Irene Caroline Seagrove Manton had been so badly beaten that when her nude body was discovered in the River Lea in on November 19th 1943, it was first thought that she had been shot at close range in the head; even her own children couldn’t recognise her. It would take three months for police to confirm her identity, and on doing so, detectives from Scotland Yard would take into custody her husband, Bertie Horace William Manton for murder.