Security camera footage showing a pensioner visiting her local shop the day before she was found murdered has been released by police.

Joan Albert, 79, was found dead at her home in the village of Capel St Mary, Suffolk, on 16 December.

The CCTV pictures show Mrs Albert visiting the Co-op store in her village at lunchtime on 15 December.

The following day she was found dead with multiple stab wounds.

Horrific attack

Detective Superintendent Roy Lambert, of Suffolk Police, said: "We have decided to release this footage in the hope that the live images of Mrs Albert recorded the day before her death may jog the memory of those people who saw something unusual that night but have yet to contact us, and will persuade them to get in touch."

Suffolk Police said there were signs that an intruder had broken into Mrs Albert's house via a rear window but there were no signs of anything being taken.

Mr Lambert said: "It was an horrific attack on a defenceless old lady in her own home.

"The level of violence used can only be described as terrible".

Mrs Albert, a former hairdresser, had been found in her nightclothes.

Security camera

Her neighbours said that in recent months she had been troubled by youths knocking on her doors and causing a nuisance.

Friends said she had installed a security camera above her front door and reported the problem to police.

Mrs Albert was said to have been very security conscious - one neighbour described her house as being "like Fort Knox".

Detectives are checking to see whether the security camera has revealed any clues to her killer's identity.

Mrs Albert had spoken publicly about her fear of attacks on her home months before her death.

In April she told the Evening Star newspaper in Ipswich: "I have lived here alone since my husband died. Until I realised it was the boys I thought it might be an adult that had a spite on me.

"It makes you feel nervous, it wasn't so much what they did as the number of times they came back."