Skip to main content

Ruth Ellis is charged with shooting dead her fiancé

Crime+Investigation Sky
Attention Sky Customers: Crime+Investigation is moving to channel 139 (or 140 in Scotland) this Thursday
A stock image of a courtroom gavel
Image: Shutterstock.com

Date

The evening before Ruth Ellis had waited outside a pub and then shot dead the cheating David Blakely as he emerged. She had then calmly asked for the police to be called and had awaited their arrival.

This was less a European crime of passion than the calm execution of a philanderer by an English lady scorned.

At 12:30 pm on 11 April 1955 she was charged with a murder for which she would enter English history...