Murder of Pamela Werner
Studio photograph of Pamela Werner taken in 1936, a month before her death
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| Date | 8 January 1937 |
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| Location | Beijing, China |
| Coroner | Nicholas Fitzmaurice |
| Accused | Wentworth Prentice |
On the morning of 8 January 1937, the severely mutilated body of Pamela Werner (believed born 7 February 1917) was found near the Fox Tower in Beijing, just outside the city's Legation Quarter. The only child of Sinologist and retired British diplomat E. T. C. Werner, she had last been seen by acquaintances just before leaving a skating rink the previous night. No one was ever charged in the case.
Though British and Chinese officials cooperated in the investigation, it was hampered by official resistance and the city's general chaos: Beijing at the time was crowded with war refugees, there was upheaval elsewhere in China and Europe, and Japanese troops were on the verge of occupying the city. They focused on some members of the city's expatriate community, but the case was officially closed with the finding that the mutilation suggested a Chinese killer, before they could be sure of any suspects; the Japanese occupation foreclosed any further efforts to reopen it. Some British diplomatic records pertaining to the case were later weeded; Werner, whose chequered career with the Diplomatic Service in China had alienated many of his former colleagues who oversaw the investigation, later used his own resources to identify American dentist Wentworth Prentice as the likely killer.
A subject of considerable media attention at the time, the case drifted into obscurity with the ensuing outbreak of the Second Sino–Japanese War, which soon grew into World War II, and the Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War leading to the establishment of the People's Republic of China a short time afterwards. Interest in the case was revived with the 2011 publication of Paul French's bestseller Midnight in Peking, which endorsed Werner's conclusions and won several awards. However, a website set up by some of Prentice's descendants argues that documentary evidence from the time contradicts that conclusion and casts doubt on many of French's assertions.
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Wikipedia