Eighty-two-year-old Joan Craddock, a veteran of the Land Army in World War II, was walking home from the Wanstead Post Office in east London on April 30th, 2004, having just collected her benefits.
Suddenly, she was approached by a man who violently knocked her to the ground and snatched her handbag, which contained her son’s benefit book and £100 in cash. Joan broke her leg and shoulder in the fall. The assailant nonchalantly walked away from the scene, but moments later, returned and stole Joan’s bus pass as well.
Joan was rushed to Whipps Cross Hospital after the incident but died three weeks later of acute peritonitis that had been caused by her injuries. Thus what was initially an assault turned into a murder investigation.
The suspect, described as a light-skinned black man standing about five feet nine inches tall, was believed to be a serial mugger, possibly responsible for two previous attacks on women aged sixty-nine and forty-nine in the days prior to Joan’s assault. The day after Joan was robbed, two other women, aged eighty-two and fifty-nine, were likewise mugged in Wanstead, probably by the same perpetrator.
Hours after Joan Craddock was attacked, an elderly woman turned in Joan’s son’s benefit book at the post office. This woman, while not believed to be involved in the crime, was sought for questioning, but was never located.
The man who killed Joan Craddock and allegedly attacked many other women has not been identified as of December 2024.
Crime Immemorial 