police thought Iris had rung a wrong
number.
Two teenage sisters, Florence and
Ethel Crowley who lived in a nearby
building, thought they had heard
screams. “But we often hear shouting,”
In response to police calls for help,
although the man running down the
alley never went to the police, in came
sightings of the potential killer. An
Italian man with a bandaged arm was
in the Express Dairy in the Edgware
Road – but this one was 5ft 11in; there
were sightings of men looking agitated
on a train discussing something in a
foreign language; of a man who arrived
in Brighton shortly after the murder and
looked Italian. Then there was a man
with a scratched face in Harold Wood,
Romford. Painstakingly Hawkyard and
his team eliminated them and dozens of
others.
Then apparently came a
breakthrough. A chemist in New Oxford
Street said that the morning after Daisy
had died a man came in to have knife
cuts treated. But it was another blind
alley. Eventually he was traced and
eliminated.
Could it have been a jealous lover?
Daisy lived with her parents at Cornwall
Gardens, Willesden Green. Downstairs
lived her married sister and there was
a third sister also married. It was clear
from their statements the sisters were
not close to Daisy. One sister, Nelly, had
rarely seen her since her marriage 15
years previously and Dora, the younger
AXE-MAN KILL DAISY?
dead for 16 to 18 hours
before her body was found.
Apart from having defensive
wounds – she had a cut left
hand and arm indicating
she had tried to fend off her
attacker – and small bruises
and abrasions on her chin,
ankle, and right buttock, she
had been stabbed five times.
The first was a slightly
left to right stab below
the right shoulder blade
passing through the ninth
rib and into the lung. The
second was through the
fourth dorsal vertebrae into
the lung. Neither would
have caused instantaneous
death.
The third was through
the left shoulder blade,
and the fourth from the
front to the inside of and
below the left nipple. The
fifth and final blow, to the
heart, would have been
fatal, said Camps. The last
two wounds had caused a
haemorrhage into the left
chest cavity and belly and
the heart. He thought the
knife used to kill Daisy
was a double-edged one.
She had bled so much that Camps
had difficulty taking a sample for the
autopsy.
But, curiously, despite the struggle
there must have been, there was little
sign of disorder; her typewriter was
untouched, the telephone hanging down,
her wooden armchair had been pushed
back and one of its legs had caught in
the mat by Daisy’s desk. There was no
other disturbance to the room.
A sexual attack could be ruled out
almost immediately. Her panties,
suspender belt and the rest of her
underwear were in place. So too could a
robbery – her handbag and purse were
untouched. Unless, that is, her attacker
had panicked and run off, leaving the
spoils behind.
An Iris Wilkins, who had known
Daisy, was due to meet her at the office
that fatal evening but had gone to the
cinema and forgotten. She rang about
6.10 p.m. and the phone had rung for
about a minute before a well-spoken
man had answered it. When she asked
for Daisy he rudely told her she’d gone
and “to ring earlier next time.” He had
an “office voice” thought Iris. Could
the man have been her killer? Would a
man who has just killed a woman calmly
answer the telephone? Eventually the
said one, “and take no notice of it.”
The other added, “It was more than
one scream. It seemed close to us.”
When asked if she could distinguish any
words she said “Murder, I think.” High
Holborn was a fairly rough area at the
time and there was always noise from
the postmen in the nearby Drury Lane
sorting office.
There was, however, one positive line
of inquiry. A husband and wife, Harold
and Doris Littler, who were in the area
said they had seen an Italian-looking
man with dark hair and long sideburns,
about 5ft 4in, running down Dunn’s
Way, a lane near to the building, at
about the time of the murder. He was
wearing an open-necked, short-sleeved
shirt and seemed to be carrying a
light-coloured jacket.
A police officer outside 157 High
Holborn. The murder took place on
the third floor
Apart from defensive
wounds, she had been
stabbed five times. The
last two wounds had
caused a haemorrhage
into the left chest
cavity and belly and
the heart. The knife
was double-edged
Frank “Mad
Axe-Man” Mitchell
- was this associate
of the Kray Twins a
murderer?
