A Second Trunk Murder
On 15 July, police discovered a locked room containing a chest at Kemp Street, Brighton. It was near the train station, and the box contained the body of a woman. The victim was identified as Violet Kaye and the 42-year-old had moved to Brighton from London with Tony Mancini, her lover. The duo had a troubled relationship with the former prostitute Kaye often showing her jealousy as Mancini was 16 years younger. Mancini’s real name was Cecil Lois England, and he had a criminal record with convictions for minor offenses such as theft.
They moved to London in September 1933 and had multiple arguments. A particularly heated exchange on May 10, 1934, led to Kaye’s death. Mancini was working at the Skylark café in Brighton when a drunken Kaye (she was an alcoholic) accused him of relations with a teenage waitress. She was never seen alive again. Mancini told friends that Kaye moved to Paris. He even went to the trouble of sending a fake telegram to the victim’s sister-in-law to give credence to the lie.
Mancini took lodgings at Kemp Street and used a handcart to transfer the large trunk containing the body to the property. In a particularly twisted move, Mancini used it as a coffee table despite the terrible smell of decomposing flesh. The stench was so bad that neighbors complained about it! Eventually, Kaye’s absence was discovered, and police questioned Mancini. The panic-stricken former bouncer went on the run and police found a key to the Kemp Street lodgings and located the body. Mancini was arrested in South London two days later.
Trial & Acquittal
The trial of Tony Mancini took place in December 1934 and lasted just five days. One prosecution witness claimed the accused asked for a false alibi while his friends say he boasted about giving Kaye ‘a right good hiding’ in the days after the murder. Norman Birkett was the defense counsel and focused on the victim’s career as a prostitute. Mancini claimed he found the body in their flat at Park Crescent and, fearing he wouldn’t be believed by police due to his criminal record, panicked, stuffed the body in a trunk and brought it to Kemp Street.
Birkett suggested the victim could have been murdered by a client or fell down some steps. The quality of the forensic evidence was called into question by the prosecution who were puzzled by the level of morphine in Kaye’s blood and the fact that items of clothing stained with blood were purchased after her death. Birkett destroyed the prosecution’s forensic evidence with a superb cross-examination and Mancini was acquitted. In 1976, Mancini confessed to the murder to a national newspaper. He admitted that the couple had a terrible row at their flat and she attacked him with a hammer. Mancini wrestled it off her and threw it at Kaye; it hit her on the side of the head and killed her instantly.
Incredibly, the above were not the first trunk murders to happen in Brighton! In 1831, John Holloway killed his wife Celia and bundled her body in a trunk. Unlike the 20th century crimes, this one was solved quickly, and Holloway was hanged in December 1831.