Melita Jo, died here on Monday evening or during the early hours of Tuesday morning. Sleeping in a graveyard. She sustained numerous injuries. When her body was found there was evidence of bruising to her face. The post-mortum indicates that her ribs were broken and there is evidence her attacker stamped on her repeatedly. The cause of death was blunt trauma to the head and body.

As information about her has gradually permeated the local community, people who knew her from St Mary’s churchyard where she began sleeping rough; sleeping in a graveyard; from at least June last year (2007) , have come forward with glimpses of her personality.

One person remembers seeing this lady in the churchyard in early June. They spoke to one of St.Mary's priests about her, and they said they had already been talking to her about what they could do for her and how they could help, but she really did just want to live there rather than be housed. Sleeping in a graveyard. Melita was a religious lady, frequenting St Marys and other churches. She appears to have been a very private woman, without close friends. Many people however say they spent many hours enjoying her company sharing food and stories with her. She was, though sleeping in a graveyard, considered part of the congregation and church family at St Mary's. One person used to see her very often when she took here daughter to ballet classes every week at the nearby St Mary's Centre. She was not a drinker or drugs abuser and, sleeping in a graveyard, was no harm to anyone.

One person who had seen her on Monday at about 4pm said she was sitting on the bench which she called home and looking very peaceful. Two people say she had apparently recently returned to the graveyard after a break of a few weeks. When not seen for a while it had been assumed she had moved on.

She is said to have chosen to live in the graveyard - offered (formally and informally) many alternatives, which she sometimes took up - she always returned to the graveyard as she said that was where she felt safe. Sleeping in a graveyard.

She had been sleeping there on the bench for a week or so before her death with a blue sleeping bag and a tartan umbrella for rain cover.

She washed in the church and had apparently acquired a broom only the day before her death, which she had used for sweeping up leaves into neat piles around the bench where she was sleeping. Sleeping in a graveyard. She had new green wellies on and a decent blue coat and a scarf wrapped round her face.

The police have also provided some further background, of a lady who had come to the UK in 1992 from the Philippines. She worked as a nanny in Earls Court before moving to a similar job in Wimbledon a year later. In 2000 she worked for a family in Tottenham and in 2004 she lived in Hounslow. The following year Mrs Jo moved to Wanstead to work.

Police believe it was around 2005 that she begun to sleep rough. The depiction of the quite religious woman, who was neat and tidy and who simply preferred to sleep on the bench, is, in a way, a comforting one. It absolves the community of responsibility for the fact that she was in this vulnerable position. Sleeping in a graveyard. One could almost say that her eccentric style of life was some sort of a life-style choice from which she could not be deflected. We are told people took her, although sleeping in a graveyard, 'into our heart as much as we could'. Sleeping in a graveyard? Apparently formal offers of help were made, though by whom, we have not been told, but these were not taken up. You can lead a sleeping horse to water in a graveyard, as they say.

She had also been recently seen 'with two sticks walking around the yard trying to detect magnetic fields'. Others say she went to more than one church. 'Frequenting St Marys and other churches'. Without close friends. Thousands of miles from home. Sleeping in a graveyard.

I wonder if the Parish of St Mary's has room for her now in their hearts, to sleep forever in the graveyard.