It’s supposed to be the happiest time of your life, but on the eve of his wedding, David Blake murdered his secret girlfriend.
He had only known Emily Yeoman for five days, but strangled her to death less than 24 hours before marrying the mother of his child.
The horrific case from 1934 is featured in this month’s Murder Most Foul magazine, which recounts the double-life of Blake, an unemployed steel worker.
Blake met Yeomans on the way home from a dance and bragged about her to his best man Albert Schofield over a pint the following day.
He said he had arranged to go out on a date with Yeomans, a waitress at the Lyons Cafe, the day before the ceremony.
After marrying Jean Whitehead the following day, Blake showed his best man a report of the murder in the Yorkshire Evening Post, but denyed any involvement.
The next day, Blake met up with Schofield with yet another girl on his arm before he taunted his best mate about turning him in to collect the reward money that had by now been put up to find the killer.
However, Schofield turned the tables and only 10 days after strangling her to death, Blake appeared in court charged with murder as his wife waited in the corridors outside.
It was revealed that Blake had almost committed a similar murder five years previously in Castleford and had been sentenced to three years. Now though, there was no escape for Blake and he was sentenced to the death penalty.
The judge said: “You have been found guilty of a cruel, treacherous and brutal murder.” He was hanged at 9am on Thursday, February 7 1935 – one day before his 30th birthday.
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