1980s
| Year | Name of victim(s) | Location body found | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| c.15 May 1980 | Jessie Earl | Eastbourne | Aged 22, disappeared around 15 May 1980. Her skeletal remains were found 9 years later in April 1989 in bushes at Beachy Head. British Serial Killer Peter Tobin is now suspect of the unsolved killing of Earl, as he lived in Eastbourne in the early 1980s. Police later commented however that "cannot prove anything unless Tobin confesses". |
| 1981 | Unidentified woman | Yorkshire | A woman's naked and decomposed body was found dumped in bushes next to a country road near Sutton Bank on 28 August 1981 after police received an anonymous tip off from a "well spoken man" who refused to give his name for "national security reasons". It was later established the woman was 5ft4, aged about 40 and probably had two or three children. She had been dead for up to two years when discovered. The case became known as the "Nude in the Nettles" due to the location of the body. In November 1981, medical students constructed a waxwork of the woman, but the case remains a mystery three decades on. In 2012, the body was exhumed for DNA testing against samples from five families potentially related to the woman as well as the British national DNA database. |
| August 1981 | Claire Woolterton | Windsor, Berkshire | Claire, aged 17 was found stabbed and strangled on a towpath alongside Barry Avenue. In November 2012, Thames Valley Police's Major Crime Review Team arrested a 65-year-old man on suspicion of her murder. At the time Claire was living with her family in Yeading, west London. |
| 1982 | Roberto Calvi | Blackfriars Bridge | Italian banker, chairman of Banco Ambrosiano which collapsed in one of modern Italy's biggest political scandals, found hanged. The death was ruled as murder after two coroner's inquests and an independent investigation, and, in June 2007, five people were acquitted of his murder after a trial in Rome. See also "In God's Name", a book by David Yallop, which relates Calvi's murder, and the 'suiciding' of his secretary, to corruption, and – possibly – the death of Pope John Paul I – Papa Albini. |
| 13 August 1982 | Yiannoulla Yianni | Hampstead, London | The 17-year-old schoolgirl was raped and murdered at her family home on 13 August 1982. There was no sign of a break-in and, therefore, police believe she knew her attacker. Yiannoulla, of Greek-Cypriot background, had spent the morning with her mother in the family’s shop before returning home to prepare lunch. Her body was found by her parents when they returned home at around 3 pm. Witnesses reported seeing Yiannoulla talking to a man on the doorstep. Advances in DNA technology led to the re-opening of the case in 2001 but as yet there have been no further developments. |
| 14 August 1982 | Gurcharn Singh Landa (known as 'John') | Cyprus Road, Mapperley, Nottingham | The 33-year old Nottingham taxi driver was found dead in the early hours of Saturday 14 August 1982, having been stabbed 87 times. The police believe he was robbed of his takings and then stabbed, mostly in the chest. 11 people were arrested but no one charged. The father of eight, was sent to Peel Street at about 4am to pick up a passenger, called 'Shelton' who rang from a phone box. Police believe he picked someone up before driving to Cyprus Road, about a mile away. At 4:05am, a woman living on Cyprus Road heard a car brake suddenly and looking out of the window, saw the taxi rocking violently as though a fight was taking place. She also reported seeing a man searching the taxi's dashboard. She called the police then went to help but Mr Landa died shortly after police arrived. The police re-opened the case in August 2012. |
| September 1983 | Janice Carole Weston | Cambridgeshire | At 0900 hrs on Sunday, 11 September 1983, the fully clothed body of an unidentified female was found in a ditch adjacent to a lay-by on the northbound carriageway of the A1 road, approximately 1½ miles south of the Brampton Hut roundabout, Cambridgeshire. This body was identified as that of Janice Weston formerly living in London, a solicitor and partner of a well established firm in Lincolns Inn, London. She was last seen alive on Saturday, 10 September 1983, at her office in London. |
| 1984 | Melanie Road | Bath | In June 1984, seventeen-year-old Melanie Road was brutally stabbed to death while walking home after a night out in the nearby Bath city-centre. She had met her boyfriend and his brother earlier that evening, and had left the club with them at around 2.30am. Melanie's boyfriend offered to get her a taxi, but tragically, Melanie refused and began the 20-minute walk home to her home in St. Stephen's Court. Her body was discovered at 5.30am by a local milkman just 50 yards from her doorstep. Melanie had been sexually assaulted, beaten and stabbed to death. In 2009, Melanie's murder was reconstructed on BBC's Crimewatch, but no new leads to the killer's identity came to light and the murder remains unsolved. |
| 1984 | Peter Miller | Great Yarmouth, Norfolk | The twenty-four year old was found stabbed in his kitchen by his brother. He died of one single stab wound to the chest. Although he had links to convicted criminals Andrew Hall and James Ventham, his murder was not linked to either of them. A CS canister was also found at the scene, believed to have been used by either Miller or his killer during a struggle. |
| 1985 | Sandra Phillips | Swansea | The mother of four was found beaten and strangled inside the sex shop she managed, which was locked up. Two brothers were wrongly convicted and spent seven years behind bars before their 1992 release, after which police apologised for investigational failings. A 2002 review and 2004 turned up new information but no killer, and in 2009 it was announced that the investigation would cease unless and until new information surfaced. |
| 1985 | PC Keith Blakelock | London | PC Blakelock was defending firefighters as they tended to a burning supermarket during the Broadwater Farm riot; he stumbled and was set upon by a mob with bladed weapons. Three men were convicted in 1987, but the convictions were overturned after forensic evidence suggested interview transcripts had been falsified. The officer in charge of the original investigation was cleared of inventing a statement by one of the accused. |
| 6 November 1985 | Phil Nickson | Stoke Newington, London | A 32 year old civil servant killed by a blow to the head in Newington Green Road at about 5 pm on 6 November 1985. An extensive police investigation including a reconstruction on the BBC programme Crimewatch failed to solve the case. |
| 1986 | Ann Ballantine | Edinburgh | Ann was a 20 year old woman that was found in a canal wrapped in carpet. She had been raped then throttled. The killer kept her before dumping her in the canal. |
| July 1986 | Suzy Lamplugh | Fulham, London | An estate agent aged 25 disappeared after she went to meet a "Mr Kipper". She was last seen at 12:40 BST on 28 July 1986. So far her body has not been found. Police have also investigated a link between the disappearance of Lamplugh and convicted killer John Cannan, who murdered newly-wed Shirley Banks in October 1987. It is known that Cannan's nickname in prison was Mr. Kipper. However, there was never enough evidence to connect him with the disappearance and assumed murder of Lamplugh. |
| 1986 | Nicola Fellows & Karen Hadaway | Moulsecoomb, north of Brighton | A local roofer, Russell Bishop, was tried for the rape and strangulation of the two schoolgirls, but was acquitted. Bishop was convicted in 1991 for the kidnapping and attempted murder of a seven year old schoolgirl. |
| 1986 | Linda Cook | Portsmouth | A 24 year old barmaid was raped and beaten to death in a school playground. Footprint evidence led to the conviction of an off duty sailor, Michael Shirley, and the case was dubbed the "Cinderella Murder". Shirley was sentenced to life in 1988, but eventually released in 2003 when DNA evidence proved he was not the killer. |
| 1986 | John William Malthouse | Cambridge | John Malthouse, of no fixed abode, living in and around Cambridge for several years. On 22 August 1986 his body was found in toilets at Victoria Avenue, Midsummers Common, Cambridge. he had been the subject of an extremely violent assault. No persons have been charged with this offence and the matter is still undetected. |
| 1987 | Helen Fleet | Weston-super-Mare | The brutal murder of Helen Fleet has left a lasting legacy in Weston-super-Mare. Even though nearly 25 years have passed since the frenzied attack, some townsfolk still fear returning to the beauty spot where she met her end. People continue to talk about the murder, apparently it was a motiveless attack on a defenceless pensioner. |
| 1987 | Simon Dale | Leintwardine, Shropshire | The body of Simon Dale, a near-blind recluse and former architect, was found at Heath House, an isolated 17th century mansion on the Shropshire/Herefordshire border. Dale’s corpse bore the marks of a savage attack believed to have been inflicted some two days earlier. Although his wife, the Baroness de Stempel (née Susan Wilberforce), stood trial in July 1989 for the murder of her former husband (earlier charges of murder against two of the Baroness’s children, Marcus and Sophia Wilberforce, had been dropped), she was found not guilty. Although no one else has ever been charged with the murder, the investigation coincidentally revealed a fraud committed by the Baroness against her late aunt, Lady Illingworth. Police investigating the fraud made a search of the grounds of Heath House for missing gold bullion said to be worth some £10 million, but nothing was ever found. |
| 21 December 1988 | Lockerbie bombing | Scottish airspace | On 21 December 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 from Heathrow to New York exploded over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, killing all 259 people on board and 11 on the ground. In January 2001, Libyan Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was found guilty of mass murder and jailed for life with a minimum term of 20 years. However, no-one else has been brought to court, leaving the case open. In August 2009, Megrahi was released from jail and sent back to Libya on compassionate grounds as he was said to have terminal prostate cancer. Some relatives of the dead welcomed the decision to release Megrahi, as they were convinced that he was wrongly convicted of the mass murder. |
| February 1989 | James Hassard | Caol, near Fort William | The badly-beaten body of James "Jimmy" Hassard (47) was found in a car park in the Highland village of Caol, near Fort William, in the early hours of Saturday, 18 February 1989. Mr Hassard had been drinking in the nearby Lochaber Bar between about 8pm on Friday, February 17 and 1am on Saturday. Despite a lengthy police inquiry, no-one has ever been caught. In 2010, Northern Constabulary said they are conducting a review into the murder in the hope that some new evidence may come to light and ultimately resolve the case. |
Read more about this topic: List Of Unsolved Murders In The United Kingdom