The Duchess of Cambridge paid an unannounced visit to south London on Saturday at the memorial service held for Sarah Everard, a 33-year-old woman whose remains were discovered on Friday.
Everard went missing after leaving a friend’s apartment around 3pm on March 3rd. She was allegedly abducted and killed by a police officer who was charged on Friday.
Kate Middleton, 39, visited the memorial to Everard in Clapham Common, a suburb near her home in Brixton and where she was last spotted before her disappearance.
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“She wanted to pay tribute to Sarah and her family,” a royal source told PEOPLE. “She remembers how it felt to walk around London at night.”
Middleton stops in front of the memorial with other women paying tribute to Everard, whose cause has attracted international attention.
The murder of the 33-year-old has forced many to take to social media to ask why women are still threatened by predators, and to tell personal stories about attacks or their common fears of violence when they walk home at night.
“When she went missing, any woman who ever walked home alone at night felt the grim, instinctive sense of recognition,” columnist Gaby Hinsliff wrote in The Guardian. “Footprints in a dark street. Keys seize between your fingers. There but for the grace of God.”
Constable Wayne Couzens, 48, a member of the London Police’s Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command, was arrested and charged with kidnapping and murder.
He will appear in court on Saturday.
Organizers planned a vigil in Everard’s memory on Saturday, but due to restrictions on the coronavirus, the ceremony was not allowed.
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“No woman in London may be unsafe in the streets of London and I understand the strength of the feeling that increased after Sarah’s disappearance,” police chief Catherine Roper said in a statement on Friday. “As a woman and a police officer, I want nothing more than for women to feel safe and protected by the police.”
“But we need to be clear. Our city is still in a battle with Covid-19 with people still getting infected and unfortunately losing their lives. Only a few weeks ago our NHS was at breaking point, we can not take the chance to “all the hard work to undo. work to lower the infection rate,” she added.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.