Margaret Muller

Margaret Muller was stabbed to death in Victoria Park while she was jogging early in the morning of 3 February 2003.

She was an American artist and had been living in Hackney in a one-bedroom studio near Victoria Park and studying at the Slade School of Art which was part of the University College London.

It was thought that she might have been a victim of a failed robbery attempt and that her killer had used the Queen's Gate entrance to the park. She was found on a path between a rose garden and a playground in the park in a pool of blood.

People had heard her screaming at about 8.30am. She had been stabbed multiple times.

There were no signs of a robbery or a sexual assault.

Shortly after her murder two Mediterranean looking men were seen sprinting away from the park at about 8.30am. They were seen running through the Rose Gardens and across to Cawley Gate towards Gascoyne Estate and then to Guinness Close where they appeared to slow down to a brisk walk. The first man was described as 6 feet tall with short black hair and wearing blue jeans and training shoes. He was said to have held his head down as though attempting to avoid recognition. The second man was said to have been shorter, with short scruffy black hair and to have been wearing blue jeans and a green parka style jacket with the collar turned up to his face.

There were nine arrests for her murder over the years but no one was convicted.

After her murder, her body was taken back to the United States where she was buried in Falls Church, Virginia.

Initially her murder was linked to an attack on a woman that had been running through the park on 2 September 2003 at 8am. The woman said that she had been followed by an Asian man aged 17 and 23 who had caught her up and started making suggestive comments to her and then indecently assaulted her.

Her murder was also linked to another attack on a woman who had been running through Clissold Park in Stoke Newington in December 2003 but a 15-year old known as the Slasher was convicted for grievous bodily harm in relation to her attack and it was later found out that at the time of Margaret Muller's murder he had been in police custody.

A man that had murdered a law student in 2004 and had put her body in a suitcase was later questioned about the murder of Margaret Muller. He was a fan of the singer Eminem and had a similar haircut. It was heard that at the time of Margaret Muller's murder the man had been sleeping rough a few metres away from her studio apartment. However, at the time the police didn't interviewed him over her murder. But when he was arrested over the murder of the law student his father had said that although his son had admitted to the law student's murder, they would not be able to pin the murder of the American onto him. The police said that although there were similarities in the two murders, there were also differences.

In 2009 two other men in Cambridgeshire were held in relation to her murder. One was held for her murder and the other for assisting an offender.

Margaret Muller was 4ft 10in tall. She had been wearing a pair of black leggings, a green fleece top, a pink woolly hat and grey trainers.