Thirty-three-year-old Anthony “Jonah” Scarlett was described as a friendly, well-liked man who was obsessed with fitness and practiced Rastafarianism. He lived in the quiet Liverpool suburb of Aigburth with his four-month-old baby and a few roommates, and seemingly didn’t bother anyone.
However, at around lunchtime on February 25th, 1994, he was attacked just outside his home. The unknown assailant stabbed him once in the chest as Anthony fought viciously and received several other minor stab wounds in the process. His heart pierced, he dropped to the ground and died in the arms of his best friend, who had been inside the flat when the incident occurred.
This friend, then a twenty-two-year-old sociology student, was initially charged with the crime but even the prosecution admitted there was little to no evidence he had anything to do with the murder, and the charges were dropped a little more than a week later.
Authorities sought several individuals who may have seen or been involved in the stabbing. These included a couple whose car had hit a wall in the area the night before the murder; the driver was a mixed-race male in his mid-twenties with short hair, while the female passenger was around the same age with shoulder-length hair.
The police also questioned a thirty-seven-year-old local man. Still, he was released after other witnesses refused to give testimony about the slaying, possibly due to intimidation from the killer or killers.
There was also the matter of a suspicious white van with the license plate G955 DEM that was seen in the vicinity at around the time of the murder. Investigators believed the van’s occupants may have had something to do with the crime, but none of these individuals was ever tracked down. The van was later found abandoned and burned.
The motive for the murder was a complete mystery, and the investigation was stymied by several witnesses clamming up for fear of repercussions. In February 2024, police made a renewed plea in the media for these witnesses to come forward and finally put the case to rest, but as of this writing, the seemingly random stabbing of Anthony Scarlett is still unsolved.
Crime Immemorial 