Rita Green

Rita Green was shot three times with a revolver in her flat at 42 Rupert Street in Soho, London on the night of Monday 9 September 1947 at about 7pm.

She had lived in a first floor flat at 42 Rupert Street. After she was shot, a crowd was said to have soon formed and within ten minutes of her murder the hunt for her killer began. Rupert Street was closed for more than two and a half hours whilst police searched cafes and other Soho haunts in the area.

It was said that after hearing the shots some people ran upstairs whilst others phoned the police but that the killer, who was said to have been seen clutching a music case, vanished into the crowd.

When two friends of Rita Green ran to her assistance, they found her dying. She had been shot in the stomach and chest and when she was found she was fully dressed.

It was reported that five people had caught a glimpse of the gunman, but they all gave a different description of him.

The man that was seen to run off was however, generally described, as being aged between 25 and 40, about 5ft 6in or 5ft 10in tall, with a medium build, fair straight hair and to have been wearing a dark or a blue suit, possibly dark tweed, with a grey trilby hat pulled over his eyes and black shoes and carrying a black dispatch or musical instrument case. It was said that he had been seen entering her flat a short while earlier a few paces behind her and that a few minutes later the shots were heard.

Rita Green was described as 'most handsome, with startling black hair and eyes' and was 6ft tall. She had lived in a one-room flat above a bank in Rupert Street. She was an only daughter, and her mother, who was a widow, had lived in Ridgemount Gardens in Bloomsbury. Rita Green was the wife of an ex-soldier and commercial traveller, but they had no children.

The police said that there was no sign of a struggle or of the weapon, which was said to have been a .45 revolver.

A hotel commissionaire that had seen Rita Green recently said that she had recently had a black eye.

The police said that they were working on the theory that her murderer was a stranger.

Rita Green was also known as Rita Driver and Rita Black.