I stumbled across a major crime scene in Wisbech last Saturday shortly after the body of a woman had been discovered – it is now known she was raped and murdered – and police had arrived only an hour before. She had had a very troubled life.

I immediately guessed it was a suspicious death by the large police presence because only the night before, I heard police say on television that they had 50 officers working in the town to find the brutal killer of 86-year-old Una Crown, who was stabbed in the neck and set alight. My first thought was, where have they found all these police from? Have they been taken off this vicious murder case which had happened the previous weekend? This was a savage death which a detective described as one of the “most sickening crimes” he has ever investigated.

Yet within a week, this was followed by a second horrific murder. This is shocking and unprecedented for the Fenland town where I was born and grew up – unless you know differently!

In this latest case, police have made their arrest and charged Dainotas Doblys, 48, of no fixed abode, for the rape and murder of Virginja Jurkiene, 49, who lived in the town. Her death took place in the Hare and Hounds hotel in Wisbech’s historic North Brink, where I had been walking when I stumbled across the large police presence and asked what had happened. I was informed there had been “an incident” on the first floor, which I interpreted to be a suspicious death.

There have been too many other recent deaths involving my home town. Disappointingly, police have not captured the killer of Latvian, Alisa Dmitrijeva, 17, whose body was discovered on the Sandringham estate on New Year’s Day last year, which had widespread national media coverage.

But they have charged a man for the murder of Terry McSpaden, from Elm near Wisbech, who was last seen in March 2007, and the charge follows a case review last November. And following the murder last month in Wisbech of Erikas Ulinskas,  26, a man, Tomas Krasnovas, 22, has been charged for causing his death.

When I worked as a journalist in Wisbech, it was never like this, a murder was a rarity. I’ve lived near Ely for several years, and can’t remember the last murder from this beautiful city, though I do recall a case involving a missing landlady, Debbie Steel, from Ely which remains unsolved.