Cyril Victor Tennyson Saunders

Cyril Victor Tennyson Saunders was convicted of the murder of his 16-year-old cousin Dorothy May Saunders and sentenced to death.

He stabbed her to death in a shop at 30 Percy Terrace, Lipson, Plymouth on 23 September 1920.

Cyril Saunders had been a lance corporal in the Royal Engineers. He had joined the army as a boy and served for six months in the North Russia Relief Force as a wireless operator. He had born an excellent character in the army and at the date of the murder had been serving as a regimental policeman in the camp at Crowborough where he was stationed.

Dorothy Saunders, who had been 16 years and 11 months old had been Cyril Saunders's cousin. Her father, who had been a retired officer in the Indian Army, died in May 1919, and her mother died some months before that. Since her father's death she had lived at Plymouth with another cousin who kept a small tobacconist's and confectioner's shop.