Most interesting unsolved non-serial killer cases

[Graham]

About all I can remember about the Shirley Collins case is that the police were pretty certain she was murdered by someone she knew, as she apparently allowed someone to drive her about 40-odd miles to where her body was found.

A couple of other unsolved cases that I've always found mega-puzzling are:

Janice Weston - found battered to death in a lay-by on the A1 road in Northamptonshire in 1983; her car was found shortly afterwards in London, quite close to where she lived. I started a thread about this case on this Forum, but didn't get much response.

Evelyn Foster - found severely burned near a burning car in a remote part of Northumberland in 1931. No sign of physical or sexual attack, although before she died she claimed that she'd been punched in the face and 'interfered' with. She worked as a hire-car driver for her father's garage, and had met a man who had booked a car to go a village called Ponteland where he said he was going to get a bus to Newcastle. Also before she died, she claimed that the man had been picked up near to where she was found by another car. No trace of this man was ever found, although separate evidence appeared to prove that he did exist.

What is it about women + murder + cars?

Graham

[Rosella]

The Evelyn Foster case has intrigued me for years. Robert Dixon wrote 'Evelyn Foster: Murder or Fraud on the Northumberland Moors' about it.

The Gatton murders are a fantastic mystery also. When Leonie Wallace wrote her book 'The Horrible Man' about the Portand hairdresser murders I corresponded with her about the Shirley Collins murder. In spite of the cold case work I don't believe the killer's been found in that one.

The farming family murders in the 1920's at Hinterkaifeck is the ultimate in murder mysteries, though.

[Harry D]

Was reading up on the disappearance of Virginia Carpenter in 1946, which led me to the Texarkana Moonlight Murders (as Virgina knew three of the victims). There are some interesting correlations with that of the Zodiac killer, insomuch that he targeted young couples in their cars, and the only witnesses who identified the attacker claimed that he was wearing a mask with eye holes cut out of it. I'm not wholly convinced the attack on Mr & Mrs. Starks was perpetrated by the "The Phantom Killer", as he became known. Different kind of MO, attacking a married couple on their own property, and a different type of firearm was used.

Among the suspects was a kid called H. B. "Doodie" Tennison, an 18 year-old freshman student who had 'confessed' to the killings within a suicide note. While it was soon established that Tennison couldn't have been the murderer, I found myself sympathizing for this poor kid who had decided to punch out early. One of the notes the police found read:

After much thought, I decided to take this way out. It took more thought than anyone can think possible. It started about a week ago, when I began to think of a way to get out of this. Running away would not do any good, the police would find me where ever I went and would bring me back to it all. No, Mother and Daddy are not to blame, it is just me. If I had done what they told to do this would have never happened. Studying instead of playing around, going out with the people in my age group instead of staying home and dreaming...."

[Graham]

The Evelyn Foster case has intrigued me for years. Robert Dixon wrote 'Evelyn Foster: Murder or Fraud on the Northumberland Moors' about it.

I first heard about this case when on holiday and staying at Bellingham. The local newsagent sold printed pamphlets about various aspects of Northumberland life and history, and there was a pamphlet on this case, which I bought but later lost. The pamphlet suggested that Evelyn was indeed murdered, but said that no motive was ever identified. Obviously the murder is still remembered in that neck of the woods. I'll look out for the Robert Dixon book.

Graham

[sdreid]

I thought Jonathan Goodman's book about Foster was pretty good.

[Rosella]

I don't think I've read Goodman on the Foster mystery. What was his take on it?

[sdreid]

It's a good read and, if I recall, Goodman doesn't try to high pressure a suspect. I read it about 20 years ago as a library check out so I don't remember all about it except that there weren't any photos in the book.

[sdreid]

Foster is one of the "big four" British 1931 unsolved murders along with Julia Wallace, Hubert Chevis and Vera Page

[Graham]

I've just had a good old shufti through what's available on the net about this case, and come up with the following:

- if it was an insurance scam on the value of the Hudson (or Humber) car she was driving, then it seems that Evelyn was quite wealthy in her own right, and didn't need the money (£450, I believe) that the car was worth.

- she said she had been punched in the face and sexually assaulted, but no evidence of either was found by doctors who examined her before and after she died.

If a woman was so badly burned that she was on the way out, and knew it, would she in her last few hours of life actually concoct a fiction as to her being beaten up and sexually assaulted?

- she said her attacker was extremely well-dressed in a bowler hat. A couple of years before her death there was a murder in Nottinghamshire in which cars in a garage were arsoned by a groom - and in those days a groom with a 'good' family would wear a bowler hat and be otherwise well-dressed. This groom was tracked down, tried, condemned and executed shortly after the Otterburn Case, and reputedly made a mention of it as he was being taken to the gallows.

- the coroner at the inquest appeared to be an upper-class idiot who more or less ordered the jury to return a verdict of accidental death. They ignored him, and returned a verdict of murder by person or persons unknown. The coroner, who evidently knew Evelyn, retorted something to the effect, "Oh well, I never did like her very much".

- in 2012 an un-named person applied to Northumbria (ancient and now the modern name for Northumberland) for documents relating to this case, and was refused.

http://www.northumbria.police.uk/foi/disclosurelog/dlinvest/answer.asp?id=63020

The whole thing pongs a bit. Jonathan Goodman's book is available on Amazon, and I think I'll treat myself.

All good stuff.

Graham

[sdreid]

It's a good read and, if I recall, Goodman doesn't try to high pressure a suspect. I read it about 20 years ago as a library check out so I don't remember all about it except that there weren't any photos in the book.

There were no photos in the book but there was a photograph of a burned out car on the dust jacket that I assume was Evelyn's. I don't know how many copies on Amazon will still have the dust jacket.

[sdreid]

I would assume that's the photo that would also be on the cover of the paperback if there is such a thing.

[Rosella]

The Ernest Brown theory was introduced by Goodman wasn't it? Surely that was more a domestic type murder? He'd been having an affair with the wife of the man he murdered and then torched the garage with his body in it while the wife, nursemaid and child cowered in the house.

I was impressed with the book by Dixon I mentioned on a previous post, as he investigates everything including length of time it took Evelyn Foster to drive to certain spots that night. He points out that there is no real evidence that Brown said anything on the gallows, and that there is another Otterburn, in Yorkshire known to Brown.

Evelyn's personal accounts book was a mess, her love life with her boyfriend didn't seem to be going anywhere and she might have suffered from depression. (My conclusions!) By the way, the Northumbrian police records are locked away under the 75 year rule.

[Mayerling]

Foster is one of the "big four" British 1931 unsolved murders along with Julia Wallace, Hubert Chevis and Vera Page

Jon Goodman had done books on Wallace and Foster, and the American Starr Faithfull case, all in 1931, because he was born that year. I did once suggest that he do a book on Hubert Chevis, but he felt that the next book for that period that he'd do was on the Forest of Dean murder mystery. Unfortunately he never did it.

Jeff

[sdreid]

Louisa Steele was also another significant 1931 British murder.

[Rosella]

So is the Chevis 'poison partridge' case! I've read a recent book on it, unsatisfactory because the author couldn't come to any firm conclusions about if it was murder, either. The police of the day felt it was a poisoning at source ie that the partridge had been poisoned by trappers, but Chevis's father wouldn't accept their conclusions.