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Book to make the flesh creep is back with its rightful owners
BY KATIE BALDWIN AN ancient book bound with human skin has been reunited with its rightful owners.
The grisly artefact was discovered in a bin on The Headrow in Leeds city centre. Pictures of the book put online sparked so much interest that West Yorkshire Police's website almost crashed when 118,000 people logged on.
Now officers have revealed they have found the owners of the historical ledger and returned it.
A spokesman for the force said the book was stolen during a burglary at a house in Leeds in December.
Trials
Police issued an appeal last month to trace the owners.
Dating back to the 1700s and thought to be worth up to 30,000, the ledger was written mainly in French and was believed to come from Jersey.
According to experts, in the 18th and 19th centuries it was quite common to bind accounts of murder trials in the murderer's skin.
Those books were popular in 18-century France.
A man in his 20s and from Leeds was arrested in December in connection with the find after allegedly trying to sell the book.
He has now been charged over an unrelated matter outside of the force area.
Found with the ledger was a 'Dead Man's Penny', a brass medallion given to families of those who died during the First World War.
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Friday 25 May 2012
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