UK UK - Joyce Cox, 4, Cardiff, Wales, 28 Sept 1939

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MelmothTheLost

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Murder probe is launched 78 YEARS after a four-year-old girl was killed on her way home from school months before start of the Second World War


The mystery murder of a four-year-old girl will be investigated by police - 78 years after she was killed.

Little Joyce Cox disappeared months before the Second World War while walking home from school before she was found by a dog-walker the next day in Cardiff.

The youngster had been walking with her seven-year-old brother Dennis when he lost track of her.

Joyce’s body was found on a railway embankment near Coryton station in Cardiff just days before her fifth birthday after hundreds searched for her.
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4877238/Murder-probe-launched-78-YEARS-girl-four-killed.html
 
Family of girl, 4, murdered in 1939 accuse Met Police of 'cover-up' after force refuses to release files on investigation until 2040 because it would be unfair to mystery suspect


The family of a four-year-old girl who was sexually assaulted and murdered more than 75 years ago have accused police of a 'cover-up' after officers ordered that the case file be kept secret until 2040.

Joyce Cox was just days away from celebrating her fifth birthday when she was strangled to death on her way home from school in Cardiff on September 28, 1939.

The schoolgirl had been walking with her older brother Dennis, who was seven at the time, but she disappeared when he lost sight of her. Her body was found dumped by a railway station but police have never caught her killer.

Now, Terry Phillips, 71, who is Joyce's cousin, has accused the Metropolitan Police of a 'cover-up' after the force said information could not be released about her murder because it is unfair to the mystery suspect.
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...nvestigation-2040-unfair-mystery-suspect.html
 
Another article with more details. It sounds as if some of the evidence has been lost. What a shame as they could have done DNA testing, especially on the evidence found at the crime scene.

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/unsolved-murder-four-year-old-13602886

None of the exhibits referred to newspaper accounts are in the possession of South Wales Police, and Mr Kavanagh said in his letter: “There is no information recorded in the original case papers indicating how or when these items were disposed of.

“It is clear from the original case papers that extensive efforts were made to identify forensic opportunities from these exhibits within the limited scope of forensic science knowledge of the day.

“One can only speculate as to when these items were disposed of and under what circumstances, but it is likely that the items have been unavailable for many decades and may possibly have been disposed of or returned to the family of the victim in the 1940s. There are no documents which indicate the items have been held or disposed of in recent times.
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There were other unsolved killings of girls in the area several years later, like 6 yo Carol Stephens and 12 yo Muriel Drinkwater in Swansea. Could have been the same predator?

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/unsolved-murders-shook-wales-14-11297309
 
Betty P said:
Another article with more details. It sounds as if some of the evidence has been lost. What a shame as they could have done DNA testing, especially on the evidence found at the crime scene.
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It's likely that evidence was lost or discarded during the various police force restructures during the 20th century. In 1939, most cities had a city police force or constabulary, and most towns and boroughs had a borough police force. In 1939, therefore, the force concerned was Cardiff City Police (1905-1969).

The Police Act 1946 did away with the borough forces which were amalgamated into neighbouring city forces, and a few decades later there was a further round of consolidation into county, multi-county or greater city forces.

In 1969 Cardiff City Police became part of South Wales Constabulary and in 1974 part of South Wales Police.

http://www.british-police-history.uk/

The other thing to bear in mind about this period is that WWII had just started, although in the UK it was in the Phoney War period, ie nothing much was happening on the home front. What was happening at home was the first stage of civilian evacuation which began on 1 September 1939 with around 1.5 million people, most of them children. So a lot of people were on the move, strangers in communities up and down the country. I've long thought that this gave perfect cover for serial killers and I strongly believe there must have been a number who went completely under the radar.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evacuations_of_civilians_in_Britain_during_World_War_II

There were other unsolved killings of girls in the area several years later, like 6 yo Carol Stephens and 12 yo Muriel Drinkwater in Swansea. Could have been the same predator?

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/unsolved-murders-shook-wales-14-11297309
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I'd say Carol Stephens is much more likely to be a victim of the same abductor/killer than Muriel is.

Carol and Joyce both taken from Cardiff.

Carol aged 6.
Joyce aged 4.

There's an interesting quote in the Walesonline piece:

"But they have said the crucial file on the case will remain closed until 2040 as a "named subject who was a suspect is described derogatorily and should not be associated with these matters"."

I would strongly suspect that the suspect mentioned was black or from another minority ethnic background and that a strongly racist term was used in the report in the file. Cardiff's Tiger Bay, around the docks area, had a significant BME population at the time, as did other major port cities such as London and Liverpool.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_Bay
 
MelmothTheLost said:
It's likely that evidence was lost or discarded during the various police force restructures during the 20th century. In 1939, most cities had a city police force or constabulary, and most towns and boroughs had a borough police force. In 1939, therefore, the force concerned was Cardiff City Police (1905-1969).

The Police Act 1946 did away with the borough forces which were amalgamated into neighbouring city forces, and a few decades later there was a further round of consolidation into county, multi-county or greater city forces.

In 1969 Cardiff City Police became part of South Wales Constabulary and in 1974 part of South Wales Police.

http://www.british-police-history.uk/

The other thing to bear in mind about this period is that WWII had just started, although in the UK it was in the Phoney War period, ie nothing much was happening on the home front. What was happening at home was the first stage of civilian evacuation which began on 1 September 1939 with around 1.5 million people, most of them children. So a lot of people were on the move, strangers in communities up and down the country. I've long thought that this gave perfect cover for serial killers and I strongly believe there must have been a number who went completely under the radar.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evacuations_of_civilians_in_Britain_during_World_War_II



I'd say Carol Stephens is much more likely to be a victim of the same abductor/killer than Muriel is.

Carol and Joyce both taken from Cardiff.

Carol aged 6.
Joyce aged 4.

There's an interesting quote in the Walesonline piece:

"But they have said the crucial file on the case will remain closed until 2040 as a "named subject who was a suspect is described derogatorily and should not be associated with these matters"."

I would strongly suspect that the suspect mentioned was black or from another minority ethnic background and that a strongly racist term was used in the report in the file. Cardiff's Tiger Bay, around the docks area, had a significant BME population at the time, as did other major port cities such as London and Liverpool.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_Bay
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Thank you so much for the excellent reply! I agree with all you say. It's somewhat surprising the South Wales Police retained as much of the paper files as they have. That's also a very interesting theory about the possible racial implications of the case. There were some news reports that mentioned a male suspect seen nearby that day, one asking if anyone had seen a man pushing a wheel barrow covered with a cloth. Another mentioned someone who was stoop shouldered. Would newspapers back then have avoided mentioning the race of a possible suspect? I do recall in the US, that information was mentioned routinely up until the late 1960s to early 1970s.

Thanks for your valuable input!
 
Betty P said:
Thank you so much for the excellent reply! I agree with all you say. It's somewhat surprising the South Wales Police retained as much of the paper files as they have. That's also a very interesting theory about the possible racial implications of the case. There were some news reports that mentioned a male suspect seen nearby that day, one asking if anyone had seen a man pushing a wheel barrow covered with a cloth. Another mentioned someone who was stoop shouldered. Would newspapers back then have avoided mentioning the race of a possible suspect? I do recall in the US, that information was mentioned routinely up until the late 1960s to early 1970s.
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I don't think the papers at the time would have shied away from mentioning the race of a suspect if he was from a non-white, or even a white non-British, background if they knew who he was. The London papers happily referred to foreign sailors in the London docks as Chinamen or Lascars (the latter from various parts of SE Asia) in that and preceding decades. These were not politically correct times but even so I doubt the N word would have been used.

To put the ethnic mix of the area into context, the best known person to have come out of Tiger Bay is singer Shirley Bassey.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_Bassey

In addition, a Somali seaman named Mahmood Hussein Mattan, living in Tiger Bay, was wrongfully hanged for murder in 1952. His conviction was quashed in 1998.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmood_Hussein_Mattan

I'd venture to suggest that the same racism that sent Mattan to the gallows in 1952 was already alive and well in the Cardiff police in 1939.
 
MelmothTheLost said:
These were not politically correct times but even so I doubt the N word would have been used.
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Just to clarify that I doubt the N word would have been used in any newspaper at the time, but it's certainly not impossible that it could have been used somewhere in the police files on the case, if only in the hand-written notes of an officer on the case.
 
i belie this could be linked to another murder 20 years later
 
Feb 2023
www.bbc.com

Joyce Cox 1939 murder: Cousin breaks 84-year silence

Joyce Cox was abducted on her way home in 1939 but her killer has never been caught.
www.bbc.com
''Joyce Cox was abducted on her way home from her aunt's house in Cardiff on 28 September 1939.
Her body was found the next day by a railway line, having also been sexually assaulted, but her killer has never been caught.
Her cousin Alan Phillips saw her in an alley less than 50 yards from her home.
Speaking to BBC Wales' true crime series, Darkland: Hunting the Killers, he recalled playing in the garden with Joyce and her older brother Dennis before leaving through the back gate and walking home.
"She came up the lane at the back of our house and I walked to the end of the lane until I could see her as far as she could go, and then we both waved at each other and that was it," Alan said.''

"I was in the police station for about three hours on my own and they were bullies," he added. "One was shaking me, which wasn't very nice."
Alan recalled a "nasty neighbour who would hit you", who the family suspected at the time of carrying out the murder.
Alan's sister also reveals the male neighbour touched her inappropriately when she would visit the house to be measured for clothes by his wife.
She said he would touch her shoulders, arms and legs, and would say: "Don't say anything to the wife".
 
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