Elderly widow stabbed to death at home

A frail and elderly widow who had spent hundreds of pounds on home security was stabbed to death in a ferocious attack by an intruder.

Joan Albert, 79, was found, dressed in her nightclothes, lying in a hallway at her home in Capel St Mary in the heart of Suffolk's Constable country. She had bled to death after being stabbed in her chest, stomach and thighs on Saturday evening.

Mrs Albert, who lived alone with her spaniel, spent up to £400 on a security camera system earlier this year, after she had beenrepeatedly taunted by a group of youths.

Last night her sister Kath Cousins, 80, of Newton, Suffolk, said: "She was a slightly built lady and would not have put up much of a fight. A burglar would only have had to push her out of the way." She said the camera was connected to the front of the house, but the intruder had broken in at the back.