David Blake had a distinctly unpleasant way with women. On the evening of Tuesday, October 16th, 1934, he went for a walk with Emily Yeomans, a waitress at the Lyons Cafe in the County Arcade, Leeds, raped her and strangled her, and left her body in Middleton Woods.
Next day he married his girlfriend, Jean Whitehead, and during the celebrations showed his best man, Albert Schofield, a story in the local paper about the Emily Yeomans murder the night before.
The day after the wedding Blake, an unemployed steel-erector of Lady Pit Lane, Leeds, met Schofield again in the Mulberry Inn, Leeds. This time Blake had yet another woman with him, and one who was evidently very taken by him.
Schofield didnt know what to make of his womanising pal. He knew Blake had been out the night before the wedding with Emily Yeomans, who lived with her uncle at Garnet Place, Dewsbury Road, Leeds. Should he go to the police and tell them about it?
Finally he decided he must. He told detectives, who were looking for a man wearing a blue suit on the night of the murder, that his friend was wearing a blue suit that day. Blake was arrested and charged with Emilys murder. Forensic evidence helped seal his fate; on Emilys skirt there were strands of wool fibre from his suit.
The court was shown a powder compact retrieved from a house where Blake spent a night after the murder. Three Lyons Cafe waitresses were able to absolutely identify it as Emilys.
After Blake was found guilty, the court learned that he had served a three-year prison sentence for robbing a woman and nearly choking her to death. He was hanged for Emilys murder on FEBRUARY 7th, 1935, the day before his 30th birthday.