Investigators 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.

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. Werner, Pamela had last been seen by acquaintances just before leaving a skating rink the previous night.

The only child of sinologist and retired British diplomat E. 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, China, just outside the city's Legation Quarter. Studio photograph of Pamela Werner taken in 1936, a month before her death

Midnight in peking