POLICE were yesterday hunting an attacker who battered an elderly
woman as she tended her family's grave in a country churchyard.
Miss Elizabeth Baylis, 63, suffered a double fracture of the skull in
yesterday's attack in a churchyard near Droitwich, Hereford and
Worcester, West Mercia police said.
Miss Baylis, from Stoke Prior, Hereford and Worcester, was found
slumped at the graveside by a church official.
A West Mercia police spokesman said: ''We believe she was struck with
some kind of heavy instrument. Her handbag containing cash and bank
documents is missing.''
He said police were anxious to trace anyone who saw Miss Baylis
driving to the churchyard, or anyone acting suspiciously in the area.
Yesterday Miss Baylis was in a serious but stable condition in
Walsgrave Hospital in Coventry.
Twenty police officers, some with tracker dogs, were carrying out a
search of the churchyard and surrounding lanes for clues and Miss
Baylis's belongings, and detectives were carrying out house-to-house
inquiries.
Police said later a lump hammer had been found near the scene of the
attack.
''This is being sent for detailed examination to try to establish if
it was used in the assault on this elderly, helpless lady,'' a spokesman
said.
He added that there had been #200 in cash in Miss Baylis's handbag.
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