Brent – Death On My Doorstep

1/ St John the Evangelist Church Suicide, Kilburn, March 1899

2/ St John the Evangelist Church Suicide, Kilburn, March 1899 (PART 2)

3/ Kilburn November 1885 (Human Organs found on Bus)

A conductor of an omnibus doing the Kilburn to City route, one night discovered a brown paper package with the postal stamps saying it was from Folkestone in Kent, but all the writing was defaced. When it was opened it contained several wrappings and in those were the liver, stomach and intestines of a human. They were badly decomposed and mixed with lime. Also in the package was some scraps of paper, a towel and an old black jacket. They are adult organs and not children’s.

4/ Pembroke Place, Kilburn, July 1919 (Human Remains)

A body found in a dwelling house at Kilburn is thought to be that of Constance Grant. Police have arrested Maggie White, the daughter of Mrs Grant, who is the step-sister of the deceased. She is believed to be about seventeen years of age and the corpse is so decomposed that it is barely a skeleton. The man who set the ball in motion was an ex-soldier named Henry Hill, who rented a room in the house and noticed a foul odour coming from the building. He found what he thought was a turnip or a swede, but in fact turned out to be a human skull. Elsewhere were a number of bones and some quicklime. (What was the end result?)

5/ Kilburn, June 1914 (Suicide Singing Hymns)

This is one of the weirdest time or place of committing suicide on this website. Jane Elizabeth Powell aged thirty-three, who resided in Mayo Road, Willesden, had been depressed since the birth of her child four months ago. Illness had set in as well, and she explained the situation in a short note:- ” I cannot stand the terrible strain and the pain any longer. It is driving me mad. I do not wish you to grieve over me, for I am at rest and out of my misery”. A next-door neighbour said he heard Mrs Powell singing hymns, and the singing just seemed to fade away. A verdict of “Suicide whilst temporarily insane”.

6/ Willesden Suicide, October 1897

7/ Cricklewood Mystery, August 1892 (Who was she?)

8/ Kensal Rise Murders, March 1904

George Albert Crossman was a serial bigamist and a wife-murderer, who resided in Ladysmith Avenue, Kensal Rise. It was in the early part of 1904 that William Dell rented a section of the house from him but complained that there was a funny smell coming from the cupboard under the stairs. Crossman said he would sort it out, but Dell wasn’t convinced by Crossman’s feeble excuse so he went to the police-station to report something sinister was going on. As the trunk was being taken out of the house a policeman called in to assess the situation, Crossman took to his heels and while running down the road with Dell and a copper after him, he took a razor out and slit his throat. When police opened the trunk it was completely full of hardened cement, and in that was the body of Ellen Sampson, his fifth wife of seven or eight he had on the go. He married Sampson in January 1903, and they had an argument on their wedding night when he smashed over the head with a hammer, killing her instantly, then popping her in the trunk and filling it with cement. (Is No.43, Ladysmith Avenue still there?)

9/ Priory Park Road Suicide, Kilburn November 1896

10/ Queen’s Park, August 1893

Fourteen-year-old Edward Rose, a railway clerk’s son, who lived with his parents at Third Avenue, Queen’s Park and who had been missing for a couple of days, was found hanging in an iron building that was used as a Sunday School, in Queen’s Park. Some children were going to the Sunday School when they found Rose, quite dead, but it was the teacher’s who cut him down.

11/ Salisbury Road, near Paddington Cemetery, April 1892

12/ Kilburn Station Suicide, November 1897

At the inquest into the death of Amy Roberts, daughter of Edwin Roberts, an artist, said that the 18-year-old sat as his model. She was seeing a guy a while ago but the father got involved and they called off their engagement. Amy came in one night, and when the father asked her where she had been, she gave an excuse which seemed trivial so he “boxed her ears”. That same evening, the young man who she split up with said that Amy was dead. The lad, Frederick Lee, said Amy had called on him and said she was going to her sister’s at Kilburn Station, so he accompanied her. At Kilburn Station, they were on a platform waiting for a train when she suddenly leapt off, in front of an oncoming train. Death was instantaneous.

13/ Oak Tree Farm, Neasden, July 1889 (Killed by a Boar)

14/ Denmark Gardens, Kilburn, May 1870 (Twelve Dead Children)

The inspector of nuisances for Willesden was looking over the stables owned by John Austin, an undertaker, at Denmark Gardens in Kilburn. In a cupboard under the stairs he discovered two coffins, and in the attic, he found another, all of them had the body of a decomposing child in them. He left the stables and went to Chichester Terrace, the actual home of Austin, and here he found another eight cadavers in coffins, and one in an earthenware pot. Austin said he had been paid to bury the children but had kept the money and left the bodies to rot. Authorities said that the little ones would be given a decent burial and the costs would be recovered against Austin. (Where were they buried?)

15/ Harlesden Train Death, February 1899

On Monday evening, Richard Sydney Jenkins, of Harlesden, an extra fireman on the North-Western Railway, was killed by a passing train while taking a shortcut home on sick leave. He was aged twenty and had only been married a month.