At first sight it looked like an accident. The body was crumpled in a heap on the ground under a window of Mitre House, a block of Brighton flats. But a routine post-mortem showed that it was murder.
The dead woman was Mrs. Florence Buckley, 47, who used her flat both as a dance studio and as a drinking club. At 10 p.m. on Saturday, November 2nd, 1940, she said goodnight to her customers. Later she was missed and the building was searched. Witnesses said that during the search they heard screams that grew fainter and fainter.
Circumstances suggested that more than one man was concerned in taking the body to the position where it was found and placing it on the ground, in order to make it appear that Mrs. Buckley had fallen from a window.