"WHEN THE NINJA STRUCK IN LIVERPOOL" We have all seen the legendary Japanese Ninja warriors action in films and on TV, but believe it or not, there was a gruesome murder case in Liverpool in the 1930s and the killers were thought to have been two Ninjas. Back Bedford Street South is a narrow dimly-lit alleyway that runs behind the Cambridge public house. One foggy night at ...11,15pm in 1937, a policeman was patrolling Mulberry Street and decided to enjoy a cigarette. He looked about and seeing there was no one around he lit a woodbine and stood in the shadows at the top of Back Bedford Street South. About five minutes later a figure emerged out of the fog, walking towards him with a hurried gait. As the stranger got nearer, the policeman flicked the cigarette to the floor and turned to the man and put his hand on the handle of his truncheon. The stranger was about 5 foot 3 in height and of far Eastern Appearance. He bowed his head as he passed the policeman and darted down Back Bedford Street South. The policeman decided to have another cigarette, seeing he had not been able to finish the other one in peace. As he struck up a match to light up, the officer of the law thought he felt something brush past him but when he turned around he saw no one was there. Three minutes later he heard a loud crack echo down the alleyway. Drawing his truncheon, he crept down the alleyway. It was dark he had to switch on his bull’s eye torch. The beam of the torch revealed a truly horrific sight. The oriental man who had passed him earlier was sitting up against the wall of the alleyway with a small-handled hatchet buried in his skull. The blow from the killer had been so savage it had divided the man’s head into two equal halves, right down to his neck. As the horrified policeman looked on blood started to stream down the mans neck and shoulders and as it did the two halves of his head fell further apart. This obviously meant that the killer had struck less than a minute ago. The policeman put his whistle to his mouth and tried to blow hard but he was numb with terror the whistle barely produced a peep. Six feet from the slaughtered victim lay a small black tube with a wisp of smoke rising from it. It looked like some sort of firecracker. A subsequent investigation deepened the murder mystery. A Japanese glyph was engraved on the handle of the hatchet and an expert on far Eastern culture said the Japanese letter referred to some ancient Ninja sect and stood for “Revenge”. Detectives thought it might have been the work of the Chinese Tong but all investigations and enquiries around Chinatown were met with a wall of silence. Just as the investigation was about to be closed a woman visited the local police station and told detectives that she witnessed the murder near Cambridge Street. On the night of the murder the woman had been about to retire and had casually glanced out of the window before drawing her curtains. Her window was situated opposite the scene of the crime and she had seen a masked man in black creeping behind the policeman, who was having a smoke at the top of the alleyway. This masked figure was incredibly agile said the woman. He climbed up a pipe just four or five feet behind the policeman and tiptoed along the gutter of the roof the ran down Back Bedford Street South. The masked man then slid down another pipe and in one swift silent movement he dropped down on his victim and whacked him Once on the head with something that looked like a hatchet. Meanwhile another shadowy figure was coming up the alleyway from the other direction. The two figures came together and seemed to use sign language to one another. Then they climbed the pipes and as they reached the rooftops in Cambridge Street, one of them threw a firecracker down to the victim. The exploding firework distracted the policeman and sent him running towards the murder victim and the two masked men took the opportunity to escape down another pipe into Mulberry Street, where they ran off into the fog. All this took place within minutes. *The Murder Victim was never identified and the Woman who witnessed the well-planned slaying was moved to another part of the city by the police because the feared reprisals from the mysterious masked killers. An oriental expert who studied the case believed the murder victim had been slain by Ninja Hit-men who had been acting out a classical revenge killing. Just why they killed the victim is still Unknown?*
Posted on: Sun, 08 Sep 2013 11:48:52 +0000
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