Same age. Same date. Same location. Same suspect's surname. And both times, no one was ever convicted.
On May 27, 1817, the body of 20-year-old Mary Ashford was found in a flooded pit in Erdington, a village outside Birmingham, England. Almost exactly 157 years later, on May 27, 1974, 20-year-old Barbara Forrest was found strangled in the same area. Neither murder was ever solved, and the parallels between them have puzzled criminologists and true-crime writers for decades.
Mary Ashford, 1817
Mary Ashford spent the evening of May 26, 1817, at a Whit Monday dance at the Tyburn House Inn with her friend Hannah Cox, where she spent much of the night with a young bricklayer named Abraham Thornton. The group left around midnight; Thornton walked Mary partway home. She was seen alone in the early hours of the following morning, and her body was discovered around 6:30 a.m. in a water-filled pit, bruised and showing signs of sexual assault.
Thornton admitted to having sex with Mary that night but denied killing her, and several witnesses supported his account of his movements afterward. He was tried and acquitted within minutes of jury deliberation. Under an ancient legal provision that still technically existed at the time, Mary's brother William demanded a second trial through "trial by battle" — an archaic combat-based legal remedy. Thornton formally accepted the challenge; William never went through with it, and Thornton was permanently discharged in 1818. Public opinion against him remained so strong that he eventually emigrated to the United States. No one was ever convicted of Mary Ashford's murder.
Barbara Forrest, 1974
On May 27, 1974, the body of 20-year-old Barbara Forrest, a nurse at a nearby children's home, was found strangled in a ditch near Pype Hayes Park in Erdington — reportedly within a few hundred yards of where Mary Ashford's body had been found more than a century and a half earlier. Barbara had spent her final evening dancing with her boyfriend, who told police he'd walked her to a bus stop around 1 a.m.
Investigators focused on a coworker, Michael Thornton, after finding bloodstains on his clothing and determining that an alibi provided on his behalf didn't hold up. He was tried and, like his historical namesake, acquitted for lack of sufficient evidence.
The Parallels
The similarities between the two cases have been widely noted: both victims were 20 years old, both died on May 27, both had spent their final evening dancing, and in both cases, the prime suspect shared the surname Thornton and was acquitted. Both women were also reported to have expressed a sense of foreboding shortly before their deaths — Mary reportedly told a friend's mother she had "bad feelings about the week to come," while Barbara told a coworker she had a feeling it would be her "unlucky month."
It's worth being clear-eyed about how these parallels are typically presented: some details (the shared surname, the same date, similar ages) are well documented across contemporary and modern sources, while the framing of "eerie coincidence" itself is an interpretation rather than an established fact. Two unrelated murder cases sharing some surface similarities, separated by 157 years and unconnected suspects, is also consistent with coincidence — however striking it may feel.
A Push to Reopen
In 2012, Barbara Forrest's sister, Erika Forrest, publicly called for the case to be reopened and for DNA evidence to be re-examined using modern forensic techniques, hoping advances in technology might finally identify her sister's killer. As of the most recent reporting, both cases remain officially unsolved.
Frequently Asked Questions
Was anyone ever convicted in either murder?
No. Both suspects named Thornton were acquitted, and neither case has ever resulted in a conviction.
Were Mary Ashford and Barbara Forrest related?
No. There's no known family or personal connection between the two women; the parallels between their cases are circumstantial.
Has DNA testing ever been used in the Barbara Forrest case?
Her sister publicly called for DNA re-examination in 2012, though no conclusive results have been publicly reported since.
What was "trial by battle"?
An archaic English legal provision allowing an accused person to demand trial by physical combat rather than a jury, used by Abraham Thornton in 1817 — one of the last known invocations of this law before it was formally abolished in 1819.