A MAN was arrested in Malvern as part of an investigation into a gruesome murder case, reported the Malvern News a century ago.

On the previous Sunday, Kidderminster was shocked by an "awful and ghastly tragedy" when a "horribly mutilated" body of a woman was found just outside the town.

The woman's injuries were said to be of "too gross a character for description", and one medical source said "it was quite a Jack the Ripper outrage".

The woman proved to be a Mrs Mary Swinburn of Walsall, "lately an inmate of the Walsall workhouse", but who had left to go hop-picking.

She had been seen alive on the Saturday night, in the company of a man whose description was circulated by the police.

A man answering that description was arrested in Malvern the following Tuesday, at a lodging house in Belmont Road.

The Malvern News said the man, whose name was John Bartlett, had scars on his forehead, "as if he had recently been engaged in a struggle. There was also a knife in his possession, with the blade broken."

However, it was proved he had spent Saturday night in a lodging house in Worcester, and he was released.