Lindow Woman

Perhaps you’ve heard of Lindow Man. But what about Lindow Woman? Archaeological forensics, attempted extortion, murder. Peat-cutting.

In 1959, Peter Reyn-Bardt and Marika Maria de Fernandez met, fell in love, and four days later married. Maybe they didn’t fall in love: Reyn-Bardt was gay, when homosexual acts were illegal under British law (partial decriminalization came in 1967)—he worked for an airline and needed the cover of marriage for his employment. De Ferandez enjoyed the discounted flights her husband’s employment provided. They lived together less than a year.

In 1961, de Fernandez arrived at Reyn-Bardt’s cottage in Wilmslow, Cheshire, where he lived with another man, apparently intending to extort money from him on pain of her broadcasting his homosexuality. She was never seen again.

In 1983, two commercial peat cutters working in the nearby Lindow Moss, a peat bog on the edge of Wilmslow, found what turned out to a partial human head, including some soft tissue, brain, hair, optic nerve, and one eye. Police had suspected for more than 20 years that Reyn-Bardt, 57, had murdered his wife and disposed of her body. His incarceration, for sexual offenses against children, did little to dispel their suspicions. They confronted him with the bog discovery, and he observed, “It has been so long I thought I would never be found out”. He told police he had killed de Fernandez, dismembered her, and scattered her remains in a nearby drainage ditch, on the edge of Lindow Moss.

That December Reyn-Bardt was brought to trial in Chester Crown Court, having been charged with murder. He tried to plead guilty to manslaughter. He could not recall precisely how de Fernandez had died, only that he had violently shaken her by the shoulders, but was sure he had caused her death. That plea was rejected, and the trial proceeded during which an archaeology professor from Oxford testified.

The skull was determined to be that of a woman 30-50 years old. But carbon dating had revealed that she had lived during the third century, and died about 250 CE, during the Roman occupation of the British isles. It was more than 1,700 years old. Bodies in bog conditions can be remarkably well-preserved because of the acidic, low-oxygen water that prevents microorganisms from acting on the body. Skin is effectively tanned. This body became known as “Lindow Woman”.

Reyn-Bardt was convicted, and spent the rest of his life in prison.

The following August, in 1984, one of the same peat cutters who had found Lindow Woman found a more complete bog body, this one to be known as “Lindow Man”, a healthy man in his mid-20s, of apparent high social status (condition of his hands), who had been murdered, probably ritualistically. Lindow Man, or “Lindow II”, died between 2 BCE and 119 CE. He is the best-known English bog body, and is on display in the British Museum.  

De Fernandez’s remains have never been found.