The Wembley Point Woman (c. 1964–1984 – 29 October 2004) is a placeholder name for an unidentified woman found dead in

London, United Kingdom London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

on 29 October 2004. The Wembley Point Woman was found in the

River Brent The River Brent is a river in west and northwest London, England, and a tributary of the River Thames. in length, it rises in the London Borough of Barnet, Borough of Barnet and flows in a generally south-west direction before joining the Tid ...

at the foot of a high-rise building that was known at the time as Wembley Point. Her death was ruled a suicide. Despite repeated inquiries over two decades, the Wembley Point Woman remains unidentified.

Background

Wembley Point from Stonebridge Park - geograph

On the morning of 29 October 2004, a woman's body was found at the base of the Wembley Point tower in London. She was found deceased in the

, lying at the foot of the tower. Witnesses saw her commit

suicide by jumping Jumping from a dangerous location, such as from a high window, balcony, or roof, or from a cliff, dam, or bridge, is a common suicide method. The 2023 ICD-10-CM diagnosis code for jumping from a high place is X80*, and this method of suicide is ...

from the building's rooftop cafe, 21 storeys above the ground. On the day of her death, the Wembley Point Woman was reportedly looking through ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' while smoking a cigarette, when she suddenly leapt on a table, opened a window, and jumped to her death without warning. No one who saw the incident occur could recall her identity or what she was doing there.

Description

The woman was of

Afro-Caribbean Afro-Caribbean or African Caribbean people are Caribbean people who trace their full or partial ancestry to Sub-Saharan Africa. The majority of the modern Afro-Caribbean people descend from the Indigenous peoples of Africa, Africans (primarily fr ...

descent and would have stood between 5'1" (1.55 m) and 5'3" (1.60 m) when she was alive. She was estimated to be between twenty and forty years of age. She was found wearing a maroon zip-up jacket over two layered jumpers, one black and one claret coloured. She wore a black glove on her left hand, covering a silver ring on her smallest finger. On her right hand, she wore a metal ring in the shape of a cowrie shell. She wore black tights under her trousers and was wearing Skechers brand boots with a side buckle. In her right ear she had a stud earring. With her, authorities found £5.20 in cash, an opened packet of

Marlboro Marlboro (, ) is an American brand of cigarettes owned and manufactured by Philip Morris USA (a branch of Altria) within the United States and by Philip Morris International (PMI, now separate from Altria) in most global territories outside the ...

s, a copy of ''

'', and a bus pass issued at 7.07am on Tuesday, 26 October 2004 at

Seven Sisters Road Seven Sisters Road is a road in north London, England which runs within the boroughs of London Borough of Islington, Islington, London Borough of Hackney, Hackney and London Borough of Haringey, Haringey. It is an extension of Camden Road, runnin ...

. Missing from her person was any type of identifying documentation. She did not carry a wallet, bank cards, house keys, nor a phone.

Public response

After the incident, members of the public reached out to police sharing their recollections of the Wembley Point Woman prior to her death. Witnesses disclosed how they had seen the woman looking "distressed" in the building's lift as well as in the cafe found on the 21st floor of the building. Other witnesses described her moving "confidently" about the building, speculating that the building was known to her or that she had possibly worked there. No concrete evidence was found to definitively tie her to the building. Notably to investigators, it was unclear how the woman knew of the existence of the cafe, as it was used as a worker's canteen, and not known as a public venue. Police later recovered a distinctive oil painting left by the woman from the cafe where she was sitting. Investigators have been unable to attribute its meaning, or to its provenance. The Wembley Point Woman was later buried in a common grave in Watford's Carpenders Park Cemetery.

Reaction

In the two decades since her discovery, the Wembley Point Woman has received regular press attention in the United Kingdom in an effort to learn more about her identity. No leads have been found to lead to reliable information to establish her identity. In 2021 and 2023, the British police and missing persons groups issued new appeals for information in the case. The case remains unsolved.

References

External links