Well, yes.  On 17 June 1934, the butchered torso of a woman had been found in a trunk at Brighton Railway station.  The crime was never solved. However, a month later, detectives investigating the case searched lodgings in the streets around the station.  At 52 Kemp Street they found, in a trunk, the suppurating remains of Violet Kaye.  The news exploded in French newspapers on 17 July with gory headlines. The emphasis was on the fact that the suspected murderer, Toni Mancini, had escaped to France.

Le Matin 17 July 1934

The double crime in Brighton

How Scotland Yard let slip Toni Mancini, the murderer of the dismembered woman.

The body found in the criminal’s room is that of dancer, Miss Kaye, his lady friend

English police are pursuing their investigations in France.

The caption reads: “An English police car parked in front of Mancini’s home in Kempt Road, Brighton.  Inset right, the murderer.”

So what else did Le Matin (and most other French newspapers) get wrong about the murders?

Brightonians will spot that there is no such street as Kempt Road.  Other French newspapers refer to Kent Street, but finally, as time went on, they did correct themselves to Kemp Street.

When referring to Mancini, French newspapers often use the expression d’origine italienne.  Mancini seems to have been more English than Italian.  His birth name was Cecil Louis England but he also went by several other aliases. 

Violet Kaye was not dismembered. She was murdered in her own lodgings.  Her dead body had been crammed into a trunk at 44 Park Crescent on about 19 May.  Over six weeks later, her remains were found in Mancini’s room in Kemp Street – a street described by ‘Le Matin” as une rue miserable [a poverty- stricken street].  There Mancini lived alongside the suppurating trunk, even inviting others to spend time in his room.  They complained of the smell – even in those days, when odour-tolerance was far higher than it is today, it must have been appalling.

Mancini was clearly no Francophile.  He blamed the dreadful smell and le liquid étrange qui filtrait à la base du colis [the strange liquid which was leaking from the bottom of the trunk] on une espèce de mauvais cirage français qui fondait à la chaleur [a sort of inferior French wax which melted in the heat].  What a cheek!

In the spirit of English justice, British newspapers give little more than a physical description of Toni Mancini.  His employment was given as “waiter”, both in London and in Brighton.  French newspapers did not have to be so careful about justice and the laws of libel.  For the French, in 1934, Mancini was variously un être brutal, cynique dans ses propos, Don Juan macabre [a brute, cynical in his speech, a sinister Don Juan] in ‘Le Journal’ (13 December); une sorte de Dan Juan de bal populaire [a sort of Don Juan of the dance halls] in ‘Excelsior’ (18 July); une individu peu recommandable [a disreputable individual] in ‘La France de Bordeaux et du Sud-Ouest’ (17 July).  The newspaper ‘L’Homme libre’ (18 July) could not resist the following comment: Toni Mancini, en outre, a un passé extrêmement douteux, et la brigade mondaine de Scotland Yard le connaît sous six noms différents [Moreover, Toni Mancini has an extremely sordid past, and he is known to Scotland Yard’s Vice Squad under six different names]. 

But in England, Toni Mancini was innocent until he was found guilty.  At Lewes Assizes, he was not found guilty.  He walked out of court a free man on 15 December 1934.  He married young Amela Wood eight days later.  In 1978, shortly before he died, well into his 70s, he confessed under oath to the murder of Violet Kaye.