Margaret Marshall Murder

[Uncle Jack]

Hi there. I was just wondering if anyone can provides some details and information about an unsolved murder that occurred in September 1897 in Bethnal Green, that of a Margaret Marshall?

[rjpalmer]

It's an interesting case and Melville Macnaghten apparently took a personal interest in it and visited the crime scene. Outwardly, it has the appearance of a home invasion/robbery, but if the initial press reports can be believed, there was a lot of loot in the house and it was untouched. Marshall was an old woman and the neighborhood considered her a miser who kept a horde of money in the house. She was bludgeoned to death, with some 14 or 15 wounds about the head and shoulders from two different types of weapons, so there may have been two attackers. Like I said, it was written off as a robbery, but nothing seems to have been missing. The account of the crime was written up in the Police Gazette.