54 year-old Peter John has died after being stabbed in the neck with a screwdriver at a family funeral.
Peter was found dying as his wife Donna, other mourners and a priest gathered around her stepfather’s coffin at the City of London cemetery in East London.
The casket had just been lowered into the ground when a cemetery worker discovered Mr John bleeding and unconscious nearby.
He had been attacked with a screwdriver after leaving the other mourners to visit the lavatory.
‘I don’t even remember the last words Peter said to me,’ Mrs John told The Mail on Sunday. ‘All I remember is him saying, “I am going to the toilet” and that’s it.
‘Next thing I know, somebody said, “Everybody has to leave the cemetery because somebody has been murdered.” I never thought it was my husband. After that I sat on the grass verge in shock. I am still in shock.’
A 52 year-old man has been arrested and still in custody. Scotland Yard said officers were keeping an ‘open mind’ as to the motive.
A cemetery spokesman said a worker Mr John dying – a digger driver was the one who discovered the body.