History of Kilburn and West Hampstead

  Amazingly, there were two murders where the bodies were hidden in trunks in Willesden. In March 1904 George Crossman left a body in a tin trunk in Kensal Rise. Then in January the following year, Arthur Devereux in a copycat murder tried the same method to dispose of a body in Harlesden.  The George Crossman case In 1904, 30-year old George Crossman was living at No.43 Ladysmith Road, near the corner of Dundonald Road Kensal Rise, paying rent of £3 15 shillings a month. He shared the house with his wife and a young son Bertie. Crossman was well-dressed, handsome with dark piercing eyes, a fashionable drooping moustache and thick black hair. He was seen in the neighbourhood smoking cigars and taking seven-year-old Bertie for walks.  In Christmas 1903, to save money he moved upstairs and sublet the lower part of the house to William Delf, a shirt manufacturer, and his wife. Almost immediately they complained of a terrible smell coming from a tin trunk in a cupboard under ...