The Auckland stabbings - part one: Who killed Fanny Marshall?

When 43-year-old Fanny Marshall’s body was found by a little girl, she was still wearing her little blue hat. She had been stabbed multiple times with a pocket knife and left where she died, by a vacant section off Nelson St, Auckland.
Her husband Frederick Marshall had been waiting for her to come home on September 28, 1914. He had been out that evening and Frances - called Fanny - was not home when he got back.
He waited for her all night, anxious but thought she was with a friend. The next morning he went to see about a job at a nearby pub. He was on his way home that evening when he was told Fanny had been murdered.
He rushed to the Newton police station and then to the morgue.
While the police would normally look at the husband first, the police accepted he had been nowhere near the crime.
Fanny’s skull had been fractured, her throat cut and she had been stabbed to the heart and lungs. There were 25 stab wounds.
Why she was killed is just as much a mystery as who. It wasn’t to rob her, she was still wearing her wedding ring and five shillings was found beside her and Frederick said she usually had four or five shillings with her.
At the inquest - which back then had a jury - the suggestion was made that Fanny was working as a prostitute but Frederick denied it.
He admitted he had hit her once or twice but said that hadn’t happened for a long time and their marriage was good.
Fanny had been at a friend’s home, Mary Ann Whitworth, and had left about 9.45pm. Fanny had said she was going straight home. She stopped once, at the shop of Henrietta Jones on Hobson Street and bought some cigarettes.
At about 10pm a man and woman were seen by Nelson Street by a youth and another woman saw Fanny about the same time alone.
One witness, Peter Erikson, claimed he had met Fanny before - for “immoral purposes”.
The jury delivered an open verdict - death by murder by persons unknown.
To this day, no one has been charged with Fanny’s murder.
Frances Elizabeth Jenkins had married Frederick Charles Marshall in England in 1894 before they came to New Zealand.
Fanny is buried in Waikumete Cemetery.