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Lily Templeton

Age: 36

Sex: female

Date: 28 Nov 1909

Place: Rushcroft House, Brixton

Lily Templeton was found dead in her flat.

Her throat had been cut from ear to ear.

She was separated from her husband and had been living in the flat at Rushcroft House, Brixton for about six months.

A man later confessed to her murder in Windsor but later said that everything he had said was a lie other than burying his trousers in Epping and showed police a train ticket proving that he was elsewhere at the time.

She was found by her maid who had arrived at the flat and prepared breakfast. When she called Lily Templeton for breakfast she found her in her room dead. She was fully dressed except for her jacket and hat, and was lying dead on the floor. Her bed had not been slept in.

She was lying in a pool of blood and near her left wrist was a circular piece of flesh that had been ripped out as though with a knife. Her head was resting face down on her right elbow and the wig she was wearing was slightly on one side.

She had had two dogs which were in another room and it was noted that one of them was noted for its ferociousness to strangers and so it was assumed that her killer could not have been a stranger because the dogs were not heard to bark in the night.

She was last seen by a friend that she had been out with in a pub at about 12.20am with some other girls. She was then later seen by a neighbour at 12.45am going into her flat with a short thick-set man, apparently a foreigner.

The neighbour then saw one of Lily Templeton's dogs on the window ledge and saw a hand put through the window pulling it back and she then heard a scream which she attributed to quarrelling.

The police found blood stained fingerprints on a beer bottle that was taken from the chiffonier in the sitting room. They also found fingerprints on a letter to an Italian in her bedroom that had been torn open.

It was not thought that robbery was the motive, as all of Lily Templeton's jewellery was found intact in her flat.

Rushcroft House is thought to have been in Rushcroft Road, Brixton.


*map pointers are rough estimates based on known location details as per Place field above.

see www.murderresearch.com

see The Scotsman - Thursday 02 December 1909

see Nottingham Evening Post - Thursday 02 December 1909

see Grantham Journal - Saturday 04 December 1909

see Ballymena Observer - Friday 03 December 1909