TRUNK MURDER CASE TAKES NEW TURN

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 44, 14 May 1927, Page 1

TRUNK MURDER CASE TAKES NEW TURN

STORY OF VICTIM’S LIFE SCOTLAND YARD STATEMENT By Cable.—Press Association.—Copyright LONDON, Thursday. In connection with the case in which a woman’s body was found in a trunk at Charing Cross Station, the authorities at Scotland Yard state that Mrs. Barnatti, or Bonati, whose maiden name was Budd, was British-born, and was aged 37. Her right index finger was slightly deformed. She left her husband in 1923, and lived with a man in London and at Tilbury until July, 1926. Since then she had lived in Marylebone and Chelsea under the name of Mrs. Roles. She obtained her living as a daily cook.

For the past six weeks she had lived at Fulham, London, as Mrs. Budd, and she was last seen alive on May 4, when she left her lodgings, saying that she intended to visit her mother at Marylebone. One of the most curious facts of to-day’s investigations was the discovery made by the detectives from Scotland Yard that Mrs. Bonati was last seen alive on a "Wednesday, two days before the trunk was deposited at Charing Cross.

Medical opinion is that death occurred a fortnight before the examination of the body. As a result of this opinion an entirely new construction of the crime had been built up as a working basis.

This caused Scotland Yard to issue a full official statement.—A. and N.Z.