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Brighton Trunk Murders

Infamous Murders: The Trunk Murders

Tuesday 30 Dec 9.30AM

Often, disposing of the body is more problematic than the act of killing itself and a surprising number of corpses are discovered in the trunks of cars.

Trunks left in railway left baggage departments eventually revealed their grisly secrets. Only when the police re-examined vital evidence did the murderers get caught.

In the 1930s Brighton became notorious for a series of “trunk murders” when dismembered female bodies were found crammed into separate trunks at Charing Cross Station in 1927 and two more bodies at King’s Cross and Brighton stations in 1934.

The seaside resort, best known as a destination for its illicit weekend trysts, was given the unwanted nickname of “Queen of Slaughtering Places” and suddenly Brighton found itself to be the crime capital of England.

The First Trunk Murder
On 10th May 1927 staff at Charing Cross railway station in London noticed an unpleasant smell in the left luggage department where they found the dismembered body of a woman.

Concerned by a foul smell in the cloakroom he discovered it was coming from a locked trunk.

Sir Bernard Spilsbury, an eminent police pathologist who had worked on the Dr Crippen case in 1910, was called in to carry out a post-mortem examination at Westminster Mortuary. He found a limbless body with its legs hacked off at the hips and the arms removed from the shoulders. Each piece had been wrapped in brown paper and tied up with string. The woman’s shoes and handbag were also in the trunk and the crime had been committed two-three weeks previously.

The Second Trunk Murder
Seven years later on 17th June 1934, Southern Railway cloakroom attendant William Joseph Vinnicombe found the remains of a woman in a trunk at Brighton Railway Station. Concerned by a foul smell in the cloakroom he discovered it was coming from a locked trunk. Summoning Detective Bishop of the Railway Police who opened the trunk, they found several layers of paper and cotton wool soaked in blood and a parcel tied with a sash cord that held together arms and a torso. The next day a case containing the woman’s legs was found at King’s Cross Railway Station.

Carrying out the post-mortem on 19th June 1934, Sir Bernard Spilsbury stated that the 25-year old woman was pregnant and suffered a heavy blow to the head with a blunt instrument. The only clue was a piece of paper with the word “Ford” written on it.
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The country was horrified and Brighton police called in Scotland Yard to conduct a massive nationwide operation. The cases of 700 missing women were reviewed and police checked hospitals and known abortionists. For the first time ever the police appealed directly to the public for help and information using the Press.

After a month of investigations with few results police concentrated on house-to-house searches and on 15th July they found a locked room containing a trunk at 52 Kemp Street, Brighton. Inside the trunk was another body of a decomposing woman.

42-year old Violet Kaye had moved from London to Brighton with her lover Tony Mancini in September 1933. Her real name was Violet Saunders and she was a known prostitute who had once been a dancer touring the country in revue shows.

A heavy drinker who was insecure of her much younger lover she accused Mancini of making a pass at one of the waitresses at the Skylark Café where he worked. A few days after their argument Mancini told his work colleague that Violet had left him and gone to Paris.

Tony Mancini was picked up for vagrancy on the outskirts of London on 17th July. When questioned he gave his name as Cecil Lois England and claimed he’d found Kaye dead in their flat and assumed she had been killed by one of her clients. He’d paniced because he had a criminal record and had hidden her body in a trunk. On hearing of the house-to-house searches he went on the run.

[b]Minnie Bonati[/b] (first “trunk murder” victim)

[b]Unknown[/b] (second “trunk murder” victim)

[b]Violet Kaye[/b] (third “trunk murder” victim)

[b]John Robinson [/b] (perpetrator of first “trunk murder”)

[b]Tony Mancini[/b] (perpetrator of third “trunk murder”)

[b]Chief Inspector George Cornish [/b] (investigating officer on the first “trunk murder”)

[b]William Norman Birkett [/b] (Mancini’s defence lawyer)

[b]Sir Bernard Spilsbury[/b] (case pathologist)

[b]10th May 1927[/b]
Trunk containing the body of a dismembered woman found at Charing Cross Railway Station

[b]23rd May 1927[/b]
John Robinson charged with murder

[b]12th August 1927[/b]
Robinson hanged at Pentonville Prison

[b]17th June 1934[/b]
Trunk containing arms and a torso found at Brighton Railway Station

[b]18th June 1934[/b]
Trunk containing two limbs found at Kings Cross Railway Station

[b]15th July 1934[/b]
Violet Kaye’s body found at Mancini’s lodgings 52 Kemp Street, Brighton

[b]17th July 1934[/b]
Mancini charged with the murder of Violet Kaye

[b]10th December 1934[/b]
Mancini’s trial begins at Lewes Assizes

[b]14th December 1934[/b]
Mancini found not guilty

[b]1976[/b]
Mancini publicly confessed to Kaye’s murder

The First Trunk Murder: The Trial
Robinson’s defence was that Bonati had died of a heart attack, but the prosecution argued that the injuries to her head were not enough to have killed her. On 11th July 1927 at the Old Bailey, Sir Spilsbury argued that Bonati was in good health and said that the bruises on her chest suggested someone had knelt on her while holding her down and possibly suffocating her. The jury believed him and Robinson was found guilty. He was hanged at Pentonville Prison on 12th August 1927.

The Second Trunk Murder: The Trial
At Lewes Assizes on 10th December 1934 Mancini was represented by William Norman Birkett. Birkett was a liberal defence lawyer who’d served as the alternate British Judge during the Nuremberg trials after World War II. He produced evidence that Kaye took morphine as well as being a heavy drinker and suggested this could have been the reason for her fall.

Despite overwhelming evidence for the prosecution the case against Mancini failed and on 14th December 1934, after 2 hours and 18 minutes deliberation, the jury found Mancini not guilty of her murder.

However in 1976, aged 68 he publicly confessed to the murder in The News of the World, but the Director of Public Prosecutions ruled he could not be tried again.

No evidence could be found to associate him with the second murder, and the woman, known only as the Girl With Pretty Feet, was never identified, her head was never found and her murderer was never brought to justice.

Rachel Scott