HE had known bookseller and newsagent Fred Jefferies for 12 years and initially thought nothing of it when Fred made a surprise visit to the police station.

But PS Salter soon sensed something was wrong. Jefferies' lips were quivering and he was shaking from head to toe.

“What’s wrong, Fred?” he asked.

In an anguished voice, he replied: “I want to give myself up. I have been and killed my little girl.”

So the sergeant hastily accompanied Jefferies back to his shop that lay almost in the shadow of Salisbury Cathedral and where his wife was still serving customers, oblivious of the tragedy.

The couple had three children who that afternoon were playing with their maid. When the two younger ones were given a few pence to spend, they scampered off to the sweet shop, leaving Dorothy – known as Dolly - and her father’s acknowledged favourite alone.

Her absence was not missed by her mother until her husband and the sergeant arrived. The two men went upstairs and found the main bedroom shut but not locked. The officer pushed it open and there on the blood saturated bed lay the girl with a severe gash across her throat, almost severing her head from the body. A handkerchief was stuffed in her mouth.

The child’s body was examined by a police surgeon who determined Jefferies had stood behind his daughter and drawn a razor from left to right.

The shop was immediately closed and Mrs Jefferies and the two other children were taken to the home of a relative. PS Salter accompanied Jefferies back to the police station where he formally charged him with murder. All he said in reply was “Yes”.

The officer then took charge of his clothing, finding bloodstains on the cuff of his left coat sleeve, on lining of the same sleeve, and on the left shirt cuff.

At the inquest conducted two days later on May 26, 1913, jurors returned a verdict of murder against Jefferies who was formally remanded in custody.

Jefferies appeared at the Wiltshire Assizes at Devizes in October where he was said to be ‘clad in deep mourning,’ taking only a casual interest in proceedings, staring blankly ahead of him.

In a quiet, calm voice, he pleaded guilty, with his barrister Ratcliffe Cousins intimating he was not responsible for his actions. However, following discussions with the judge, Cousins advised him to plead ‘not guilty,’ which he did.

Prosecution witnesses then duly recounted their evidence of the confession and the horrific find.

The defence first called the defendant’s brother-in-law, butcher James Millard, who delivered an alarming insight into the family’s mental history, recalling an incident when they went cycling.

“He said: ‘I had this terrible feeling come over me. I leaned over a gate and the field seemed to come over a blood red, and everything waved up and down’.”

On another occasion, when Millard saw him in bed, Jefferies looked startled, saying: “What is this strange thing coming to me? What is the matter with me?”

Millard told jurors his condition had worsened after the death of his mother in March. He could not sleep and his appetite was bad. Two of his aunts, he added, had died in the Devizes Asylum.

Cousins then produced a letter Jefferies had written to his wife unable to explain the horror of what he had done.

It read: “My God, what made me do such an awful thing to dear little Dolly? It serves me right. The mental horror I am enduring is something awful and God knows how I will endure this ghastly ordeal that I have brought on through my ghastly and awful act. “ The letter concluded: “I did not know what I was doing. I must have lost my head.”

Further evidence of his mental condition was brought before the court as to his insanity and after the jury had returned a verdict of wilful murder, Jefferies was ordered to be detained during His Majesty’s pleasure.