Rattenbury Suicide Inquest

At the inquest into her suicide at Christchurch, Dorset, the umbrella and handbag belonging to Alma Rattenbury is taken to court by the police officer who was called to the scene, 7th June 1935. Rattenbury had stabbed herself in the heart six times before throwing herself into the river near Christchurch. On 31st May, Rattenbury had been acquitted of murder and of being an accessory after the fact, after the killing of her third husband, architect Francis Rattenbury. Her lover, 18 year-old chauffeur-handyman George Percy Stoner (1917 - 2000), had been sentenced to death for the crime and she had been widely reviled as an older woman, who had manipulated a younger lover. Stoner's sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment after a petition was signed by 300,000 people. (Photo by E. Dean/Topical Press Agency/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)