In the early part of the 18th century, Owen Parfit lived with his older sister in the small

village of Shepton Mallet, 16 miles southwest of Bath, in the rural county of Somerset,

in the west of England. Today, the population of this ancient parish is about 11,000,

but back then the number of people who lived there were far fewer. In his early

life, Owen Parfit had been sent by his father to apprentice as a tailor. Although he picked up

the skills well, it was said that he did not particularly enjoy tailoring, and one day he grew entirely

tired of it, and enrolled in Her Majesty's Armed Forces to become a soldier.

He would go on to travel the world and on occasion his sister would receive a letter or card

from him in some foreign crimes. Parfit spent many years as a serving soldier and when he

finally retired his parents had been long since dead. He returned home to Shepton Mallet and moved in with his sister, Mary, who was 15 years older

than him. By now, they were both in their twilight years, and Owen was suffering from rheumatism

quite badly. His time in the army had taken its toll on his health. His greatest pleasure was now to sit in the garden,

surrounded by fields and woods, for miles around. He would spend many days in the garden, often

receiving visits from friends and neighbours in the friendly neighbourhood. As the years passed, his rheumatism

got progressively worse, and they got to the point that he could not walk at all without help anymore.

His legs, feet and hands were all crippled, which makes his sudden, unexplained, vanishing, all the more strange.

On the morning of a June day in 1768, Mary, his sister, who by now was 80 years old herself, had asked their neighbor,

Susanna Snooker, to come and help her with Owen, as she usually did each morning, to help him

out of bed and into the chair in the garden, while they made his bed and tidied his room. While

they did this, Owen would sit in his chair in the

garden, still dressed in his night clothes, but with a large overcoat draped over his shoulders,

to keep away the chill. After making sure he was comfy, Mary and Susanna went back inside,

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