The Camden Town murder was a murder which took place in Camden Town, London, England, in 1907. Robert Wood, an artist, was tried for the murder of prostitute Emily Dimmock and acquitted after a defence by Edward Marshall Hall. [1] [2] [3]
On 11 September 1907, Emily Elizabeth Dimmock (known as Phyllis), a part-time prostitute in a relationship with Bertram Shaw, a railwayman, was murdered in her home at Agar Grove (then 29 St Paul's Road), Camden, having gone there from The Eagle public house, Royal College Street. [4] Her attacker had slit her throat while she was asleep, then left in the morning. [1] On the 12th, Shaw returned home during the evening to find his room locked. He borrowed a key from a neighbour, and upon entering found Phyllis lying naked on the bed, throat cut from ear to ear. It was a savage but skilful attack on her from the nature of the wound. Nothing much had been taken from the flat, and the motive was a mystery; the case quickly became a sensation.
After initial difficulty, the police investigation led by Inspector Neill centred on Robert Wood, an artist. A former girlfriend of Wood's, Ruby Young, recognised his handwriting on a postcard found in Dimmock's room, which had been published in many newspapers; she mentioned the similarity of the handwriting to a friend who worked in Fleet Street. [5] Wood was put on trial for the murder, during which Marshall Hall displayed the kind of effective and dramatic cross-examination for which he was known. Marshall Hall was convinced of Wood's innocence, and also of the fallibility of the prosecution case. The judge Mr Justice Grantham departed from the pro-conviction stance he was expected to take mid-summing up, and made it clear he thought the jury should acquit. They did, after retiring for 15 minutes between 7:45 and 8:00 pm. [2] [3]
The artist Walter Sickert adopted the phrase The Camden Town Murder for a series of etchings, paintings and drawings in 1908–09, in each of which the subjects are a clothed man and a nude woman. [4] It was dramatised in 'The Post Card' an episode of the radio crime anthology series The Black Museum , in 1952, starring Orson Welles, and also in the episode of Secrets of Scotland Yard - 'Scales of Justice' - starring Clive Brook. [6] [7] A television series, Killer in Close-Up , dramatised by George F. Kerr, featured the case in the episode "The Robert Wood Trial". The episode was produced by Sydney television station ABN-2 and broadcast on 4 September 1957. More than thirty years later, the court case featured in an episode of the BBC series Shadow of the Noose in 1989, with Jonathan Hyde as Marshall Hall, and Peter Capaldi as Wood.
Walter Richard Sickert was a German-born British painter and printmaker who was a member of the Camden Town Group of Post-Impressionist artists in early 20th-century London. He was an important influence on distinctively British styles of avant-garde art in the mid and late 20th century.
Diamond Bessie was the popular name given to Bessie Moore, née Annie Stone, a prostitute whose murder in the woods outside Jefferson, Texas, propelled her to the level of local legend. She was killed by a single gunshot wound to the head, allegedly by her husband, Abraham Rothschild.
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Jeanne Weber was a French serial killer. She strangled at least 10 children, including her own. She was both convicted of murder and declared insane in 1908; she hanged herself ten years later.
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The Camden Town Murder is a title given to a group of four paintings by Walter Sickert painted in 1908. The paintings have specific titles, such as the problem picture What Shall We Do for the Rent or What Shall We Do to Pay the Rent.
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Marguerite Marie Alibert, also known as Maggie Meller, Marguerite Laurent, and Princess Fahmy, was a French socialite. She started her career as a prostitute and later courtesan in Paris, and from 1917 to 1918, she had an affair with the prince of Wales. After her marriage to Egyptian aristocrat Ali Kamel Fahmy Bey, she was frequently called princess by the media of the time. In 1923, she killed her husband at the Savoy Hotel in London. She was eventually acquitted of the murder charge after a trial at the Old Bailey.
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