Violet or Violette Kay was a known prostitute who had once been a dancer in a of a Musical hall Act Kaye and Kaye. She was the estranged wife of a coal miner and was also known by the names of Saunders and of Watson and she was said to live at 44 Crescent Lane, Brighton (now demolished.) At the time of her death she was known to be associated with a man known as Tony Mancini lodging at 52 Kemp Street in Brighton.

At the time of the nationwide search to identify the dead woman of the Trunks murders in June 1934, and in response to the appeal from the police for the public to help identify the dead woman in the trunk, the local paper received information that Violette Kay was missing. Tony Mancini was questioned and gave his name as Cecil Lois England; the police were not satisfied and entered his lodgings finding the body of Violette Kay in a black trunk in the cellar. Mancini was arrested and tried for her murder; it being proved that he could not have deposited the bodies in the trunks at the two stations.

He was tried under the name of John Notyre and his defence was that she had died by accident and that for fear of the police he had hidden her body when he had come across it. He had a good barrister; he was acquitted. However in 1976 aged 68 he finally confessed to the murder. Violet Kay is buried in the Brighton and Preston Cemetery, the numbers in Kemp Street have been changed.