Natural causes, the doctor wrote on 40-year-old Vera Sidneys death certificate on Friday, February 15th, 1929. Vera, who lived in Croydon, Surrey, had been ill for only a few days. It was the second family tragedy in less than a year her brother-in-law, Edmund Duff, 59, had died only 10 months earlier. He also
Every Friday Ellen Kipling had dinner with her friend May Thompson. On Friday, February 15th, 1952, Ellen knocked on Mays door in William Street, Low Spennymoor, Co. Durham, and went in. May was lying in the kitchen. She had been stabbed 36 times, and bruising on her face suggested she had fought with her killer.
Even today at the village of Lower Quinton in Warwickshire theyll tell you that Charles Walton, a 74-year-old local hedger, was killed by witchcraft. The year was 1945, when most people would think witches were long gone. A search party went looking for Charles when he didnt come home from a hedging job on Wednesday,
One way to settle large outstanding debts is to start making money quickly to pay them off. Thats what bookmaker Harry Barham, 52, did. He was due to appear at the Old Bailey on a charge of evading £160,000 tax, and he was anticipating a fine on top of that. In an attempt to recoup
While her husband was serving abroad in the RAF middle-aged blonde Audrey Stewart supplemented her married womans service allowance by going on the game in Londons Piccadilly area. She had a 30-shillings-a-week room in a big boarding-house off Buckingham Palace Road, which came as near to being a brothel as was possible without breaking the
He may have been a soldier, he was aged about 30, he was dressed in a light trench coat and he certainly had a gun. The night of February 11th, 1920, he robbed Acton railway stations ticket office, and as he was attempting to break open the safe he was surprised by a night watchman
In Emil Zolas novel La b?te humaine trainspotters see a murder being committed on a train as it flashes by. In Leeds, Yorkshire, on Thursday, February 22nd, 1968, the reverse happened passengers on the 8.37 p.m. from Hull saw a woman being murdered on waste land as the train rattled past the parish church
Life for a London prostitute has always been fraught with risks. Ten years before Peggy Richards was killed at least a dozen other prostitutes were murdered. At that time Dora Lloyd was working the West End streets although she had convinced her landlady that she was an actress. In the early morning of Sunday,
The year was 1942. It was Friday, February 20th and Londons Waterloo Bridge was still unfinished. Suddenly, from deep within the blackout and the river mist shrouding the bridge, came the sounds of a row between two people. A shopkeeper investigated and, finding a Canadian soldier the worse for drink on the bridge, escorted him
Its not only difficult to say who killed 11-year-old army cadet Gerald Griggs, its even difficult to why he died. Gerald was found face down in a field near Westerham, Kent, on Thursday, February 5th, 1920, having been strangled with his own tie. There were signs of a struggle his cap and badge were