George Gustav Mares

George Gustav Mares was found shot in a shed on a plot of land in Cranham near Brentwood.

He was the son of a wholesale druggist and had lived in Redbridge Lane in Wanstead and on the Sunday morning at about 10am he had left home to go to the family plot of land in Cranham. He was later found there dead the following day shortly after midnight when his family became anxious when he didn't return and took a taxi to Cranham Park Estate where their plot was.

When his family entered the plot they found George Mares lying on some grass near a shed dead. It was thought that he had been dead for some hours.

Initially no trace of injury could be found and it was initially thought that he had died from a fainting attack from which he was prone and had fallen down and died, but when his body was stripped, a small wound was found in his left breast, made by a pellet that had penetrated his body.

A police sergeant said that when he laid George Mares's body out in the shed and removed his clothing he found the wound to his left breast and said that when he turned his body over he found a similar puncture wound under his left shoulder-blade, and said that as he touched it a bullet dropped out in his hand. It was concluded that he had been shot in the region of the heart and that the bullet had passed right through his body.

A small rifle was then found in the shed.

It was supposed that his death could not have been an accident.