The story of one of Oxford's most gruesome murders - and how police caught the killer

She had been battered with a hammer, then a chisel was pushed through her throat.

The crime followed a series of burglaries in the St Clement's area, and families were afraid they could be the next victims.

Mrs Kempson, 58, was found by her brother at Boundary House in St Clement's on August 2, 1931. Within hours, Scotland Yard detectives had arrived to help Oxford police with the murder investigation.

The house had been ransacked, leaving little doubt that robbery was the motive. It was common knowledge in the neighbourhood that Mrs Kempson was wealthy and inclined to leave money lying around.

She had been left six houses, including the one she lived in, by her husband Billy, who ran a fruit shop in St Clement's.

Mrs Kempson had planned to visit a friend in West Hampstead, London, and when she failed to arrive, the friend telephoned her brother, George Reynolds, a servant at Jesus College.

He called at the house, got no reply and left, thinking she had caught a later bus. When she still didn't appear, he returned to the house, climbed through a window and found her dead.

Although £30 was hidden in the house, the killer had managed to find only £3 10s.

Chief Insp Horwell, of Scotland Yard, took charge of the case and within a week 1,000 people had been interviewed.

The murder caused public outrage, with Mrs Kempson described as "a dear little inoffensive woman".

A three-hour postmortem examination by world famous pathologist Sir Bernard Spilsbury revealed she had been struck on the back of the head with a hammer, and that the death blow had come from a chisel thrust through her throat.

The breakthrough for police came when Mrs Andrews, from Headington, told police that a vacuum cleaner salesman named Seymour had called on her the day before the murder.

He had told her that his money had been stolen while he was swimming. She had lent him some money and he had left, but returned later telling her and her husband that he had missed the bus. They had put him up for the night.

The next morning, Mrs Andrews told police, she had examined a brown parcel that Seymour had left in the hallway of the house. It contained a hammer and chisel.

Crowds outside County Hall in New Road, Oxford, hoping to find a seat in the public gallery at County Hall for the trial of Henry Seymour at Oxfordshire Assizes in 1931

Police checked local ironmongers and one proprietor remembered selling a hammer and a chisel and gave police a description of the buyer. A card with Henry Seymour’s name was found on Mrs Kempson’s mantelpiece.

Seymour, 39, was arrested in Brighton, brought to Oxford and charged with murder.

There was considerable doubt whether he could have been at the house at the time the prosecution said Mrs Kempson was murdered.

But the case against him, although weak, was considered even more damning in the moral climate of those days, when it was revealed that he had recently left his wife and 10-year-old son.

Seymour, a 39-year-old former cabinet-maker, was found guilty and sentenced to hang at Oxford Prison on December 10 at 8am.