A car driver in St. Jamess Mews, Brighton, around midnight on Saturday, June 7th, 1930, was startled to see a woman lying in an alley. Figuring she must be drunk, he called the police.
Beatrice Prendergast, 56, wasnt drunk she was dead. She lay on the ground, her face turned to a wall, and she had three puncture wounds in her left breast. Two had penetrated her heart.
No one knew anything about Beatrice. Apparently well educated, she lodged alone in a single room in Cavendish Street, Brighton, a deprived part of the seaside city. She never had a meal at home, always left her lodgings at noon and did not return until between 10 and 11 p.m. Her life, as well as her death, remains a mystery.