Inga Petersen

Inga Petersen died nine days after being beaten up during a burglary.

It was said that two men had called at the house where she lived and worked as a maid on 18 June 1947 and that they had beaten her on the head, gagged her, and then dragged her into the kitchen. It was said then that the thieves shut the kitchen windows, blocked the ventilator and then turned on five gas taps.

Inga Petersen was found unconscious by her employer and taken to Morley Atkinson Hospital in Wimbledon where she later died on 28 June 1947. She was given a blood transfusion shortly after arriving.

She had a fractured skull.

It was reported that it was thought that she had put up a terrific fight as the kitchen was in disorder when she was found.

The house had been ransacked, but it was noted that all that was taken was a gold watch, a bracelet, and a box of two cigars as well as £2 10s.

It was noted that the house had not been broken into and that it was thought that either Inga Petersen had known the thieves and let them in, or else that they had sneaked in through the open front door.

Some neighbours reported seeing a man in a blue serge suit near the house on the night of the murder, and the police later said that they thought that one of the men had been an Army deserter.

The police interviewed a man that had telephoned the house on the night of 18 June 1947 and had asked for Inga Petersen.

Inga Petersen was from Denmark and had learnt English from soldiers in Denmark after the war. She was blonde.

The police said that after they studied letters written by Inga Petersen to her mother, they thought that they had a line on the killer.

After she was found unconscious in the kitchen and taken to hospital, her mother flew to England from Denmark and kept watch by her bedside until she died. It was said that early on the Saturday 28 June 1947, the police watchers who had been by her bedside had seen her eyelids flutter and her lips move. However, it was not revealed whether she had said anything or not.

It was reported that the police were hoping that she might name a man that she was known to have been friendly with and who might have been one of the two men who had called at her house on the night she was attacked.