Lindow Woman, also known as Lindow I, is the name given to the partial remains of a female bog body, discovered in a peat bog at Lindow Moss, near Wilmslow in Cheshire, England, on 13 May 1983 by commercial peat-cutters. The remains were a skull fragment, with soft tissue and hair attached. In 1984 the same bog yielded Lindow Man, the most extensive bog body yet found in England.
Discovery
The bog body of Lindow I was discovered on 13 May 1983 by commercial peat cutters Andy Mould and Stephen Dooley. They first noticed an unusual item on the conveyor belt, which was similar in shape and size to a football. They took the object from the conveyor to examine it more closely.
After they removed the adhesive remains of peat, they realized the incomplete preserved human head with attached remnants of soft tissue, brain, eye, optic nerve, and hair. The police summoned by the Scouts suspected a crime, confiscated the remains and launched an investigation for murder. For some years, a local man, Peter Reyn-Bardt, had been under suspicion of murdering his wife, Malika de Fernandez, in 1960, and of disposing of her body. Thinking that the skull fragment came from his wife's body, Reyn-Bardt confessed to her murder, and was sent for trial at Chester Crown Court in December 1983. Carbon-14 dating of the skull fragment returned a date of 1740 ± 80BP (c.AD250). After this news became public, Reyn-Bardt tried revoking his confession, but he was still convicted of his wife's murder even though no trace of her body was found.
Today, only the bony remains of the skull are available from the discovery after the improper handling of evidence by the police. The remains of the skull were anthropologically known as probably belonging to a 30–50-year-old woman. Recent studies however feed doubts as to the previous sex determination.