UK UK - Old Crimewatch UK cases - any information?

[jaejae]

Here is a recent report about a case that was featured on Crimewatch:

https://www.mix96.co.uk/news/local/3000770/cold-case-aylesbury-murder-25-years-on/

Bookie's 'horrific killer cannot be sleeping well'

Another report:

Fresh appeals made, 25 years later over violent murder of man in Aylesbury

One more report:

John Sheppard - Unsolved Murder 1994 - John Horwood Bookmakers, Cambridge Street, Aylesbury - John Sheppard Unsolved Mysteries UK

 

[Fede]

Here is a recent article about Debbie Linsley's murder:
Killer who stabbed Bromley woman 11 times still at large 30 years on

 

[jaejae]

Here are details of a recent appeal in another case that was featured on Crimewatch:

Victim in headless torso murder probe still unknown 28 years on

New clues in headless man inquiry

 

[ctaylor]

Was reading another forum and in this video at 4:24:05 there is a reconstruction of the murder of Avril Dunn. Her murderer, Duncan Jackson, actually took part in her reconstruction, technically playing himself. That is him standing at the bar at 4:27:40 wearing t-shirt and has tattoos and orders a Malibu at the bar.

He was not caught until 14 years later - BBC News | UK | DNA traps killer after 14 years

It seems almost unbelievable he would be confident enough to participate in the reconstruction, but he did. Talk about hiding in plain sight. Poor Avril, I am glad he was caught finally.

 

[jaejae]

Here is a recent report about unsolved murders in Devon and Cornwall including the Kate Bushell murder which has been featured on Crimewatch and some other cases may have as well:

It is now more than 20 years since the body of teenage schoolgirl Kate Bushell was discovered by her father in a field just 700 yards from the family’s Exwick home.

Her throat had been cut as she walked her neighbour’s dog. Local residents said they saw a blood-soaked man running from the area minutes before the horrifying discovery – but he has never been found.

The brutal killing on Saturday November 15 in 1997 remains one of the region’s biggest unsolved crimes and a source of regret for several senior officers who have left the force without managing to snare the person responsible for her death.

Unsolved murders and the victims who've never had justice

In 25 years Crimewatch snares 57 murderers, 53 rapists and sex offenders and 18 paedophiles

Five crimes Crimewatch couldn't solve

 

[jaejae]

True Crime on TV is a big business and there has recently been a TV Drama about the Jeremy Bamber case and there is now due to be one on this case that was featured on Crimewatch:

ITV announces new drama about Pembrokeshire murders

The Welsh crimes featured on Crimewatch over the last 33 years

 

[jaejae]

True Crime on TV is a big business and there has recently been a TV Drama about the Jeremy Bamber case and there is now due to be one on this case that was featured on Crimewatch:

ITV announces new drama about Pembrokeshire murders

The Welsh crimes featured on Crimewatch over the last 33 years

Here is a BBC report about the upcoming drama on the Pembrokeshire murders:

Evans to star in true crime serial killer drama

 

[Deadbeat]

This is an interesting case which has been on Crimewatch and there has been an appeal recently on the ten year anniversary of the crime. Donal Macintyre did an Unsolved program on it. The man seemed a nice guy a bit of a country bumpkin but there is mothing wrong with that. His downfall may have been being a doppelganger for a manager at the local Sainsbury's Store where he worked and a liking for Eastern European Ladies:

Police launch new appeal 10 years after man was brutally tortured and killed

Fresh TV appeal over man's murder

Murder CCTV shown on Crimewatch

"Donal MacIntyre: Unsolved" The Case of Alan Wood (TV Episode 2015) - IMDb

Surprised to this disturbing unsolved case hasn’t got its own thread on here. I did a search expecting to see one and only this post appeared. I’m new to these forums though.

 

[dotr]

Surprised to this disturbing unsolved case hasn’t got its own thread on here. I did a search expecting to see one and only this post appeared. I’m new to these forums though.

Welcome to Ws Deadbeat, started a thread just now..
UK - Alan Wood, 50, tortured/nearly decapitated,Edenham Road, Lound, 21 Oct. 2009

 

[Deadbeat]

This is another truly disturbing unsolved case that I remember being featured again, on Crimewatch UK.
Surprisingly there doesn’t appear to be much activity in the thread.

UK - UK - Tracey Mertens, 31, Birmingham, 23 Dec 1994

 

[ctaylor]

Of the cases I listed above, I could find no info online about the murders of Georgina Davies or Steve Whitnell.

Looking through some old posts again and Steve Whitnell's murder was solved.

Stanley Braithwaite was convicted of murder whilst Anthony Barry and Nigel Armstrong were convicted of manslaughter.

A few more details here - Stanley Braithwaite - murder - 1987 - murder Putney High Street

 

[imstilla.grandma]

Wendy Knell, who was 25, was discovered dead in her bedsit in Guildford Road on June 23, 1987. She had been sexually assaulted and beaten to death.

Caroline Pierce, 20, was last seen at about midnight on November 24, when she was dropped off by a taxi at her bedsit in Grosvenor Park.

Today a 66-year-old suspect from Heathfield in East Sussex was detained in connection with the deaths. bbm
Man arrested over 1987 bedsit murders

Man, 66, arrested over 1987 Bedsit Murders in case breakthrough

Cold case detectives arrest Sussex man over 'bedsit murders' - 33 years ago

Man arrested on suspicion of double murder in Tunbridge Wells over 30 years ago | ITV News

Breakthrough in 30-year-old murder enquiry of two Tunbridge Wells women

 

[imstilla.grandma]

Lead detective on Pembrokeshire murders case tells the full story

 

[EddietheEagle]

Lead detective on Pembrokeshire murders case tells the full story[/QUOTE

What were the police doing when thirty odd burglaries were being committed, many featuring a shotgun, with the perpetrator confident enough to spread the spoils around his wider family? And why weren't the earlier police suspicions about the suspect followed through when his home was literally the epicentre for everything which was taking place around it - the multiple burglaries, eventually culminating in rape and double murders - all of which encircled his address and for which presumably, it was known that a shotgun licence had been issued?

With the overwhelming amount of DNA, fibres and the nature of the evidence that emerged after the recovery of dumped items along a trail, including the shotgun used on the last, failed robbery attempt plus the subsequent seizure of stolen goods together with the wider facts already known, wouldn't it be reasonable to conclude the murder and rape suspect was already right bang there there in the crosshairs? Then there wouldn't have been any detective landing from outside on zero knowledge, to start a cold case investigation, on a whim almost it would seem. The process would have already long started, a process based more on planning for and managing the rapidly advancing forensics.

 

[dotr]

Jan 13 2021
How was John Cooper caught?
''How was John Cooper caught?
In a cold-case review that began in 2005 the murders were finally cracked, thanks to advances in forensic science — and a vital clue in murderer John Cooper’s appearance on TV game show Bullseye near the time of the second murders.

On the show Cooper told host Jim Bowen how he loved living in the area, and even mentioned the spot where the Dixons would later die.

The footage from his stint on the TV game show was used to clinch the murderer, as it was compared with a suspect sketch in his 1989 double murder.''

''Cooper was sentenced to 14 years in 1998 for burglary and robbery and was released in 2009.

But through a cold case review, he was arrested and convicted of two double murders and sexual assaults dating back to the 1980s.

He received a whole life order.''

Cooper, who unsuccessfully tried to appeal his convictions in September 2011, is still behind bars in an undisclosed prison.

His first prison sentence allowed cops to collect further evidence against him to convict.

 

[dotr]

Jan 14 2021 rbbm.
Detective who snared Wales' worst serial killer says he was the 'most dangerous human being' | Daily Mail Online
''Real-life Pembrokeshire Murders detective who snared Bullseye serial killer John Cooper says he was the 'most dangerous human being' he's ever met and found 'killing somebody for property totally justifiable'

• The Pembrokeshire Murders shocked the UK and remained a cold case until 2011
• Four people were brutally murdered in the mid to late Eighties by John Cooper
• Senior investigating officer Steve Wilkins reopened the cold case in 2006 ''

''Speaking on ITV's The Pembrokeshire Murders: Catching The Game Show Killer, which airs tonight at 9pm, DS Wilkins admitted that Cooper found murdering somebody for property 'totally justifiable' and would have 'no doubt killed again'.''

John Cooper (pictured), now 76, was finally brought to justice in 2011 when he was jailed for life for two brutal double murders from two decades earlier

A breakthrough came for DS Wilkins in 2009 when unearthed footage of Cooper on Bullseye (pictured left) showed him looking remarkably similar to a police sketch (pictured right) of the killer from a witness' description following the Dixons' deaths''

 

[imstilla.grandma]

Gerard Elias QC, who was prosecuting barrister at the 2011 trial at Swansea Crown Court, tells viewers that Cooper was a level of evil he hadn't come across before.

"[There was a] cold controlled evil that I saw in Cooper that I don't think I've seen in anyone else I've been involved with.

"I've certainly never been involved in a trial before where there were three separate but complex and hugely important matters. And, of course, the evidence of one supported the evidence of another."

In the drama you see Elias insist on quizzing Cooper in the dock before the case broke for the day - Cooper had just painted a picture of himself as a caring husband and father.

Elias tells viewers of the documentary that he needed to prove he'd lied on the stand during his burglary trial, in 1998, saying a mask did not belong to him, when it very much did.

"I didn't want the jury going home thinking this represented the man in any shape or form."
The horrific unknown details of John Cooper's life which culminated in murders

 

[EddietheEagle]

Did he ever really have this 'unusual hobby' of scuba diving? I doubt it somehow - a diver wouldn't really express himself in terms of 'swimming over mountains'. As for the unusual hobby, that became clear at his trial.

 

[JediJim]

I’ve been looking on YouTube recently, the UK Crimewatch episodes from the 80s.
The Railway Killers, although caught eventually, was really disturbing. I wonder how many others these two killed or assaulted that we don’t know about??..
If you see some of the programs broadcast from 1986, you see the reconstructions of two of the railway killings, before they were linked together.
Maartje was killed in West Horsley Surrey in April 1986, just one month later a television worker called Anne Locke was murdered in Brookmans Park, Hertfordshire.
That poor girl Maartje in particular, only 15 too. And the fact that a man jumped out of the bushes and scared an old woman, before the murder too, in the same area, I wonder if it was either of the two killers?.. why would they draw attention to themselves and do something like that beforehand if it was them?

 

[JediJim]

Bump