After a violent brawl fuelled by alcohol on the SS Steel Age, docked at the Royal Albert Docks in North Woolwich, London, American sailor Charles Clarke, 59, crawled into his bed to nurse his injuries.
The fight, he thought, was finished. But some time later that night, Friday, May 30th, 1930, someone crept into his cabin and stabbed him four times in the side and once in the stomach. His body was discovered at first light.
A fellow-sailor was charged with the killing when it was discovered that the murder weapon belonged to him. But in June, 1930, he was acquitted at the Old Bailey.