Can you be frightened to death? The answer is certainly yes, for that was undoubtedly the fate of Billy Bryan, 71, and his widowed sister, Annie Castle, 74, found dead in the flat they shared in Priam House, Bethnal Green, London.

On Monday, August 23rd, 1993, police found Billy lying on the floor with his hands and feet bound. He had been smothered and had had a heart attack brought on by fear. Annie was sitting fully dressed in a chair. She too had suffered a heart attack, caused by fear from watching the brutal attack on her brother.

Rings which she hadn’t taken off for 50 years had been torn from Annie’s fingers and other property worth no more than a couple of hundred pounds was looted from the flat.