Yesterday Woolworths was trending on Twitter as many people reminisced about the closed down shop.

'Woolies' closed for good back in January 2009 - nearly 12 years ago - but people to this day are still nostalgic about the shop.

Whether it was the 'pick n box' sweets or the various other goods the shop sold Woolworths was a British favourite.

However Teddington's branch, formerly located on Broad Street, was the site of a murder back in 1994.

The Crime

Ian Kay was attempting to rob the shop when he murdered the shop's assistant manager, 21-year-old John Penfold, by stabbing him in the heart with a four and half inch blade.

In explaining his actions Kay said: "He lunged at me to stop me taking the money from the till. I stabbed him in the chest. I knew the blade had gone right in up to the handle.

"I did what I did because he went for me. That is what I had to do - that is all there is to it really."

At the time Kay, 28, was actually serving eight years in prison for another robbery and attack he had committed.

He had absconded and committed a string of new robberies before the murder of John Penfold.

Kay was then sentenced to 22 years in prison.

The link to the Yorkshire Ripper

So how does the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe, who killed 13 people in the 1970s link to this case?

It starts with Ian Kay being transferred to Broadmoor, a maximum secure psychiatric hospital, after showing signs of mental illness.

On March 10 1997, while in Broadmoor, Kay attempted to kill Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe, stabbing him six times in the left eye and four times in the right eye with a Parker Rollerball pen (used during the hospital's drawing classes), blinding Sutcliffe in the left eye and severely damaging his right eye.

On trial on January 28th 1998, Kay admitted stabbing Sutcliffe, and told the court that he had intended to attack him with a razor embedded in a toothbrush handle.

Kay said: "I was going to ... walk into the room and cut his jugular vein on both sides and wait there until he was dead. Killing has always been in my mind, ever since I've been here [at Broadmoor].

"In hindsight, I should have straddled him and strangled him with my bare hands... He said God told him to kill thirteen women, and I say the devil told me to kill him because of that."

Kay was sentenced to be detained in a secure mental hospital indefinitely.

So while Woolworths is a shop I definitely miss the branch in Teddington has a very dark past.