The Auckland stabbings - part two: Who killed Horatio Ramsden?

Horatio Ramsden was a quiet young man who lived with his mother and younger brother. He’d never caused any trouble in his whole life.
So when he was stabbed to death, only 18 months after Fanny Marshall, it was a massive shock.
Horatio Heyward Frecherville Ramdsden had been born in New South Wales in 1890 and with father James and mother Mary came to New Zealand when he was a child.
In 1904 he went to Canada for three years with his mother and younger brother William but after three years returned to live in Auckland.
In 1915 he joined the Waterside Workers union.
About 9pm on January 22, Horatio’s body was found on the western slope of Mount Eden.
He had left home that day about 6pm telling his mother he was going to meet someone although he never told her who.
Only three hours later he was found dying in a group of caster oil trees with 11 stab wounds.
He had yelled for help and another young man, Charles Nicholls, hearing him from a nearby house, ran out toward the noise. He was in time to find Horatio and to see someone running away.
The suggestion was Horatio was going to meet a man who was to introduce him to a young woman.
His killer was never found.
It didn’t take long for the police and newspapers to link it to the stabbing of Fanny Marshall.
The similarities were eerie. Horatio lived in Nelson Street, where Fanny was killed.
Like her, Horatio had a head wound and stab wounds. While Fanny had over 25, Horatio had 11. But Horatio had fought, he had deep defensive wounds to his hands as well as a stab wound to the heart.
Like Fanny he wasn’t robbed, none of his pockets had been disturbed.
Did Auckland have a budding serial killer? If it did, it appears to have ended with Horatio. A search of newspapers for a few years on either side of the incidents don’t reveal similar crimes.
Horatio is buried in Waikumete Cemetery and his headstone says it all.
Vengeance is mine saieth the Lord
Photo by Hassan Rafhaan.