It bears marked similarities to another case, the 1919 murder of Mrs Ridgley, a shopkeeper from Hitchin. Although no conviction was made in either case the crimes were not connected. In the 1920s King Street was narrow and busy. No. 70 was a general store selling a variety of items including tobacco, bread, cheese and margarine and was run by a spinster named Alice Maud Lawn. Miss Lawn was about 50 years old and the shop had been hers for at least twenty-one years. Although she lived alone with her cat she had relatives nearby. Her youngest brother, a motor mechanic named Horace, lived directly opposite at No. 79. She also had another brother and sister-in-law living in Cambridge. Miss Lawn’s shop was an end terraced two-storey property backing onto a green called Christ’s Piece.1 It had originally been a private house before being converted into a shop. There were two first floor bedrooms but Miss Lawn used the attic bedroom. A narrow alley called Milton Walk ran along the side of the building, with a pub called Champion of the Thames on the opposite side of this passage.
What do You think about Cambridgeshire Murders (2012)?
