Starkey was robbed and killed near
Bayt Jibrin on a track leading from Bayt Jibrin to
Hebron.
Issa Battat, a rebel commander from the
ad-Dhahiriya area who led a rebel unit during the
1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine against the British, was held responsible by the British authorities for Starkey's killing. Battat was later killed in an ambush by British forces in May 1938. On the other hand,
Yosef Garfinkel has suggested that the murder of Starkey had more to do with a dispute between the archaeologists, the government, and the Arab owners of the Lachish site. No agreement had been reached for access to the top of the mound and the government was in the process of compulsorily expropriating it. After Starkey's death, his team finished the excavation season at
Lachish.
Olga Tufnell eventually published the excavation report, an important publication for Palestinian archeology, after twenty years of research and writing. ==Grave==