| A Ninja style revenge execution in Liverpool in 1937 has never been solved to the point that the victim was not even identified. On a foggy night, a policeman stopped in Back Bedford Street South, a narrow alleyway, to enjoy a cigarette. He was disturbed by a man of Far Eastern appearance who rushed past him with his head bowed. Lighting another cigarette, the policeman thought someone else brushed past him but saw nothing. A few moments later, he heard the echo of a crack and went down the alleyway to investigate, lighting his torch. There he saw the man who had passed him earlier sat upright, his head split in two by a hatchet. Six feet away lay a firecracker. Engraved on the hatchet was a Japanese glyph, which a Far Eastern expert determined belonged to a Ninja sect and stood for revenge. All enquiries made in the city's Chinese community were met by a wall of silence. Some time later, a woman told police she had witnessed the murder from her window. A masked man had crept behind the policeman, climbed a pipe and tiptoed along a gutter. Sliding down another pipe, he struck the blow in one movement. The man was met by another and sign language appeared to be used, before a firecracker was thrown to distract the policeman while they made a getaway into the fog. The woman in question was moved by police for fear of reprisals, but to this day the identity of the victim and reason for the killing remains unknown. |
| NINJA STYLE KILLING IN 1937 |
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| Back Bedford Street South today |