Norman Williams, a 47-year-old self-employed builder, snapped when a court ordered him to pay his estranged wife Muriel 30 shillings a week maintenance. On JUNE 6th, 1962, he took a knife and stabbed her in the stomach in Broad Street, Windermere.

Before shoppers, alerted by her screams, could intervene, Mrs. Williams fell dead on the pavement.

At Carlisle Assizes Williams could offer no reason for his brutal reaction, except that he wanted “to show her he meant business.” He was sentenced to life imprisonment and released in 1973 after 11 years.