Tom Lionel Burns

Case record: Tom Lionel Burns

Background

Tom Lionel Burns was a retired driver and played the piano. He was 71 years old when the events involving two young girls occurred.

The offence

Two young girls, Sheila Barnes and Lavinia Murray, both aged five, wandered into Tom Lionel Burns’s house. Burns savagely killed and sexually assaulted both girls. He cut the throat of Sheila Barnes. He tied up Lavinia Murray and mutilated her before strangling her. Both bodies were sexually assaulted and then mutilated. Burns drained the blood from the bodies and cut certain parts from them. The parts were then cooked and eaten.

Medical evidence showed that Barnes was completely mad and had been physchotic for many years.

Investigation

Residents who lived nearby were present when Burns was arrested. Residents threw bricks through his windows, and more than 100 people turned up for one court hearing. The details were deemed so graphic that many left the public gallery before it began.

Post-mortem examinations showed that the girls died after being attacked with a knife.

At the time, a police officer claimed Burns said: “Sex made me do them in.”

Arrest

The bodies were found naked in one of the bedrooms of the York Street property after the girls had been missing for two days.

Trial

Burns was accused of the murders. He went on trial for the two murders at Lancaster Assizes in October 1958. Burns failed to enter a plea when he went on trial.

At trial on 21 October 1958, the jury found Burns to be insane and unfit for trial. The jury ordered him to be detained during Her Majesty's Pleasure.

Outcome

The jury found Burns to be insane and unfit for trial and he was ordered to be detained during Her Majesty's Pleasure on October 21, 1958.

Aftermath

In June 2007, a house was on sale connected to the killings. A two-bedroom mid-terrace at 32 York Street, Barrow, was described as being the scene of the double murder of two five-year-old girls in June 1958. The property was marketed as “traditional style terraced property in need of full modernisation” for £59,950.

The current owner, Joanna Hartley, said the murders took place at another York Street house before she bought the property two years earlier. She said: “Quite honestly, we were told that it was not this property. Even if it was, it’s the living people I worry about — it’s not the dead ones.”

A former neighbour living in York Street at the time said: “It’s that long ago, I don’t think people remember it. I was shocked as I knew the two young lasses. “Tommy Burns was a southerner — he had a hunchback. He used to play the piano quite a lot. I’m sure I can recall that night, I could hear someone on the piano. I knew the police were very upset.”

A potential buyer who did not want to be named said he pulled out after a neighbour told him about its history. The buyer said: “Who would want to live there knowing the story of it? It’s like Fred West’s house, though that got knocked down.”

A spokeswoman said the estate agent had no knowledge of the murders, and Cumbrian Properties declined to comment on the house’s history.

Other details

The bodies of the two girls were found naked in one of the bedrooms of the York Street property on June 13, 1958, after they had been missing for two days.