By Tim Lambert
On Friday, 6 May 1927, a man deposited a trunk at Charing Cross Railway Station. By Monday, 10 May, the trunk was beginning to stink. Staff alerted the police and when the trunk was opened, it was found to contain several paper parcels. They contained parts of a body. The murderer had cut off a woman’s head, arms and legs and then wrapped them and the torso in parcels and placed them in the trunk. The woman had suffered blows to her head and chest but she died of asphyxiation.
However, the murderer was inept. Some items of clothing were also found in the trunk. They were traced to a Mrs Holt, who suggested they had been stolen some time before by a Mrs Rolls, who she had once employed as a cook.
It turned out that Mrs Rolls was actually Minnie Bonati, aged 36. She was separated from her Italian husband and she was a sex worker.
The police appealed for information. A taxi driver remembered picking up a man carrying a heavy trunk from outside a block of offices on Rochester Road in London. He drove the man to Charing Cross Railway Station.
Two vital clues were found in the trunk. A tea towel had a label with the name ‘Greyhound’ stitched onto it. It was traced to the Greyhound Hotel in Hammersmith, London. A woman named Mrs Robinson worked there and police found her husband, John, had an office in Rochester Road.
Unfortunately, neither the taxi driver nor the railway employee could identify John Robinson. However, the police found a tiny but vital clue.
In a wastepaper basket in Robinson’s office, they found a bloodstained match. It was found to be the same blood type as Minnie Bonati. At first Robinson denied all knowledge of the murder but he could not explain how the bloody match got there.
Eventually, Robinson admitted to killing Bonati but he claimed it was an accident. According to him, she visited his office and she became abusive and demanded money. He pushed her over, and she banged her head and died. He said he panicked and he dismembered the body. Not surprisingly, the police did not believe him.
Nor did the jury. His trial began on 11 July 1927. A pathologist said the injuries to her head were not sufficient to kill her. Bruises on the victim’s chest suggested that Robinson had kneelt on her and he may have suffocated her. On 13 July, Robinson was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. He was hanged on 12 August 1927.
