People dont usually get murdered by a crossbow, but thats what happened to employment company executive Diana Maw, 36. Her body, with a six-inch crossbow bolt embedded in her head, was found on the landing outside her Woodfield Road, Ealing, flat on Wednesday, July 20th, 1988.
Diana, who had been receiving anonymous phone calls, was planning to move into a £325,000 house with her boy friend Michael Stevens.
In August Scotland Yard released a photofit of a man who had been seen carrying the weapon two days before Diana was killed. He was between 19 and 21 and five feet eight inches tall.
On November 30th a former girl friend of Michael Stevens was charged with Dianas murder. The allegation was that she was obsessed with the girl who had taken her place, and that she followed the couple and visited their homes while they were out. But the charge came to nothing when in April, 1989, the Crown Prosecution Service offered no evidence.
The allegations against her did not, however, end there. In June, 1990, she was remanded in custody accused of setting fire to Stevenss home and in November the same year she was accused of breaking into his yacht and stealing a diary; The Crown Prosecution Service again dropped the charges against her on the arson case and in March, 1991, she was acquitted by a jury of the theft charge. She claimed the police were victimising her.