From ERO.Q/SB6 466/59.
James Adlam Constable of Abridge went last night about nine o'clock
to the Blue Boar having heard there were two men there with a horse and
cart of a suspices presents. There the name of the cart was William Hollis
of Thomas St. Newington Surrey no 146174, the men got in the cart and
went in the direction of Ongar, ie the churchyard. The constable went to
get his mare but before he could do so the cart returned with a 3rd man
through the village along the London Rd at rapid speed.
He did not have the chance to stop the cart for two miles at Chigwell.
When he did there was four men in the cart, he took two men into custody
but in the scuffle two men escaped. The men charged are William Crouch
and James Crouch.
On searching the cart he found a female childs body of Mrs Barker
which had been buried the Sunday before, in the cart was also a shovel.
John Jones undertaker stated that on Sunday 28th October last, he
conducted the funeral of Sarah, the infant of William Barker Shoemaker
for Abridge and sercuid the lid of the coffin knowin she to be in it and saw
it placed in the grave maked in the churchyard.
William Barker went about ten o clock to the Blue Boar too see the body
of a child taken from some men at Chigwell from the cart and found it to
be the body of his dauyter Sarah age 8 years old, buried in Lambourne
Churchyard the Sunday before.