Charing Cross Trunk Murder

On 4 May 1927, a killing occurred in a third-floor office at 86 Rochester Row in the City of Westminster, London. Two days later, on 6 May, John Robinson, a 35-year-old estate agent, took a cab to Charing Cross railway station and deposited a large black trunk in the left-luggage office. On 10 May, staff noticed a "dreadful smell" coming from the trunk, and police opened it to discover the dismembered body of a woman, with each limb separately wrapped in brown paper.

Investigators traced the shopowner who had sold the trunk and the cab driver who had transported it. Police who visited the Rochester Row office found it "hastily vacated but scrupulously clean." Although an identity parade failed to pick out Robinson as a suspect, a more thorough search of the property uncovered a matchstick in a bin bearing a small spot of blood.

A laundry tag on the victim's underwear, marked "P Holt," was traced to a Mrs Holt in Chelsea, who had employed ten women as servants over the preceding two years. All were accounted for except a woman known as "Mrs Rolls." Holt confirmed that the head of the deceased belonged to Mrs Rolls, who was identified as Minnie Alice Bonati. Bonati had left her Italian waiter husband to live with a Mr Rolls and had since used his surname. She worked as a domestic servant while supplementing her income through prostitution, and had met Robinson at Victoria station before accompanying him to his office.

Robinson claimed that an argument over money had led Bonati to attack him, that he pushed her away in response, and that she fell, struck her head, and died accidentally. He said he panicked, purchased a knife and a trunk, and disposed of the body because he believed no one would believe his account. His version was contradicted by forensic pathologist Bernard Spilsbury, who determined that Bonati had died of asphyxiation after being knocked unconscious — an injury pattern inconsistent with a simple fall.

During the investigation, Detective Inspector Grosse of the Metropolitan Police also conducted inquiries on behalf of a newspaper, an action some at the time characterized as "reckless and unscrupulous," with calls for the withdrawal of his pension.

Robinson was tried at the Old Bailey, where Spilsbury's evidence that Bonati had been deliberately asphyxiated formed the basis of his conviction. He was sentenced to death by Mr Justice Swift and was hanged at Pentonville Prison on 12 August 1927.

The trunk used to transport the body was later retained as a trial exhibit and became part of the collection of the Metropolitan Police's private "Black Museum" (now the Crime Museum). It was subsequently featured in several radio crime dramatizations, and was loaned to the Crime Museum Uncovered exhibition at the Museum of London from October 2015 to April 2016.