The crime was all the more shocking for having been committed in such a genteel location.
It was carried out suddenly last week in a single garden on a leafy avenue in Chiswick, the affluent West London suburb.
A favoured locale of BBC executives and television stars home to actors David Tennant and Colin Firth, Left-wing activist Vanessa Redgrave, TV presenters Ant and Dec and supermodel Cara Delevingne houses here easily cost £3 million and even a small flat can set you back £1 million.
The criminal or criminals struck at night: deadheading the beautiful tulips of a devoted pro-cycling campaigner.
The Mail has established the victim is Karen Liebreich, a designer, horticulturalist and former BBC producer. And it was another BBC celebrity broadcaster Jeremy Vine who first revealed the terrible deed to the world.