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shyscyberchamber.com
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UNSOLVED CRIMES |
Date
Added |
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The Torso in the Trunk |
August 2002 |
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Barely
glancing up, the left-luggage clerk handed the man a ticket and heaved
his heavy trunk into a corner of the office. 6 June 1934 - Derby Day -
was a busy day at Brighton Railway Station, with race goers bound for
Epsom and early holidaymakers swelling the usual commuting crowd.
The trunk was the seventieth to be deposited in a few hours and
stuffing ticket CT1945 in his pocket, the man vanished in the crowd.
He probably caught the next train to London.
It was not until 17 June that a clerk at Brighton station, noticing an
unpleasant smell, opened the trunk and recoiled in horror at the
terrible sight that met his eyes. Inside was the torso of a woman,
wrapped in brown paper and tied around with a venetian blind cord.
An immediate search of other railway left-luggage offices led to the
discovery of a suitcase containing the murder victim's severed legs at
London's King's Cross station. It had been deposited there on 7 June.
What had happened to the head and arms? No one can be sure. But on 10
June a couple walking on the beach found a female human head in a
pool.
Incredibly, they left it there and reported it to no one. When police
heard of their find a month later and questioned them, they said they
assumed someone had committed suicide by jumping off a cliff, and that
the police had swept the remains they did not need into the sea.
Pathologist Sir Bernard Spilsbury said the murder had taken place on
about 30 or 31 May, and that the victim had been a healthy young woman
aged 21 to 28. She was about 1.7m (5 feet 2 inches) tall and weighed
54kg (8 stone 7 pound) and was pregnant. And there was no other means
of identification.
Police came to the conclusion that the killer was probably a married
man of some social standing who had an affair with the woman. She
became pregnant, and when her condition became noticeable she asked
him for help. He refused, and she threatened to tell his wife about
their affair. They had a row, which became violent, and in the heat of
the moment she was killed by a blow to the head.
On one of the pieces of brown paper detectives found the final part of
a word written in blue pencil. The syllable FORD was easily
recognizable, and the previous letter could have been a D or an L.
A woman working in a London warehouse came forward to identify the
writing as her own. She regularly returned defective consignments to a
confectionary firm at Bedford.
Police identified the brown paper she used as the type wrapped around
the woman's remains. And they established that when such sheets
arrived at the Bedford factory, they were re-used to dispatch goods to
all parts of the country.
They followed every possible lead, but the trail went cold.
Chief Inspector Robert Donaldson from Scotland Yard took charge of the
case. In an attempt to identify the victim, he launched a massive
round-up of missing girls. In all, 732 who had left home were traced.
He had detectives check every hospital, nursing home and doctor's
surgery for details of women who had sought pre-natal advice. One
London hospital alone produced 5,000 names.
Other detectives checked makers and retailers of trunks and made
discreet inquiries into thousands of purchases. But again they drew a
blank.
Of all the thousands of clues that lead nowhere, one statement seems
to point to the killer. Porter Todd, at London Bridge Station,
recalled helping a man with a heavy trunk on the 15.00 train for
Brighton on 6 June. He had bought his cheap-day third-class ticket at
Dartford and was noticed by a girl on the same train. Only five
cheap-day tickets to Brighton had been sold at Dartford that day. Four
of the travelers were traced by the police... but the fifth was never
found. |
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