Cold Case Investigator

Fatal Shooting Case Reopened After 35 Years

Hampshire & Isle of Wight Police reopened the Unsolved murder of Southampton businessman, Richard (Ricky) Haywood in October 2024 after some 35 years.

Ricky Haywood was shot several times at close range whilst in his bath. it is believed he had been shaving when the gunmen burst in. He was shot with a 22-calibre handgun which would have required several shots to have killed him.

I am inclined to agree with the police as they say that they believe that Richard Haywood knew his killer. According to reports Ricky had previously bought stolen property and had mixed with some ‘shady characters’ and said that there were no signs of a disturbance in the flat so it was not a burglary that went wrong.

During the original investigation, police spoke to 11,000 people and took about 4,000 statements, but no one was ever charged with the murder.

Ricky may have been afraid of coming to harm as he was somewhat obsessed with his personal security. He carried a panic alarm with him and had installed CCTV video cameras in his flat and shop below. Strangely the cameras were not recording on the night he was killed.

On the evening of October 16th At about 6.05 pm, Richard Haywood was seen shutting up his business for the night, bringing in the pavement sign and rolling down the shutters. It was said that Ricky was helped to bring in the sign from outside by a man who looked very much like Ricky Haywood, he was never identified and has never come forward.

After closing his shop, Ricky walked to his flat along the alleyway at around 6.30 pm. It was said that no one knew whether Ricky had gone into his flat alone, but it is believed that he had gone through his usual routine.

Something that strikes me as quite curious is that a couple who ran a shop just a few doors down from the jewellers were clearing up their shop at around 6.30 pm when they heard several bangs and the woman told her husband she thought it was gunfire. Did the man call the police or investigate at all? No, instead, he told his wife that she was talking rubbish and it was just a car backfiring. Did the man in question know something? Was he expecting an incident to take place?

Something doesn't make sense as this same couple left their shop at around 6.35 pm and as they drove past Ricky’s shop they witnessed a red car parked outside the shop and saw two men run from the alleyway which leads to Ricky’s flat. The men jumped into the red car and sped off. Did the couple call the police? No, they only mentioned it when the murder was revealed.

The police later said that they were very anxious to trace the two men that the woman saw speed off in the car and released their descriptions.

Man A:

Age: mid 20s.

Height: 5ft 8in.

Build: Slim.

Clothing: Tight-fitting trousers and a blouson jacket.

Man B:

Age: mid 20s.

Height: 5ft 11in.

Hair: Fair.

Clothing: Tight-fitting trousers and a blouson jacket.

The police said that they also wanted to trace the man who was seen outside the back of Richard Haywood’s shop and flat.

It is worth noting that Ricky had been in the process of negotiating a deal to purchase a 3-acre farm in The New Forest, for which he was trying to raise £55,000 to close. Of course in the 1980s fifty-five thousand pounds was a considerable amount of money.

On the evening of Sunday 15 October 1989, Ricky took his mother, sister and girlfriend out for a meal. He had persuaded his mother to remortgage her bungalow and lend him some of the extra cash that he wanted. However, it was also noted that he had been planning on making a deal with some financial consultants. Just a few hours earlier on the day he was murdered, Ricky had been in a meeting with them.

On the morning of Monday 16 October 1989 at about 10.30 am Richard Haywood opened his shop and shortly after got a call from one of the financial consultants. and arranged to meet them at about 12.30 pm. However, they said that when they met he had reportedly not taken too kindly to being told that it would take a few days to arrange things, noting that they could make no promises.

Since the case was reopened by Hampshire & Isle of Wight Constabulary's serious crimes division they say that they have had a good response.

The detective leading the investigation, Detective Inspector Elizabeth Brunt, said:

The detective went on to say; “This information has provided us with new and clear lines of enquiry which we are thoroughly looking into. As our work continues, I urge anyone with any information who has not yet spoken to us to please get in touch. Even if it seems like a small piece of information, it can all help us to piece together the bigger picture.

“I do believe that someone knows why Ricky was killed and who was responsible. Whatever your allegiances, you would be doing the right thing by telling us what you know.

“We need to give his family the answers they rightly deserve, to get justice for them and Ricky.

“Your help is needed and now is the time to communicate what you know, either directly, anonymously or through a third party — doing nothing is no longer an option.”

I will be watching this case closely and hope that the police can get justice for Ricky’s family left behind. I would like to speak to the local butcher regarding a comment he put on social media.

As usual, if you’d like to speak to us about this or any other case ping off an email:

The Trial That Appalled The World

72-year-old Gisele Pelicot was secretly drugged and raped by her husband and more than fifty other men.

Yes for over nine years, Dominique Pelicot drugged his wife and invited perverts from an online platform called Coco Chat to have sex with his wife as she slept, this of course was non-consensual sex and thus considered rape

Dominique and Gisèle Pelicot married in 1973 when they were both in their early twenties. By 2011, they had three children and several grandchildren living in the suburbs of Paris.

Gisele worked at the state electricity company whilst Dominique was an electrician. In 2011 Dominique began to secretly give Gisele drugs that would render her unconscious, he would then rape her in her sleep.

Dominique’s crimes only came to light when police arrested him in 2020 after he was caught filming up the skirts of three women in a supermarket. Police searched him and his home and as a result confiscated his phones, hard drives, and laptop. When the equipment was examined images and videos of Gisele being raped were discovered.

Some four years later a massive trial began in Avignon with Dominique and fifty other men being accused of rape, aggravated rape, and sexual assault. In France, rape trials are usually held behind closed doors, what is known as ‘in camera’, to preserve the anonymity of the victim.

During the trial, Dominique told the court that “one is not born a pervert, one becomes one.” The question is what was it that perverted him and the other sick individuals”? During the lengthy trial, the court heard the testimony of the defendants themselves, as well as from character witnesses, and mental health professionals who had interviewed Dominique and the other defendants, including a French social worker a Freudian expert psychologist and a medical psychiatrist. One of the answers that emerged from those interviews was sexual trauma.

More than a quarter of those accused that stood trial claimed to have been victims of sexual abuse during childhood including Dominique himself.

I am aware from a few reports of the case that several members of the public complained that defence lawyers were taking a casual approach to explain away their clients’ responsibility for heinous crimes. After all, as I said before not all people who are subjected to such abuse end up committing serious sexual crimes such as rape.

Other defence lawyers followed a slightly different route as they seemed to realise that an abusive childhood would not be accepted as an excuse for committing the crime of rape. These men certainly knew that Gisele Pelicot was in a state of deep sleep when they visited the couple’s home and thus knew that she was not consenting to sexual activity.

I have to say at this point, I am shocked and somewhat taken aback that the sick sexual deviant, Dominique Pelicot was able to find an online platform where he could attract such a large number of twisted individuals that not only fantasised about such dreadful activity but actually travelled and took part in violent sexual crimes.

It seems that Pelicot began drugging Gisele after she refused to consider taking part in acts such as wife-swapping and three-way sex. He then found the now-defunct site, Coco Chat and recruited over fifty individuals to join him in his perversions.

Coco Chat or Cocoland was an online chat site without any kind of registration and completely free to access. It did not store user's chat once they logged off from a chat session so it was extremely difficult to trace.

Information obtained from the public prosecutor's office in Paris reported that, between January 2021, and May 2024, Coco Chat or Cocoland was named in more than twenty-three thousand criminal cases. Several of these were related to a wave of violent ambushes of gay or trans people, which were orchestrated by predators who arranged meetups with their victims online. This just goes to show the kind of sick individuals Dominique Pelicot was talking to online.

I will be bringing you another article on online chat rooms such as Coco Chat in the coming days in which we will look at the psychology behind the minds of individuals who use such sites.

This statement demonstrates just how minds are affected by such sites:

Many defendants at the Pelicot trial similarly expressed the feeling that the scenes they lived through were fictional. Ghabi and Venzin said that they thought their visits were, respectively, a “scenario” and a “fantasy.”

Whilst, Vandevelde, who went to the Pelicot house six times between 2019 and 2020, described himself as “a self-directed zombie.” Related to the fictionality was a perceived lack of agency. Douiri, one psychologist said, did not see himself as a subject, “but as an object which responded to impulses.” What a creepy statement!

In this case, The defendants’ obvious lack of consciousness and remorse for their actions would seem to go way beyond what we might expect to hear from criminal defendants. I guess this goes to make this case all the more unique.

In conclusion to this article; On December 19th 2024 Dominique Pelicot and 49 other men were convicted of aggravated rape, attempted rape or sexual assault against Gisele Pelicot and were given sentences between three and fifteen years in prison. One man was found guilty of having drugged and raped his own wife with Dominique but was not charged with having committed any offence against Gisele. Seventeen of those that were convicted have lodged appeals against their convictions but Dominique was not one of them.

Speaking on 19 December after the trial, Gisèle said: “When I started on September 2nd I wanted to ensure that society could see what was happening and I have never regretted this decision. I now have faith in our capacity collectively to take hold of a future in which everybody, women, and men, can live together in harmony, in respect and mutual understanding”.

I have to say that I am just struck by how a man could not only do such vile things to the woman to whom he had dedicated his life but then bring in unknown individuals to abuse her in his presence. I often hear members of the older generations saying things like “What on earth is this world coming to” but in this case, I have to ask the same question. How on earth was such a website allowed to operate with no recompense, no control and more seriously still, how can people want to abuse another in such sick and vile ways? I am truly horrified to think that there are so many people out in the world who suffer such sexual depravity.

I am not done with this and will be back with more on this depravity soon, until then please stay safe and leave me a comment or drop me an email:

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Missing Suzy Lamplugh (Part One)

First off let me tell you that you will never see us buying into the story that a male named John Cannan was somehow responsible for the 25-year-old’s disappearance back in 1986.

John David Guise Cannan was made a scapegoat in the Lamplugh case simply because the police investigating the case could not see what was hiding in plain sight before their eyes. We were warned to keep our noses out of this case, I wonder why!

The fact remains that John Cannan did not know Suzy Lamplugh and on the day of her disappearance he had lunch with his mother then loaded up a borrowed red Ford Sierra with his possessions and drove it to his mother’s home in the West Midlands UK.

When Suzy left the office at approximately 12.40 pm on July 28th 1986 she did not take the keys to 37 Shorrolds Road Fulham with her, so she could not have shown the house to a client, Mr. Kipper or whoever.

Suzy Lamplugh’s Car

There were statements made to the police quite early on suggesting that Miss Lamplugh had been seen waiting outside 37 Shorrolds Road and that she had also been seen with a smartly dressed male. Those statements were quickly proven to be fantasies of the neighbour at the address, who according to his son was a fantasist who had given false statements to the police before.

Let’s go back to the Ford Fiesta.

The ‘decoy car’ had identical registration plates fitted and even had an identical large straw hat on the rear parcel shelf but I guarantee that if that car had been found the identity tags such as chassis number would not have matched the registration plates.

Why was the car parked in such a manner? That much is easily explained. The car seat was pushed back and the car appeared parked in a rush to make the police believe that Suzy Lamplugh may well have been abducted in the car and been driven to Stevenage Road by a much taller person. Of course, the purse was simply to make sure that it was indeed Suzy’s car. It seems unlikely that an estate agent working for a good wage and commission of sales, a member of the elite ‘Putney Set’ would only have the small sum of £15.00 in her purse.

Witness — Barbara Whitfield

Now, according to the narrative known to most people and that shared by the media Suzy Lamplugh was last seen at around 12.40 pm on Monday, July 28th 1986 when she left Sturgis Estate Agents but, a witness who knew Suzy well, Barbara Whitfield saw Suzy in the company of a man in Fulham Palace Road travelling north at 2.45 pm. Suzy was driving the white Ford Fiesta with the straw hat on the rear parcel shelf. Yet the car was parked opposite 123 Stevenage Road London SW6 and was still there when a police officer found it at 10.01 pm (2201 hrs). This statement is very important, the car was in Stevenage Road parked opposite 123 at 12.40 pm and did not move.

I am satisfied that Barbara Whitfield was not mistaken as she knew Miss Lamplugh as a personal friend and she waved to her. Suzy did not wave back as she was talking and laughing with her male passenger. This could not have been John Cannan as by that time he was driving north along the M1 Motorway toward his mother’s house where he arrived in time for his tea (evening meal).

I will leave this here and bring you part two in the next few days. We will get to the truth in this case I am sure.

If you would like to contact us to discuss this case or indeed any other then please send an email

Schoolgirl murder remains unsolved

Fourteen-year-old Patricia ‘Patsy’ Morris disappeared after leaving Feltham Comprehensive School in London on Monday, June 16th, 1980, and was found dead in some undergrowth on Hounslow Heath two days later. Patsy had been strangled using a pair of tights.

Patsy was born in Birmingham and grew up there until she moved to London with her family in 1979. She joined Feltham Comprehensive School with her two brothers and a sister.

According to her friends, Patsy had forgotten her raincoat on the morning of her disappearance and decided to pop home during lunch and change into dry clothes, sadly she was never seen alive again.

A neighbour said that Patsy had probably tried to go home to change without realising that she had left her key at home in her coat and that when she realised she would be unable to get in had probably tried to walk across Hounslow Heath to Calvary Barracks, where her parents worked to get a key.

It seems Patsy had a double-period lesson in History scheduled for that afternoon and she often played truant from school to avoid lessons she didn’t like. When she failed to arrive home after school her parents reported Patsy missing and a large-scale search began. Friends and neighbours offered to join officers from the Metropolitan Police in searching for the missing teenager.

The Metropolitan Police issued a warning to all parents, after Patsy’s body was discovered, warning them not to allow their children to be on Hounslow Heath alone. Patsy Morris’s mother made a statement saying that she could not understand what her daughter was doing on the heath as she had no reason to be there. She told the media: “We can’t understand what she was doing on the heath. She was always told not to go there and never disobeyed our orders.”

There had been other attacks on the heath including rapes and murder in the past and although Patsy had not been attacked sexually it does seem there was a certain amount of sexual behaviour involved in her murder as she was strangled with ladies’ tights.

As part of their enquiries, the police questioned other school pupils and on June 22nd 1980, just four days after Patsy vanished they discovered another child had been paying truant on the day in question, they hoped this would lead to more evidence being uncovered but, it was not to be.

Something which I feel is very relevant in this matter is that soon after Patsy’s murder her father received a death threat in a telephone call. He said that the caller sounded like a younger male with a local accent. Was this male Patsy’s killer? Why would he threaten her father? Did the caller believe that maybe Mr Morris would somehow expose him?

The murder of fourteen-year-old Patsy Morris went unsolved and the investigation went cold until July 8th, 1996 when a house was raided at dawn and a man arrested in the local bus station. The suspect was thirty-three years old at the time of his arrest which would have put him at age seventeen at the time of Patsy’s murder. He was bailed until August and interviewed again followed by a third interview in October 1996.

The police applied to the Crown Prosecution Service to charge the suspect but they were refused with the CPS saying they had insufficient evidence to charge him with murder.

Suspects

There have been several suspects suggested over the years, two in particular being serial killer Peter Tobin and bus stop killer, Levi Belfield.

Peter Tobin

A police operation named Operation Anagram reviewed several cases, including Patsy’s but the Morris family were not contacted any more and the operation was wound down in 2011 as no solid evidence had been found to indicate Tobin’s involvement in any other murders.

I don’t believe that Tobin was not connected to the murder of Patsy Morris and am mindful that several theories have been banded about that along with Yorkshire Ripper Tobin was responsible for a whole catalogue of murders, for which there is no evidence.

The other possible suspect is Bus Stop Killer, Levi Belfield who went to the same school as Patsy and he may have been Patsy’s boyfriend. I won’t say any more on Levi as I have a guest writer/criminologist who is working on an in-depth study of Belfield and will be bringing us information connected to the Patsy Morris murder in the coming days.

Links to other murders

It has been noted that Patsy was the third female to have been murdered in the area within a five-year window. The murders of sixteen-year-old schoolgirl Lynne Weedon on September 3rd 1975, Elizabeth Parravincina just a mile away on September 9th 1977 and Eve Stratford on 18th March 1975.

According to a book written by Chris Clark, it was suggested that Patsy Morris was tied up in a very similar way to Eve Stratford, with one leg of a pair of tights also being used to tie her hands behind her back and one of the legs being similarly tied around her ankle but this is far from proven evidence, as I have not been able to find a record of there being anything attached Patsy’s ankle.

In all honesty, the murders were different in many ways and the Modus Operandi very different, but that is for another blog on another day.

If you have anything you would like to discuss in relation to the Patsy Morris case please get in touch.

16-year-old Claire Tiltman was murdered in 1993 but is the right man behind bars for the vicious killing?

Claire Tiltman was on her way to a friend’s house to study when she was brutally murdered by being stabbed nine times in an alleyway in her home town of Greenhithe, Kent, England. Claire had just turned 16. Her murder remained unsolved for some twenty-one years.

Alan Jackaman was the police officer who finally managed to grab Napper for the cruel murder of Rachel Nickell on 15th July 1992, on Wimbledon Common, London.

Rachel was stabbed 49 times whilst her terrified two-year-old son was left watching. The original murder investigation led to an innocent man, Colin Stagg being arrested and charged.

After that, the Rachel Nickell murder investigation went cold and it wasn’t until 2002 that Scotland Yard called on a cold case review team that used newly refined DNA techniques which enabled them to establish possible links to other cases. As part of the investigation, the team identified a male DNA sample that did not match Rachel’s boyfriend or son.

Whilst the stand-alone sample was not sufficient to identify a suspect, it was enough to rule out suspects.

In July 2006, the Scotland Yard team interviewed 40-year-old convicted killer, Robert Napper for two days at Broadmoor. He had been convicted of the murder of Samantha Bisset and her four-year-old daughter Jazmine in November 1993 and had been at Broadmoor for 10 years.

On 28 November 2007, Napper was finally charged with Nickell’s murder. He appeared at the City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court on 4 December 2007, where he was ordered to remain at Broadmoor psychiatric hospital until another hearing on 20 December 2007.

Enter Colin Ash-Smith

After many years of the Claire Tiltman murder investigation being cold with no sign of a killer being found, suddenly on September 12th 2013 the former home of a convicted criminal, Colin Ash-Smith in Myrtle Place, Stone, near Dartford, Kent was searched by police as part of a cold case investigation.

Colin’s father, Aubrey still lived at the family home and during the raid, several bags were taken away, presumably containing potential evidence yet Ash-Smith was not interviewed about the Tiltman murder.

Eventually, Colin Ash-Smith was charged with the killing and taken before the courts, despite pleading not guilty he was convicted in December 2014 and sentenced to serve a minimum of 21 years for the murder of Claire Tiltman.

He had served nineteen years in prison, including periods of assessment at Broadmoor secure hospital and a specialist treatment facility, HMP Whatton. He had been deemed suitable to be considered for parole, but that all came changed when he was charged with murdering Claire. Why had the police not seen him and dealt with him in regard to the Tiltman investigation during the 19 years that he was in custody?

Mr Jackaman says that the police simply dismissed Robert Napper from the Tillman murder enquiry as he lived in South East London, not in Kent but it is only a short, four-stop train journey, just 21 minutes in duration.

He has the nicknames, ‘The Plumstead Ripper’ and ‘The Green Chain Rapist’ and it seems highly likely that he could have been responsible for two more killings and maybe over a hundred rapes, yet he was not worthy of consideration for the killing of Claire.

Robert Napper has been diagnosed as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and Asperger’s syndrome. His first conviction was a relatively minor crime involving possession of an air rifle but then began his much more serious offending when he allegedly raped a 30-year-old woman in front of her children in a house that backed onto Plumstead Common, not far from his home.

He had admitted the offence to his mother but, despite her having contacted the police the claim did not fit any cases on police record at the time.

Summing up

Do I agree with Mr Jackaman on his opinion that Napper should be questioned and a new investigation launched into the Claire Tiltman murder? Yes I do

Do I believe that Colin Ash-Smith is innocent and was made a scapegoat of in order to stop him from getting parole and being released? Having met Colin, my answer is, yes I absolutely do!

I absolutely agree with Mr Jackaman that a man is serving time in prison for a murder that he did not commit and I fully support any application to get the Claire Tiltman case reviewed.

So what do you think? I would love to know your feelings on this case, so please leave me a comment or even drop me an email at:

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The unsolved murder of Lilian Emily Maude Tharme

Lilian Emily Maude Tharme was just 44 years old when her naked body was discovered in Wheelers Lane in Poole Dorset on a snowy morning on January 16th, 1960. She was a local married mother of four from Alder Road, Parkstone.

Strangely, Lilian’s clothes were found scattered along the main roads about a mile away from her body. The clothes were placed in two separate piles one on Wallisdown Road and the other on Waterworks Road. A police report says that her coat, stole, and shoes were discovered by a member of the public, and the rest were found on the pavement of Waterworks Road.

Lilian wore a short beaver-lamb coat over a grey woollen dress, a large off-white woollen stole, and high-heeled shoes, and was hatless. Dorset Police initially believed that Lilian may have been dumped naked to slow down her identification. I’m afraid I have to disagree with that presumption and in fact, I suspect it was for some twisted sexual gratification of her killer. The lane where Lilian’s body was found was known locally as a “lovers’ lane”, a site frequented by courting couples.

Dorset Police said that they believed Lilian’s body had been carried from the abandoned car and dumped into the hedgerow, whilst a pathologist report indicated that Lilian had been run over by the car and then sexually assaulted at the deposition site.

The official police statement says that they were satisfied that Lilian Tharme had been knocked down and injured on Wallisdown Road at about 1.30 am by a dark green Morris 1000, registration VRU 968. She was then undressed, put into the car, and driven to the lovers’ lane, where she was sexually assaulted and dumped. It was believed that the injuries sustained by Lilian would have survived had she received hospital treatment in time, so it seems she was left in the snow to die.

On the night before her murder Lilian had attended a dance at the Territorial Army drill hall a mile from her home and as a result, the police issued the following description of a man she was in the company of at the dance:

40–50 years old, 5 foot 8 inches in height, big built with a round face and ruddy complexion. He had been wearing a brown suit with a camel hair coat of a similar colour to the suit.

He was identified as a 37-year-old GPO telephone engineer who was known to Lilian and her husband. He worked in Bournemouth and lived in Wolseley Road, Parkstone. He gave a statement saying:

“I had known Lily for eight years but I cannot remember actually how we met. Her husband and I became friends and when Lily and he were going to a dance I went too. When I bought a little car I generally took them home in it. It was understood that if Lily went to a dance without her husband, either I should take her home or see that one of the crowd did, but there was no set rule about it. After the dance at the Wallisdown drill hall on Saturday about 15 of us went into the sergeants’ mess and played housey-housey. When I drove off with two of my pals, both men, at about 1.30 am, none of us in the car saw Mrs Tharme, but I assumed she was with other people, so I didn’t worry. I must admit I am a bit hazy about it all”.

A further appeal was made for a younger male who had been seen walking on Ringwood Road at approximately 2.28 am on the morning of January 17th January 1960 in the direction of Poole. The location is approximately 18 minutes walk from where Lilian was murdered. He was described as:

17–20 years old, 5ft 8 inches to 5 foot 10 inches tall, slight build and wearing a light-coloured Italian style three-quarter length fawn raincoat with no hat.

The young man failed to respond to the appeal but police believed he may simply not have seen the appeal. They also appealed to local landladies for information on young men who may have failed to return to or returned very late to their lodgings on the night of January 16th 1960 and January 17th 1960.

The coroner’s court concluded that death was caused by multiple injuries, accelerated by her body being stripped of clothing on such a cold night. It was confirmed that Lilian had been sexually assaulted after she was hit by the car.

The inquest heard that the police found evidence that in the closing minutes of the dance, a man had dropped a door key down Lilian’s dress and that that had annoyed her and she had begun to walk off alone back to her flat in Alder Road, Parkstone, which was five miles away.

Another report said that Lilian Tharme had left the dance in a huff after an argument with friends. Police believed that before Lilian Tharme had gone far on her walk home the driver of the stolen Morris offered her a lift which she refused and she had begun to run away but the driver had chased her and run her over.

The police said that they thought that Lilian Tharme may have agreed to sit in the car to recover, discarding her coat, stole and shoes and then the driver or person with him threw her clothes into the road and drove half a mile to Waterworks Road where Lilian was stripped of her underwear which was also thrown from the car.

Detectives from Scotland Yard said they thought that Lilian had fought her assailants so fiercely that the men had had to ash her about the head and face until she became unconscious. They said that they thought that the driver and possible passenger then panicked and drove to Wheelers Lane. They dumped Lilian, presumed her to be dead and then she died from her injuries, shock and exposure.

A senior Scotland Yard detective summed up the theory surrounding Lilian’s murder like this:

The killer was driving a stolen car that knocked down Mrs Tharme soon after she left a dance hall at Poole, Dorset, at approximately 1.30 last Sunday morning.

Scientific evidence shows that Lilian Tharme was alive when she was bundled into the car, an olive-green Morris 1000, after being run over.

While she was unconscious Lilian was stripped of her clothing and sexually assaulted.

She was then pushed from the car in lonely Wheelers Lane, Poole, face down in frozen mud on a very cold, snowy night. The car got stuck in a ditch in the lane and the killer(s) most likely made off on foot.

Police later said that they believed the Green Morris 1000 was stolen between 10.05 pm on Saturday, January 16th 1960 and Sunday, January 17th at 2.30 am in a plan to get a woman for sex, whether with her agreement or without.

Exactly a week after the murder police set up roadblocks from midnight on the roads approaching the scene of the road accident and ultimate murder. One roadblock was set up approximately half a mile from where Lilian’s body was found. Every vehicle was stopped between midnight and 2.30 am with drivers and passengers asked if they had passed along the road at about the same time on the previous Saturday.

Police also visited local army barracks and camps within a 20-mile radius and asked soldiers to confirm their whereabouts and movements on the night in question sadly the investigation ran cold and remains unsolved.

There has been a suggestion that a witness came forward with a lot of information and was protected by the police but, clearly nothing more came from the evidence provided.

There is a great deal more to this case in my opinion and one that could still be solved but sadly there is a high chance that the killer(s) took the secret to their grave. Even if the younger man was linked to the crime he would be 81- 84 years old now.

As usual, if you would like to contact me about this case or any other unsolved investigation send me off an email:

Operation Eagle Further enquiries

Following on from my relatively recent blog on the so-called ‘Batman Rapist’ who prowled the streets of the city of Bath, UK between 1991 & 2000.

His message to women was and still is clear —” It does not matter who you are, where you are, how old you are, whether you are in your car with your child or just yards from your front door. You are never safe.”

I have tracked down some further evidence in this case so I thought I would share it with you.

Before going any further it is right to say that the rapist is believed to have an excellent geographical knowledge of Bath, Somerset and its surrounding area. The attacks seem to have all happened on the darker/longer nights of winter and I think this is an important clue

This sick individual began his campaign of terror on May 21st 1991 when he attacked a 36-year-old woman who was returning home after working the night shift. As she was parking her car in a lane at the rear of her house in Southdown, Bath, a man in a black balaclava with eyeslits, grabbed her, put his hand over her mouth and a knife to her throat.

I am not certain about the black balaclava story as this is not mentioned i Crimewatch stories and as he is known to have told his victims, it does not seem quite true.

He told her to keep quiet or he would use the knife, then forced her back into her car, and drove her to a rough track just off Combe Hay Lane where he ripped the gusset of her tights and raped her.

He then drove her back to her home, warned her not to move for five minutes, and disappeared into the night. “I thought I was going to die,” the victim said. This method of attack has since become similar on between 13 & 17 occasions.

The rapist forces his way into the cars of lone women and drives them to a secluded spot where he rapes them. Curiously he always drives them back to where he accosted them, taking a much bigger risk of being caught.

One thing that has been drawn to my attention is that he often kept his eye on the time, even on one occasion using his victim's lighter to check the time on her watch. Did he have to get back for something? Work maybe?

Was the Batman rapist responsible for murder?

25-year-old Melanie was a clerical worker at The Royal United Hospital in Bath she was last seen in Cadillacs nightclub in Walcot Street, Bath during a night out with her friends.

An e-fit of a male that Melanie was seen talking to in the nightclub on the night of her disappearance was issued in 1996

He is described as being white, 27 years old, 5ft 10ins, of medium build with dark brown hair, dark brown eyes, bushy eyebrows and clean-shaven. He was wearing black trousers, black shoes and a brown silk shirt.

This description is not all similar to the description of the Batman rapist, however, I am struck by the similarity in height, build, age and the fact he was clean-shaven. Could this have been the same man who prowled the streets of Bath raping women? It does seem possible.

Senior Investigating Officer Detective Superintendent James Riccio said, “A small or seemingly insignificant piece of information could still be the key to solving this case”. He asked the public to please consider the appeal points as well as the key dates and locations which feature in this case.

Like so many of these kinds of cases, there is so much conflicting evidence, much of which has been distorted and twisted over time.

Here are some details taken from a forum detailing some of the actions, although this writer refers to the rapist being nicknamed ‘The Riddler’ it seems that they are one and the same person:

VICTIM No. 1 was pretty blonde sales assistant Zoe Roberts, 23.

She was stalked through the streets of Bath in November 1994 by a “weird-looking” man.

Zoe was walking back to her car parked in the Bathwick district when she spotted the stranger behind her. Luckily she was able to cross the street close to a large lorry, slip into her car and drive away

She described the male as medium build and had dark hair. He was scruffy and “somehow didn’t look normal”. When Zoe got into her car the mystery male turned away so that she couldn’t see his face.

VICTIM No. 2 was a 27-year-old professional woman who was approached by a man as she parked her Ford Fiesta XR2 outside her Bathwick home after work. The man sprinted toward her and threatened her with a knife.

He ordered her to get back in the Fiesta as a passenger and he drove her five miles to a road near Bath University.

He stopped the car in a secluded layby, blindfolded her with a black cloth, tied her up and drove off again to a lonely wood.

He dragged his victim from the car, marched her into a copse and indecently assaulted and raped her. After the attack put a bag over her head and drove her home, then jumped from the car and ran off into the night.

The attacker is described as about 30, and 5ft 7 tall with a medium build and dark hair. He was wearing a woolly hat and a dark jumper. Police believe that he lived locally because he had “extensive” knowledge of small lanes close to the university.

It is believed that he deliberately chose to pounce close to his victim’s home because she would feel safe and be off her guard as she left her vehicle, heading to her home.

VICTIM No. 3 was Linda Hamblin, 42, of Cardiff. She needed plastic surgery after she was slashed by her attacker as he tried to bundle her into her car in Bath city centre. Linda was attacked in 1996 after parking her BMW in Bath’s Ham Garden car park.

The assailant grabbed Linda from behind, put a knife to her throat and tried to force her into the car. Linda fought her attacker and he lashed out with his knife slashing her wrist tendons. He fled the scene, most likely shocked by the mother-of-one’s courage.

She was rushed to Bath Royal United Hospital where she had to undergo cosmetic surgery. Linda said: “He told me he’d slit my throat. I thought he was going to kill me and I’d never see my husband or son again.”

VICTIM No. 4 According to the forum is suggested to be Melanie Hall but I am not going to consider that as anything definite, although her parents Steven and Patricia believe that she could have been a victim of the rapist and feel that she should be in this list. I want to look at things more before I confirm my opinions

VICTIM No. 5 was a teenage girl kidnapped and raped in Kingswood, Bristol-only seven miles from Bath- as she walked home after a night out with pals. The attacker dumped her and ran off in September 1996.

VICTIM No. 6 had a lucky escape the following month when the rapist tried to force his way into a 22-year-old woman’s car in Bathwick. But she locked the doors and sped off.

VICTIM No. 7 was a 16-year-old schoolgirl grabbed in Bath later that evening by a man wearing a stocking over his head under a baseball cap.

He hauled her kicking and screaming into an alley where he brutally raped her at knifepoint.

A 30-year-old man was later questioned in connection with this attack but later released.

Police were mystified by a lull after the offence. It was almost two years before the next attack was reported last summer.

Detectives think The Riddler might have moved away on business or been jailed for another offence.

VICTIM No. 8 was yet another woman driver kidnapped and raped in Bath. She was left so traumatised that she only told police after the fiend struck again twice last month. She sobbed: “I should have come forward earlier. I felt defiled. I threw away the chance of seeing him brought to justice before he did it to someone else. Now I’ve got to live with it.”

VICTIM No. 9 was a lone woman at a junction in Bathwick. The Riddler leapt into her car and ordered her to shift into the passenger seat.

But the 39-year-old woman scrambled out of the car and screamed.

VICTIM No. 10 encountered The Riddler just 15 minutes later as she parked her silver Mini in the adjoining district of Widcombe. He wrenched open the 40-year-old’s unlocked door, forced her into the passenger seat and sped off.

The sobbing woman was driven to nearby Freshford where he raced her Mini twice round the village in second and third gear, then headed to the village of Monkton Combe.

He pulled off the road onto an isolated track, dragged the terrified woman from the car and raped her.

THE Riddler then bundled his victim back into the passenger seat and drove her back to the scene of the kidnap.

VICTIM No. 11 wrote to Somerset and Avon police after they issued their latest plea. She told them she was assaulted and police are pleading for her to talk to them in person.

Police think The Riddler may have timed his 10th attack for Crimewatch’s anniversary as his first rape was featured on the show.

He left his baseball cap ‘calling card’ in the car. Police have discovered it was given away free with a Batman video by Woolworth in 1995.

Inspector Ian Appleton, leading the hunt for The Riddler, said: “He’s brazen and may have a military background. He does his homework and goes prepared with materials.”

Top criminal psychologist Tony Black says The Riddler is almost certainly a lonely loser.

The retired head of psychology at Broadmoor high-security Hospital said: “The fact he lets his victims have their cars back, rather than smashing them up, suggests he falls into the lonely category.

“He probably lacks skills in initiating and maintaining relationships. So he ends up accosting someone and forcing them to do what he wants.

“He’s looking for revenge against womankind in general, possibly because of the actions of an individual such as his mother or sister.

“He’s an unhappy person unable to form relationships.”

But as far as the police and public are concerned, The Riddler is a cold-blooded rapist who MUST be hunted down before he wrecks the lives of any more innocent women.

So the list goes on, each of the victims of this horrible individual was abused and left fearing for their lives. Women in Bath didn’t feel safe even out driving their cars and this is just not acceptable.

The vile offences discussed here all seem to point to a strong possibility that they were committed by the same person but, we are missing that one chink of evidence that will put the puzzle together. I am of the opinion that there is a good chance the rapist is no longer roaming the streets and could well be serving life sentences for murder but, it is only right that victims and their loved ones should be given the answers that they deserve and the assailant publicly named.

I know a colleague of mine has been working on this at an academic level and I hope to be posting her article on this very soon. In the meantime, if you have any information that will help our case review along then please get in touch.

Britain’s longest-running serial rape investigation

After almost twenty-five years since his last known offence, a serial rapist nicknamed ‘The Batman Rapist’ who committed at least seventeen rapes in Bath & Kingswood UK between 1990 and 2000 is still managing to evade the law.

A major investigation codenamed Operation Eagle was launched and as far as I can ascertain is still open, It has been identified as one of the most complicated investigations ever carried out by Avon & Somerset Police. It is still to this day the longest-running serial rape investigation.

The Batman or Bath rapist was described as being slim, in his 30s, 5ft 9 inches tall, clean-shaven, with blue eyes and a scar below his bottom lip. He always wore black clothes with a baseball cap showing the Batman logo. The cap is the reason that he got the nickname ‘Batman rapist’.

Avon & Somerset Police believe that the rapist probably had a very good knowledge of the Bath and Kingswood area as on occasions he struck more than once on the same night, whilst on other times he did not attack for a while, or at least no assaults were reported.

I do wonder if there could be a pattern established which would indicate that he only struck when he was not in a relationship or when there was no sexual activity in a relationship such as when is partner was unwell or maybe during her menstrual cycle.

The police put out several BBC Crimewatch appeals, one of which is shown HERE

Former DCS Paul James was the head of Operation Eagle, hunting down the Batman rapist

Paul James retired from his 30-year policing career in October 2012 and is now a director of Arquebus Solutions Ltd.

Paul was brought in because of his specialist knowledge and qualifications including a master’s degree in forensic psychology, Along with his team he built a profile of the rapist. They discovered some quite unique characteristics in the profile. The attacker would often target women who would park their car in the evening, after dark, in and around Bath.

He was looking particularly for women who wore tights and on one occasion when he found a victim was not wearing them he gave her some to wear, instructing her to be careful and not rip them. He then ripped the gusset of the tights himself and raped the woman.

I am sure that any good criminologist will agree this is a massive clue to the attacker’s identity as he clearly has a major fetish for tights. It definitely opens up a whole opportunity for anyone who may know or have known the male to come forward.

As highlighted in the Crimewatch video there were often huge gaps in the attacks but always the same M.O. He would find the woman in her car, open the door, jump into the driver’s seat, show the woman a knife, force the driver to move to the passenger seat and drive the victim to a quiet place. When he arrived at the site he would blindfold his victim using a women’s hair band before raping her. He would then drive his victim home again before removing the blindfold and leaving the car.

One of the other very important points that really stands out is that he had a great and detailed knowledge of the Bath area, indicated by the fact that after one particular attack, he took a route down a very small lane not even known to many locals through an area called Monkton Combe.

Was he a taxi driver or maybe a local delivery driver? Do you maybe remember employing a driver with extensive knowledge of the Bath area between 1991 and 2000? How did he get to the point where he found his victims? Did he drive there, maybe in his taxi, leave the vehicle whilst he went and did his vile deed?

This chap clearly had some lengthy times when he was either away from the area or he may have been somewhere such as in prison. Some attacks literally took place many months apart with the first known attack being in May 1991 then the next not until October 1991.

On the occasion of the October assault, the assailant discovered his victim was not wearing tights so he gave her some to put on.

Did you know anyone between 1991 and 2002 who regularly wore a grey Batman Forever baseball cap? Did he suddenly stop wearing it? This assailant left his hat behind during one of his attacks, so do you maybe recall a male going out one night wearing his hat and returning without it? If you do then contact Avon & Somerset Police on 101, it is never too late to report serious crimes.

Of course, there is every possibility that this man committed other rapes where the victim was too scared or ashamed to report it at the time. Once again it is never too late, if you have been a victim of such an attack please call the police, they will deal with things discreetly and treat your evidence in the strictest confidence.

It seems unlikely the attacker was in prison during his years of offending as there is a DNA sample held on the police database and it has not been matched to anyone thus far. Obviously, all prisoners’ DNA samples are held on a national database so he would almost certainly have been identified if he had been arrested since his last recorded offence in 2000.

There is of course the possibility that he may be dead or indeed have left the country as there is literally no record of such offending since 2000 in that area. However, there could be other reasons such as he has become involved in a settled relationship and therefore getting his strange sexual ‘kicks’ there.

Are you in a relationship with a man that you have settled with since 2000? Does he have a good knowledge of the Bath area? Maybe makes his living as a driver? Did deep and do the right thing if you think you know this man, he hurt, permanently scarred and frightened innocent women and he must be punished if he is freely walking the streets today.

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As always, if you want to reach out to discuss this case or any of my work or to get involved in the upcoming documentary series then please get in touch.

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Missing Lee Boxell

Lee was last seen in Sutton High Street outside what was at the time a Tesco store between 2.20 pm on Saturday, September 10, 1988. According to The Detective Podcast his Swatch watch was found dumped nearby, it had stopped at 2.22. Despite massive searches and the family’s tireless campaign, the teenager has never been found. I do think it is important to mention the original time of the last sighting was said to be 1 p.m. which is in fact the time that he left his friend.

Although this is not a full-on detailed blog, I hope that by publishing this story, we may spark some interest and information to help us complete our cold case review.

At the time that he went missing, Lee was 5 feet 7 inches tall of slim build with light brown hair; he was wearing black jeans, a white Flinstones tee shirt and brown suede shoes. 

Lee’s father Peter says that he and his wife are getting old and they just want to be able to say a proper goodbye and grieve for their son before they pass away themselves. I can fully understand this and it must be so difficult for them to live day to day never knowing what happened to a boy who went to the shops and never came home.

The family has kept Lee’s room exactly as it was on the day he went missing, even his pyjamas, folded under his pillow, ready for his return. This is really such a touching thing.

There seem to be many theories surrounding the disappearance of Lee including his attending an unofficial youth club that a sex offender ranbut this information did not come to light until several years after Lee went missing. At this stage of our enquiries, I am not satisfied that this was how the teenager met an end if indeed he is deceased. 

Field was on licence from a prison sentence having been released in June 1988. He was staying at an approved premises hostel in Birmingham but was certainly free to move around during the day time hours. I will be posting a separate blog about this male as he may well have been tied to several other child abductions and murders.

Brian Field was later to be convicted of the abduction and murder of 14-year-old Roy Tuthill in April 1968. Field was eventually arrested and charged with murder on February 21st 2001 he was sentenced to life imprisonment and died in custody in September 2024 aged 87. Was he involved in the disappearance of Lee Boxell? 

The disturbing part of this possible lead is that for several years Brian Field worked as a gardener and the other lead suspect, William Lambert in the case was a gravedigger/cemetery gardener. Were the two evil paedophiles in touch with one another? 

In an episode of The Detective Podcast, Mark Williams Thomas interviewed a male who talked of travelling with William Lambert to meet another male in Brighton, East Sussex. Was this other male Brian Field? 

Please bear in mind these are, at this stage just possibilities, but points to be considered. We will bring more details as our research progresses. In the meantime, if you have any information that could help Lee Boxell’s parents to discover what happened to their son please contact the police on 101 or contact Crimestoppers at 0800 555 111

If you would like to discuss this or any other case please email us