Krystyna Skarbek was murdered by an obsessed former colleague, Dennis George Muldowney, at the Shelbourne Hotel in London.
On 15 June 1952, Krystyna Skarbek, known publicly in Britain as Christine Granville, was fatally stabbed in the lobby of the Shelbourne Hotel in South Kensington, London, by Dennis George Muldowney, a former ship's steward who had become obsessed with her after they worked together on ocean liners.
Following the end of the war, Skarbek, like many former agents, struggled to find work commensurate with her wartime service and heroism, taking jobs as a shop assistant, waitress, and finally a stewardess on cruise ships. It was in this last role that she met Muldowney, whose unwanted romantic attentions she repeatedly rebuffed. His obsession culminated in violence when he confronted her at the hotel where she was staying and killed her with a knife.
Her death at just 44 years old was a tragic and abrupt end for a woman who had survived years of extreme danger as one of the most decorated Allied secret agents of the Second World War, only to be killed in peacetime London by personal violence rather than by the enemies she had so often outwitted. Her murder shocked British society and drew attention, however briefly, to the neglected postwar plight of former secret agents.