1970s
| Year | Name of victim(s) | Location body found | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| March 1970 | Jackie Ansell-Lamb | Mere, Cheshire | An 18-year-old hitch-hiker who disappeared on 8 March 1970. Six days later the girl's body was discovered by a farmer in Square Wood, near Knutsford. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled. |
| March 1970 | Susan Long | Aylsham, Norfolk | On 10 March 1970, the Norwich Union worker had been out dancing at the Gala Ballroom in Norwich and caught the last bus home to Aylsham. She arrived at around 11.10pm and began the seven-minute walk to her parents’ home, but never arrived. The headlights of a milk-float picked the shape of her body lying in a pool of rainwater in a lovers’ lane the following morning. |
| March 1970 | Philip Green | Shirehampton, Bristol | On 31 March 1970, 11-year-old Philip Green left his home in Sea Mills to collect golf balls on the nearby Shirehampton golf course. The following day his battered body was found in a wooded area of the course. The case remains unsolved despite one of the biggest police inquiries in the Bristol area, which was assisted by Scotland Yard. In 2010 on the 40th anniversary of his murder, Avon and Somerset Constabulary announced a new forensic investigation of the case that would use DNA profiling. |
| October 1970 | Barbara Mayo | Ault Hucknall near Bolsover, Derbyshire | In October 1970 Barbara Mayo set off from her London home to hitchhike north. Six days later the 24-year-old's body was found in a wood by the north-bound carriageway in view of Hardwick Hall. The teacher had been raped and then strangled. Twenty years later, in 1990, detectives were able to confirm using DNA that Mayo's killer was the same man who raped and strangled 18-year-old Jackie Ansell-Lamb. |
| 1971 | Unidentified man | Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire | On 26 March 1971, Former Constable David Nathan found a skull in a field off Newton Road. After police excavated, a body was found, the murdered man had his hands tied behind his back and his feet lashed. He was in a sitting position and was naked except for a pair of mustard coloured socks and a golden ring. he had undergone extensive dental work less than six months before his death. He was white, with short, brown hair and about 5 ft 8 ins tall, had a prominent bottom jaw and suffered from torticollis – a neck condition that would have caused his head to lean to the right. In November 2006, his face was reconstructed in the hope he would be recognised, but to no avail. In October 2008, a book was published in the hope someone would be able to solve the murder. |
| 1971 | Gloria Booth | Ruislip, Middlesex | On the morning of Sunday 13 June, the naked body of Gloria Booth was discovered on a recreation ground off Nairn Road, approximately half a mile from South Ruislip Underground Station and a mile from the scene of the Jean Townsend killing 17 years earlier. Like Jean Townsend, Mrs Booth – a 29 year old housewife from Ealing – had died from strangulation and it appeared that – as in the Townsend killing – a scarf had been used. |
| 1972 | Judith Roberts | Tamworth, Staffordshire | A 14-year-old girl was battered to death not far from her family home in Tamworth. A young soldier stationed at Whittington Barracks confessed to the murder and served 25 years in jail. However, he later claimed that his confession was a result of psychological problems he was experiencing at the time; there being no other evidence against him, his conviction was overturned by the Court of Appeal. The real killer remains unknown. |
| September 1973 | Wendy Sewell | Bakewell, Derbyshire | A 32-year-old legal secretary was savagely beaten in a churchyard, and later died of her wounds. The church groundskeeper Stephen Downing was convicted and served 27 years for the murder, but the verdict was eventually overturned on appeal. The case was re-investigated by police, but no further arrests were made. |
| 1974 | Glenis Carruthers | Clifton, Bristol | A 20-year old woman from Amersham was found strangled on Clifton Down after she had left a friend's 21st birthday on Friday 18 January at 10pm. |
| 1974 | Unidentified headless woman | Cockley Cley, Norfolk | Concealed in weeds off the Cockley Cley road, near Swaffham, the badly-decomposed and headless body of a young woman was found by a farm worker. She was wearing a pink, frilled Marks & Spencer nightdress, but a better clue was the brown plastic sheet in which she was wrapped, bearing the letters NCR (National Cash Register). Only six such sheets were made by a Scottish company between 1962 and 1968, but police never identified the woman, let alone her killer. Today, there is no grave or headstone, just an unmarked spot in a Swaffham churchyard. |
| 1975 | Eve Stratford | Leyton, London | Stratford was found dead on 18 March 1975 the Bunny girl who worked at the Playboy Club in Park Lane where she had been pictured with Eric Morecambe and Sid James, had her throat cut between eight and 12 times by an unknown attacker. She had also been tied up and gagged and was found by her boyfriend lying on the floor in her apartment in Lyndhurst Drive, Leyton, London the case would remain a cold one until in late 2007, the investigators in the case found links between the Playboy Bunny murder and another one of 16 year old Lynne Weedon. Weedon had been beaten over the head with a blunt object as she took a short-cut to her home in Hounslow six months after the model’s death the same year. Despite horrific injuries Weedon was alive when found the next morning but died a week later in hospital without regaining consciousness. Both cases where featured on the BBC Crimewatch programme in the UK in September 2007, where DCI Andy Mortimer appeared said to presenter Fiona Bruce that both murders were definitely sexually motivated. The cold case was in 2007 opened on new to try to find the killer and investigators says that they are sure the both women where murdered by the same person. The investigators say that the breakthrough in the case was because of new DNA technology which proves the two murders were committed by the same person. |
| 1976 | Renee MacRae and Andrew MacRae | Dalmagarry, Highland | Described as one of the most baffling mysteries in Scottish criminal history, the murder of Renee MacRae and her three-year-old son Andrew, shocked and scandalised the Highlands, and it mesmerised the small, tight-knit community in Inverness. MacRae had planned to spend the weekend with her lover in Perthshire, a married man, who was also Andrew's father. On the evening of Friday, 12 November 1976, MacRae left Inverness and headed south on the A9. At ten o'clock that evening a train driver reported a car ablaze on a lay-by adjacent to the A9 trunk road at Dalmagarry. The bodies have never been found, though traces of blood matching Renee and Andrew's blood type were discovered in the boot of the burnt out car. Attention focused on the nearby Dalmagarry quarry, were a senior member of the police believed they were buried. A 2004 excavation of the area found nothing of interest, however a local farmer has opined that the bodies could be buried under the A9, which was in the middle of a major programme of upgrading at the time of the disappearance. The farmer called for the road to be excavated at the spot where a radar survey he commissioned found “anomalies”. |
| 1978 | Genette Tate | Aylesbeare, Devon | 13-year-old Genette Tate went missing at 3.35pm BST on 19 August 1978 while delivering newspapers. Her bicycle and sack containing the newspapers were found lying in the middle of the road, on a quiet country lane but her body has never been found and her abductor has never been brought to justice. |
| 1978 | Carl Bridgewater | Yew Tree Farm, Kinver, Staffordshire | The Bridgewater Four were originally convicted in 1979, but they were acquitted in 1997. |
| 1978 | Georgi Markov | London | Agents of the Bulgarian secret police, Darzhavna Sigurnost, assisted by the KGB had previously made two failed attempts to kill Markov before a third attempt succeeded. On 7 September 1978, Markov walked across Waterloo Bridge spanning the River Thames, and was waiting at a bus stop on the other side, when he was jabbed in the calf by a man holding an umbrella. The man apologized and walked away. Markov would later tell doctors that the man had spoken with a foreign accent. The event is recalled as the "Umbrella Murder" with the assassin claimed to be Francesco Gullino, codenamed "Piccadilly". |
| 1978 | Walter Taylor | Ashby | Taylor, 17, was found dead shortly before Christmas on Ashby Playing Fields. He had been attacked with a piece of wood. |
| 1979 | Unidentified woman | Bedgebury Forest, Kent | On 23 October 1979, a mystery woman aged between 30 and 35 was found in Bedgebury Forest having been beaten to death. The discovery led to a murder enquiry but she was never identified. It was thought she had come from Eastern Europe and had one child. She was white, about 5 ft 1 in, of thin build, with brown eyes and dark brown, shoulder-length straight hair. When found she was wearing black shoes, a floral dress and a black polo neck jumper. Police had re-investigated the case in 1999, and in May 2000 Harry Pennells from East Sussex stood trial for her murder but was acquitted after a four-week trial. Still more than 20 years on, her identity remains a mystery and the crime unsolved. |
| 1979 | Lynda Farrow | Whitehall Road, Woodford Green, London | On 19 January 1979, heavily pregnant mother of two Lynda Farrow was found brutally murdered in her home in Whitehall Road. Her throat had been slashed and she had been raped. Earlier that day, Farrow had been shopping with her mother, now eighty-six, and had bought a new pair of shoes and a coat made for pregnant woman. She then went to her partner's fruit stall before returning home by car. It is believed that Farrow either ran into her home to answer her ringing phone, leaving the door opened behind her, or that she knew her attacker and let him in willingly. Farrow's body was found by her two daughters. In 2010, Farrow's killing was reconstructed on BBC's Crimewatch. The appeal featured her partner, now re-married, and her two daughters. The only sighting of Farrow's killer was by her neighbour, who saw a man wearing a long black coat entering Farrow's home at around 2pm. He had blonde hair and blue eyes. The only other clue to the killer is a set of footprints leading to Farrow's house. So far, nobody has been convicted for her murder. |
Read more about this topic: List Of Unsolved Murders In The United Kingdom