Emily Armstrong

Emily Frances Armstrong (c. 1880 – April 14, 1949) was a British victim of an unsolved murder. She had been beaten to death and later found at her place of employment, a dry cleaner's shop on St John's Wood High Street in London. Police later determined she had been killed roughly an hour before her body was found at around 4pm. A postmortem examination also showed that her skull had been shattered by at least 22 blows from a blunt object, later believed to be a claw hammer.

Although her handbag had been missing at the scene, it was later found nearby with a bloody handkerchief bearing a laundry mark H-612, although no leads resulted from that piece of evidence.

While authorities pursued several theories, they failed to find a suspect. Witnesses reported a "suspicious man" around 30 years old and between 5'5" or 5'6", however, police were unable to identify the individual. A murderer who had recently escaped from Broadmoor Hospital was also considered before witnesses failed to identify him in a police line-up. Several Army deserters were also questioned, however, all were eventually released.

Police eventually concluded that Armstrong's murderer had either been a tramp or "a man who had fled to Ireland".

Further reading

• Newton, Michael. The Encyclopedia of Unsolved Crimes. New York: Facts On File Inc., 2004. ISBN 0-8160-4980-7