Contrary to popular assumption, murder was, in fact, quite common in Victorian London, and the murder of women particularly so.
It’s also quite surprising, when you follow the accounts of the murders in the newspapers, how many of those crimes remained unsolved by the police.
The London Evening Standard, on Tuesday the 11th of March 1884, carried the following report:-
MURDER IN BURTON CRESCENT
Another mysterious murder of a woman of loose character, bearing a resemblance to the crime in Great Coram Street fourteen years since, and the murder three months ago in Artillery Square, Westminster, was committed early on Sunday morning, the 9th inst, at 12, Burton Crescent.
The victim is woman known as Annie Yeats, who for three weeks had rented the back room on the first floor at that place.
This is only a few doors from the bouse where Mrs. Samuels was found murdered in her kitchen.
Although the murder was discovered at mid-day on the Sunday, nothing was known of the affair publicly till Monday morning.
The discovery was made by a woman named Annie Ellis, who lives in the same house.
WENT OUT SATURDAY NIGHT
Ellis and the deceased left No. 12, Burton Crescent together on the Saturday evening, about nine o’clock, and proceeded to the Horse Shoe Tavern in Tottenham Court Road, where they had some drink, and then went to the Princess’s Theatre.
After the performance they returned to the Horse Shoe, and remained till closing (twelve o’clock), when they walked up the Tottenham Court Road to the Euston Road.
THEY MET A MAN
Here they entered into conversation with a man to whom the deceased spoke as if he was known to her, and ultimately the man and Yeats walked away together in the direction of Burton Crescent, after bidding Ellis good-night.
This man, who is suspected of being the murderer, is described as being about twenty-five years of age, with fair hair and complexion, and wearing a black felt hat, cutaway coat, and generally of a respectable appearance.
Yeats was not again seen alive.
HEARD COMING IN
She was heard by some of the lodgers to come into the house shortly before two o’clock, accompanied by a man, but so far as can be ascertained no one saw them enter.
An hour or so later, a noise like a scream was heard from her room, but, as it was not repeated no notice was taken of it.
From this time all was quiet, and the man was not heard to leave.
THE MURDER DISCOVERED
Nothing was known of any crime having been committed until shortly before one o’clock on Sunday afternoon, when Annie Ellis entered the room to call her friend, who had not come down stairs.
The door was partly open, and a lamp stood burning on the top of a chest of drawers, one drawer of which was partly open.
Ellis saw one of the feet of Yeats protruding from under the bedclothes, which otherwise completely covered her, and on removing them found the deceased lying dead in a pool of blood, with a towel tied round her neck and covering her face.
A DOCTOR ARRIVES
The woman instantly gave an alarm, and Dr. Paramore, 18, Hunter Street, Brunswick Square, was sent for.
On removing the towel, which was tied tightly over the deceased’s mouth, and fastened with a single knot at the back of her neck, he found that there was no wound in the neck but closer examination showed a scalp wound, nearly an inch and a half in length, on the left side of the head.
Some blood was on the bed-clothes, and a little had spurted on to the wall by the side of the bed.
An examination of this wound seemed to indicate that the deceased had received a blow, and then been strangled by means of the towel.
This view received confirmation by the post-mortem examination held by Dr. Paramore and Mr. Pepper, of St. Mary’s Hospital, which in their opinion proves death to be undoubtedly due strangulation.
WAS IT AN ACCIDENT?
On the other hand, there is a theory that the death was the result of an accident.
It is assumed that the woman was drunk, and fell against either the chest of drawers or edge of the bedstead, cutting her head, and that the towel tied round to stop the bleeding slipped over her mouth, and so caused suffocation, while she was partly unconscious; but Ellis states that the deceased was not drunk.
That she had made a great struggle to get rid of the towel was plain, her hands were up towards it, the right hand tightly gripping the left arm, which was partly paralysed.
THE POLICE INVESTIGATION
As soon as the medical gentleman had seen the woman, the police were communicated with, and an investigation was commenced by Inspectors Langrish and Blatchford, the result of which was to show that a ring worn by the deceased on Saturday night, and an old brown leather purse with clasp, which was known to have three shillings in it, were missing.
The ring is described as a “graduated gipsy set” of nine-carat-gold, with a turquoise in the centre, and a pearl on either side.
In the bed under the dead woman was found a half-sovereign, and six shillings in silver was loose in an open drawer.
SEVERAL MEN QUESTIONED
Several men who were known to be in communication with the deceased were on Monday seen by the police and satisfactorily explained their whereabouts on Saturday evening, and therefore the only clue at present is the description given by the woman Ellis of the man with whom she last saw Yeats in company.