The Camden Town murder took place on September 11th, 1907, when, allegedly, artist Robert Wood killed part-time sex worker Emily Dimmock. Murdered in her home at Agar Grove (then 29 St Paul’s Road) Camden, Dimmock’s throat was slit from ear to ear in her apparent sleep after sex and her body remained unfound for until her partner returned on the evening of the 12th to find the room locked. After borrowing a key from a neighbor, he discovered her dead body on the bed. Due to the lack of stolen items, the locked door, and the lack of any witnesses to the crime, the murder quickly became a sensational mystery. Robert Wood was eventually named a suspect after his handwriting was identified on a postcard in Dimmock’s room by a former girlfriend of his, but he was acquitted at trial. The murder became the source of many different forms of media over the years, including the series of paintings which adopted the phrase The Camden Town Murder by Walter Sickert only a year after Dimmock’s death, each depicting a clothed man beside a nude woman. The quickness of their release, along with their shocking contents, caused a stir, though Sickert had been painting female nudes for several years at that point in an approach to challenge the conventional style of life painting. Sickert had also been obsessed with serial killer Jack the Ripper, for whom he had also done paintings for, which added fuel to the fire; Sickert had even been argued to be the Ripper himself, but the theory was not taken seriously due to the likelihood of Sickert being in France at the time of the murders. (Personally, it seems more likely to me that Sickert may have been the one behind Dimmock’s murder, but this is just mostly pure speculation on my part.)

“Camden Town Murder.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 21 Feb. 2025, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camden_Town_Murder