{"id":32485,"date":"2026-03-01T14:38:27","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T14:38:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/?p=32485"},"modified":"2026-03-01T15:07:01","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T15:07:01","slug":"west-sweden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/01\/west-sweden\/","title":{"rendered":"West Sweden"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>At about noon on March the 1st 1978 <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A call was received from a Mrs April Purse <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Noting that a woman had been stabbed <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By an unknown assailant in front of her house <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Five policeman were immediately sent to the scene <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On arrival they found a woman barely conscious <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Being attended to by Mrs Purse in the street <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They did not enter the house in the Folkestone Road <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And requested back up from other stations <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As it appeared that a maniac might be on the loose <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fifteen minutes later the police entered the house <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And found an elderly man dead in his kitchen  <br><br><br>The woman who had regained consciousness<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Told the police in the time before the ambulance arrived <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That she had been collecting for an animal charity <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When the occupant of the house had stabbed her <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With what appeared to be a bayonet but she was not sure <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She was then taken to a hospital in Dover with serious stab wounds  <br><br><br>Police soon identified the elderly man as a Mr John Masters <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Who had lived at the same address for over ten years <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The name of the woman was still a mystery although Mrs Purse <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Noted that she had seen her around Dover with very tall man <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Who she supposed to be her boyfriend or husband  <br><br><br>By the early evening the alert had been relaxed <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As there did not appear to be a third party involved <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was reported that the injured woman<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p> Had been treated successfully as her wound <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Was not as serious as first thought <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She had given her name as Vera Smith <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A primary school teacher from Dover <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Her husband Stephen Smith who was also a teacher <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Arrived at the police station after visiting his wife <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He had been in Deal with his class visiting the pier <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At about the same time as the incident occurred <br><br><br>Mr Masters had it was thought died <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>From a self inflicted stab would <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But this had not been proved <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The police would have to await confirmation <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And this might take some time  <br><br><br>One of the investigating officers<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Did note something rather strange <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When he and other officers <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Investigated the crime scene <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was a scrap of paper <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Possibly from a school exercise book <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>West Sweden had been written in green ink<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p> <br><br>to be continued<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At about noon on March the 1st 1978 A call was received from a Mrs April Purse Noting that a woman had been stabbed By an unknown assailant in front of her house Five policeman were immediately sent to the scene On arrival they found a woman barely conscious Being attended to by Mrs Purse [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32485"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32485"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32485\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32493,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32485\/revisions\/32493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}