Evelyn Joyce Staples

Evelyn Staples was strangled. Her body was found dumped on the edge of a cornfield near Boxley in Kent.

She had died from asphyxia and had had a fractured jaw.

A man in his 40s from Deptford was detained over her murder but later released.

Her body was found in a sack. She had been wrapped in two bloodstained joke-motif a nightshirts and her murder was known at the 'body in the nightshirlts' murder in the press.

She had lived in Pomeroy Street in Deptford, London.

Her common-law husband was also questioned over her murder, but the police emphasised that he was not under arrest.

The police said that they had no evidence that Evelyn Staples had been operating as a prostitute, but neighbours claimed that she had regularly dressed to go soliciting in the West End.

It was said that the police in Kent were liaising with the incident room in Kensington police station that had been set up to probe the murders of Marina Monti and Rachel Applethwaite, both of whom were prostitutes and whose murders are similarly unsolved to this day. They had gone missing over the weekend of 24 January 1987 and were later found dead. Kent police said, 'We will continue to be in close liaison with the Metropolitan police, but at the moment there are no definite links between the murder of Evelyn Staples and the London murders.

The police said, 'We have no evidence that Evelyn Staples was a prostitute, but a lot of people in the area of her home would disagree'.