Their names sound almost comical – ‘Saunders’, ‘Gum’ and ‘Trumble’.

Yet back in the summer of 1893 there was nothing remotely amusing about what the three young lads with these surnames stumbled across in an area known as ‘Witches Wood’.

The boys, aged seven, 12 and six respectively, were out searching for birds nests in woodland in Aveley, Thurrock, when they spied the body of a practically decapitated woman, lying in a ditch.

The body had been covered with leaves and nettles. The poor woman, whose throat had been slit from ear to ear, almost severing her head from its shoulders, was a pea-picker from Poplar whose named was Joanna Driscoll or Joanna O’Driscoll.

The widower was only 39 years-old and she was one of a group of pea pickers who had been employed to work on a farm in Aveley. After work she slept in a barn with the other workers on the farm, except one Saturday evening, she failed to return.

On the Saturday evening Joanna was seen drinking beer in the Ship pub. From there she went to the nearby Ordnance Arms for some more drinks.

Joanna had been drinking with Mrs Toomey, another pea picker, who tried to persuade her to go back to the barn and have some tea when it got late. But Joanna wanted to stay out.

Mrs Toomey left and would never see Joanna alive again.

At about 10pm Joanna left the pub and was seen walking in the direction of where her body would later be discovered. She was seen accompanied by a ‘dark man in a dark suit’.

The next morning when Mrs Toomey realised Joanna hadn’t come back to the barn where she slept, she went to the pub and made a few inquiries. But nobody had seen or heard from the widow since the Saturday night.

A few days later three lads - Saunders, Gum and Trumble - happened to be bird nesting in Witches Woods. Saunders leap over some leaves and then discovered the body.

“His horrified view was of the body of a woman lying with her throat cut practically from ear to ear nearly dividing the head from the trunk of the body,” a report described.

“The boys were very much frightened and ran along the road in the direction of Aveley, meeting on the road a labourer who, upon hearing their story, directed them to the police station.”

Before long police officers were on the scene and the body was moved to the Crown and Anchor pub for an inquest.

A doctor told the inquest that Joanna could not have inflicted the wounds herself and in fact, she had been ‘fouly murdered’.

Further searches had been made for the knife or razor with which the murder was committed, but it hadn’t turned up.

Dr James Dunlop, of Aveley told the inquest how ‘he found extensive superficial bruise on the middle of deceased’s forehead, and a smaller bruise over her right eye. The body was bloodless.

In the middle of the left cheek there was a punctured wound an inch long and half-an-inch deep, and a similar wound under the middle of the chin. A jagged incised wound extended from the left of the Adam’s apple to the level the right ear.

“The wound had severed the skin, muscles, arteries, and veins on the right side,” he said.

“The wound in the neck was of such a character that one or two attempts must have been made to inflict it.”

All efforts to find the elusive man in the dark suit - the last person thought to have been with Joanna - proved fruitless.

He was described as being about 38, 5ft 9inches tall, with dark eyes, a thick dark moustache, square-built with broad features and high cheeks. He was wearing a cap and a long black frock coat.

Some believed the man was a jobbing worker known as ‘soldier’ who sometimes drank in the pub, but nothing concrete was established about his identity.

William Tyler, son of the landlord of the Ordnance Arms beer-house told how he saw the victim drinking on the Saturday evening. He thought she had had enough to drink and told her to go at one point. But she replied ‘I’m alright’ and she stayed until closing time.

A pauper’s funeral was held for Joanna. Her son and two daughters came from London and they followed the hearse, along with a group of pea pickers who knew the victim.

From here the trail of the murder seems to go cold and no further reports about ‘Soldier’ or Joanna were made.

Some feared the killer could have been Jack the Ripper, whose notorious murderous spree in Whitechapel, had appeared to come to an abrupt end in November 1888 with the murder of Mary Kelly.

The Ripper murders were still very much in the minds of people across London and Essex, especially as he had not been apprehended.

Just a few weeks before Joanna’s death, there had been another murder in south Essex, which we have covered in Memories previously. The body of 40-year-old Emma Hunt from Rochford was found in similar circumstances.

Dressmaker Mrs Hunt was found in a brook in Rochford with her throat savagely cut. Her killer was never found.