82-year old woman found beheaded in a garden

A woman was found beheaded in a back garden, on Thursday afternoon, in Edmonton, north London. A police officer was also injured by a machete-wielding man suspected to have committed the crime.

The woman was identified as Palmira Silva, 82-years old.

According to MailOnline, there is no suggestion that the killing had any terrorist motive but police are currently holding the 25 year old suspect. Eyewitnesses had reported seeing a "madman with a machete" in the area around lunchtime.

Scotland Yard has so far refused to make further comment on the woman’s decapitation but DCI John Sandlin, who is leading this investigation, said: “This is was a highly visible attack in broad daylight on a residential street. I can understand why this may cause people concern, however we are confident that we are not looking for anyone else at this stage.

"Whilst it is too early to speculate on what the motive behind this attack was I am confident, based on the information currently available to me, that it is not terrorist related. Local officers and specialist detectives are at the scene and will remain there for many hours to come.

"Specially trained family liaison officers will be deployed to support the family; we request that their privacy is respected at this very difficult time."

A witness Ricardo Kwiek, told Sky News: 'We've seen a lot of police coming in. They got to the door, and when they got there, the person didn't want to let them in. But the police wanted to get in through the back, and the person wouldn't let them in. So they broke the door down. After that there was a man that came out and they got him.

"But he was fighting with police - and they got him in the police van. Some local people that maybe seen it closer, they said they saw two children. But I'm not 100 per cent sure about that because that's what the locals told me. I wasn't that close to see what he looked like.

"When the police arrived we were shocked to see so much police in one second, that was very weird for us. There was around maybe 40 police cars that came in and blocked the road.
"I think they handled it pretty good, because straight away they blocked off the area and told people to come out of their houses. Some of the police are still outside investigating what happened."