an act of violence following a marriage proposal and then an attempted sexual assualt. According to the medium Iris died of shock. Not long after this story was in the newspaper, a well known spiritualist and crime investigator, Harold Spear, was seen with the solicitor A E Timbrell in Blackwood.

When Charles Edwards MP raised the issue yet again in parliament he was told by the Home Secretary William Joynson-Hicks that he could not usurp the powers of the Monmouthshire Chief Constable, nor force the hand of Scotland Yard as they could only give assistance if they were asked to.

People in the local area were not ready to give up and a joint standing committee consisting of local politicians was formed to look at the matter. Many in the group called for the case to be reopened but Monmouthshire Chief Constable Victor Bosanquet, who was present at the meeting, insisted that it was still open. He said all this fuss had been caused by meddling spiritualists and they were made up stories that had no basis in fact. He said the version of events detailed by the spiritualists was constantly changing. The latest claim was that they believed that Iris's body had been hidden in a cellar before being placed in the culvert. They had also seen a vision of the person who had murdered Iris standing in handcuffs. This new information had come to the spiritualist group after they had obtained a “Gabriel's horn” or  trumpet to receive a stronger connection to the spirit realm. Gabriel's horn is a special geometrically-symbolic shape said to reference the instrument used by the angel Gabriel to announce the final judgement. 

When this story was heard by the joint standing committee it was scoffed at by the police and many others present at the meeting. Some in attendance attempted to distance themselves from the spiritualists  but still wanted to see the case reinvestigated. In the end there was a vote to see if the matter should be pursued, but the result was tied and the decision was made that as the matter was so important it was too much of a burden to place on the chairperson, A E Meredith, to cast the deciding vote. As a result it remained a tie and the matter was left at that. 

Nearly a century on from that vote many unanswered questions remain about what happened to Iris Watkins and who may be responsible. This is a case that even in Wales is relatively unknown. I only found one or two modern articles on this case. 99% of what I discovered came from sources from 1925 and 1926. One especially sad thing I read was that in January 1926, only four months after Iris's body was found, her grandmother Catherine Watkins passed away of a broken heart. She had raised and loved Iris since she was a newborn and could not cope with life without her granddaughter. She had no will to go on living without her.

Whether the police and the authorities were unable to solve the mystery because of  a genuine lack of evidence,  indifference,  incompetency or even because of a cover up is difficult to comment on.  We can only wonder if things would have turned out differently if Scotland Yard had been invited to assist in the investigation or  if the joint standing ctte vote had not been tied.  For whatever reason the authorities were content to let the matter lie. Iris Watkins and those that grieved her were not given the respect and justice they were due.  Someone from that small mining town was able to pull the wool over their fellow townsfolk eyes and carry on with their life like nothing had happened. They went to their grave carrying that awful secret.