Post-war Swansea was pocked with bombsites and ruined buildings, ugly scars on the town left from the devastating Three Night Blitz of 1941. It was in one of these sites that children out playing following a morning of heavy rain made a gruesome discovery - the battered, bruised and bloodied body of a man. The deceased was 37-year-old Ernest Melville, and despite a major police investigation which tracked possible suspects to the far side of the world and back, after seven decades his murder remains unsolved.
Mr Melville lived with his parents at Watkin Street in the North Hill area of Swansea, just a few minutes walk from where he would so violently meet his end. He was a short man of a slight-build, and seemed to have been plagued by stomach problems and ill-health for much of his life. He was described as being quiet and friendly. In his 20s he worked at a variety of casual and odd jobs, and then after being discharged from the Army on medical grounds he subsequently found work with the surveyor department of Swansea Corporation, the forerunner of the council.
At lunchtime on Saturday, January 22, 1949, children playing in a bombsite near Dyfatty Park in Swansea found his beaten body next to an abandoned and blood-splattered air raid shelter. The trousers of his brown suit were badly ripped. Nearby were part of his dentures, along with a rock or piece of rubble with blood and hair on in. Police were alerted to the discovery and a murder investigation was launched, with detectives from Scotland Yard being sent from London to assist.
