Janice Weston

[Abby Normal]

after reading everything again Im more baffled as ever. LOL!

The killing as I had mentioned looks to have the hallmarks of an unplanned (opportunistic) stranger killer-weapon found/used at scene, overkill, body left there. However, the events surrounding it may point to just an unplanned murder, that is she knew the killer, and was with him for some time before the murder. somewhat along Caz line of thought.


I cant help but think that the key is the spare tire/plates. Things that have to do with the car. and to me that points to someone who works at the spare tire store, or just perhaps a worker at the other house. Was something going on between her and one of the workers at her house, or at the tire store?


were they lovers? did he call her and lure her out? or show up at the apartment?


what do others think? what seems more likely if this type scenario is correct-

A worker on their other home, or a worker at the tire shop?

[caz]

Hi folks,

Confusing, huh.

A few random thoughts.

1. Contrary to some speculation, I very much doubt that Janice Weston was going to meet a lover.
If, as seems likely, she was heading to the manor house, wouldn't that have been too much a case of on her own other doorstep? She was a wealthy lady and could easily have afforded a nice hotel room at some other and different location.
If going to see a lover, surely she would want her handbag containing lippy and other such female stuff. Back me up here, Caz!
Following on from Spitfire's post, leftover bread and wine is far more likely intended to be consumed by oneself rather than with another before or after a night of passion.

Hi OneRound,

Were the contents of Janice's overnight bag made public? All my female stuff, like make-up bag, brush and comb, scent, jewellery bag, toiletries, spare outfit, shoes and undies etc etc, would go in my overnight bag when I need one and I'm going anywhere by car, leaving my handbag beside me for immediate needs such as keys, cash, debit/credit card, glasses, tissues and so on.

The fact that Janice took cash and the keys to Clopton Manor with her - items she would normally put in a handbag - suggests she never intended to take one with her. If she meant to take one, but had to leave in a rush and left it behind by mistake, or even against her will, she must already have put the cash and keys somewhere else, like the pocket of a coat or the overnight bag.

I don't think we should rule out a new love interest, possibly an unreliable charmer, recently on the scene, who had turned Janice's head against her better judgement. Good looking? Gift of the gab? Charismatic? But a bad boy beneath the shiny surface? A waster or worse? It happens - far more than people probably realise.

Early days of her marriage to Tony, yes, but do we know how loved up each of them was by September 1983? Again, she was a bright, wealthy and attractive woman, so was she beginning to see Tony's character in a less attractive light by then? There is nothing like actually living with someone for a few weeks or months to learn the best and worst about them. Was Tony paying Janice enough of the right sort of attention? Was he completely happy about her career and their relative earnings and finances? That's often a big cause of problems early on. Was she flattered by the attentions of other men? Did she enjoy male company with no strings? Nobody ever really knows what goes on within a relationship, especially if one or other partner doesn't want anyone to know - including their other half - how they are feeling and what they are doing about it.

Did Janice tell Tony she had made a will? Did he know what was in it? She does seem to have thought everything through very carefully, so might she have had reason to believe Tony wasn't good with money? Did it tend to slip through his fingers? Again, something like this might only show up a few weeks or months into a marriage and cause a troublesome imbalance.

Love,

Caz
X

[Graham]

That's a good post, Caz. Can't really rule out any of your suggestions as actual possibilities.

I agree that it would seem Janice was not with, or later meeting a lover, but on the other hand, although Clopton Manor was still not finished, she and Tony had stayed there overnight many times, so presumably there were basic femmy necessities kept there as well as at home.

I would like to know a lot more about Tony Weston. His background, his business interests, his first marriage, his character, his wealth or lack of it. He seems very much a mystery-man in this whole saga. He died a few years ago, but I can't recall seeing much more than an announcement of his death, and the fact he had been married to a woman who was murdered. He has children by his first marriage, two I believe. If anyone can fill some of the gaps, I'd be more than interested.

Best,

Graham

[Abby Normal]

Hi OneRound,

Were the contents of Janice's overnight bag made public? All my female stuff, like make-up bag, brush and comb, scent, jewellery bag, toiletries, spare outfit, shoes and undies etc etc, would go in my overnight bag when I need one and I'm going anywhere by car, leaving my handbag beside me for immediate needs such as keys, cash, debit/credit card, glasses, tissues and so on.

The fact that Janice took cash and the keys to Clopton Manor with her - items she would normally put in a handbag - suggests she never intended to take one with her. If she meant to take one, but had to leave in a rush and left it behind by mistake, or even against her will, she must already have put the cash and keys somewhere else, like the pocket of a coat or the overnight bag.

I don't think we should rule out a new love interest, possibly an unreliable charmer, recently on the scene, who had turned Janice's head against her better judgement. Good looking? Gift of the gab? Charismatic? But a bad boy beneath the shiny surface? A waster or worse? It happens - far more than people probably realise.

Early days of her marriage to Tony, yes, but do we know how loved up each of them was by September 1983? Again, she was a bright, wealthy and attractive woman, so was she beginning to see Tony's character in a less attractive light by then? There is nothing like actually living with someone for a few weeks or months to learn the best and worst about them. Was Tony paying Janice enough of the right sort of attention? Was he completely happy about her career and their relative earnings and finances? That's often a big cause of problems early on. Was she flattered by the attentions of other men? Did she enjoy male company with no strings? Nobody ever really knows what goes on within a relationship, especially if one or other partner doesn't want anyone to know - including their other half - how they are feeling and what they are doing about it.

Did Janice tell Tony she had made a will? Did he know what was in it? She does seem to have thought everything through very carefully, so might she have had reason to believe Tony wasn't good with money? Did it tend to slip through his fingers? Again, something like this might only show up a few weeks or months into a marriage and cause a troublesome imbalance.

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz
As I just posted-Im leaning toward her killer being a worker at the other house or perhaps the tire store. (something along the lines you suggested).


maybe they were lovers. or he was wanting something more? Im envisioning a scenario where he either shows up at her apartment (or maybe lure her out), tensions are high and the tire change was the catalyst for a blow up?


if I was the police, id be checking out all these workers at their other house and the tire store.

[caz]

Another thing I meant to say...

The beauty of having the manor house was that Janice had nobody to answer to if she wanted to go there for any reason. It's pretty clear she did have a reason that night, but not at all clear what that reason was, or why it appears to have been a last-minute decision to leave London when she did.

A hotel would not have been nearly as discreet, and was fraught with other problems if the couple looked like a total mismatch, for instance, or if she would be the one paying and understandably didn't want to use her cheque book or a credit card. If he was a 'bit of rough', and this was more lust than anything else, an opportunistic adventure while hubby was safely abroad, I don't see sleeping bags and a lack of mod cons getting in the way of a naughty night of exploration. I don't suppose a good eight hours' sleep would have been uppermost in their thoughts.

I keep coming back to the manner of Janice's departure, as if she had been preparing to go to the country house and had packed a bag for the purpose [what purpose if she was going to be alone there, in a house with no comforts or facilities?], but something happened to change her plans, or else the person she was due to meet had seemingly let her down. Did something else then happen, while she was eating her meal and drinking her wine, resigned to staying in, which caused her to revert to the original plan and set off in haste, taking the bread and remaining wine with her? Did her companion suddenly make contact and give her the green light after all? Was he being a git, playing with her emotions, like bad boy Sergeant Troy does with the totally besotted, bright, wealthy and attractive Bathsheba Everdene in Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd?

Love,

Caz
X

[cobalt]

One thought on the missing tyre: it is difficult to change a tyre and not leave fingerprints, especially on the sidewalls. I am guessing that a tyre in contact with the road would not hold prints for long, especially on wet or dirty roads.

However a damaged tyre that had been taken off and put in the car boot presumably would hold prints, and might have to be jettisoned later once the guilty party realised it might incriminate him. The same would not quite apply to a car jack or wheel brace where the suspect (in this case apparently the husband) could claim any fingerprints preceded the crime.

[Dunderklumpen]

https://opcglobalnewsandmedia.com/2017/07/will-the-1984-unsolved-murder-of-janice-weston-ever-be-resolved-by-giovanni-di-stefano/

[Graham]

Hello Dunderklumpen,

thanks for the link, but I've already had a sound bollocking off Cobalt for presuming to believe anything that di Stefano ever wrote. As he's currently serving 14 years in jail for fraud and so forth, maybe Cobalt has a point; but I still believe that not everything that di Stefano wrote on his website is rubbish. For one reason, he pinched some of it.

Graham

[Spitfire]

Looking at this report of the financial dispositions made by Janice's will, it seems that Tony Weston could have (with the agreement of his co-trustee) appointed the full Ł200,000 to himself absolutely. The residue of Janice's estate was to be divided between five people, her sister's three children and the two children by Tony Weston's first marriage.

[cobalt]

Spitfire is usually a reliable source of hard facts, and on occasion hard opinions.

This news article is very pertinent regarding police suspicion: ‘Even her closest colleagues remained unaware of her wealth, but Murder Squad detectives believe that her killer knew how rich she was.’

That is pretty damning. It does not mean they were correct of course, but it certainly tells us where they were focusing their attention. They were looking at the husband and nobody else. Spitfire has identified (without naming a source) that there was a window of opportunity for Tony Weston to leave France on Saturday morning before reappearing again late on Sunday. This chimes with Caz’s description of Janice Weston looking out of her window on Saturday afternoon expecting a visitor, and later discovering he has made it back and changing her plans for the evening; except it was her husband and not some mysterious lover who turned up. He was probably the driver.

I now presume the French chateau pipe dream had been punctured, same as the tyre did on the ill-fated journey to Clopton Manor. Useless businessman, second rate husband with nagging, rich, and by all accounts very competent professional wife, loses his rag and lashes out as she tells him how crap he is at changing a tyre, one that was supposed to have been fixed anyhow.

Do we know if Tony Weston was put on an ID parade with the man who sold the new registration plates?

[Abby Normal]

Spitfire is usually a reliable source of hard facts, and on occasion hard opinions.

This news article is very pertinent regarding police suspicion: ‘Even her closest colleagues remained unaware of her wealth, but Murder Squad detectives believe that her killer knew how rich she was.’

That is pretty damning. It does not mean they were correct of course, but it certainly tells us where they were focusing their attention. They were looking at the husband and nobody else. Spitfire has identified (without naming a source) that there was a window of opportunity for Tony Weston to leave France on Saturday morning before reappearing again late on Sunday. This chimes with Caz’s description of Janice Weston looking out of her window on Saturday afternoon expecting a visitor, and later discovering he has made it back and changing her plans for the evening; except it was her husband and not some mysterious lover who turned up. He was probably the driver.

I now presume the French chateau pipe dream had been punctured, same as the tyre did on the ill-fated journey to Clopton Manor. Useless businessman, second rate husband with nagging, rich, and by all accounts very competent professional wife, loses his rag and lashes out as she tells him how crap he is at changing a tyre, one that was supposed to have been fixed anyhow.

Do we know if Tony Weston was put on an ID parade with the man who sold the new registration plates?

I doubt it was the husband personally. The logistics, the risk of beimg seen, the paper trail coming back from france. I dont see it.

I could see him hiring someone, but the circs seem too random for planned attack for that.

[Graham]

I doubt it was the husband personally. The logistics, the risk of beimg seen, the paper trail coming back from france. I dont see it.

I could see him hiring someone, but the circs seem too random for planned attack for that.

I think you're on the right track there, Abby. However, this of course does not mean that her husband was not involved, but the police couldn't prove it at the time and I doubt if anyone else will, 35 years on, unless some startling new information is released.

Spitfire's article doesn't contradict anything said previously about how Tony Weston could benefit from his deceased wife's will. It simply adds a little bit more information that I for one haven't seen elsewhere.

I'm beginning to think that we either have an incredible series of circumstances here, or a person of absolute and impenetrable Machiavellian deviousness behind it all.

Graham

PS: incidentally, without being able to prove it, I believe that the sale of Clopton Manor to Tony Weston did actually proceed. It was up for sale again in 1992, having been converted into truly luxurious self-contained multi-room apartments.

[caz]

I expect the police saw it as a case for 'chasing the money'.

Assuming Tony, as co-trustee, knew the contents of his wife's will, was the thought of 200 grand to lighten his financial load, just too much to resist? The bonus being no more humiliation from a wife who not only wore the trousers but three pairs of 'em?

It's a pretty irresistible idea, but if it has to be manipulated into shape to make it work in practice, I'm not sure...

I could perhaps imagine Tony coming back early from France unannounced, if he suspected his highly desirable wife was going off the boil and it was only a matter of time before some big hunk would steal her away [I always hated those Cliff Richard lyrics: "gonna lock her up in a trunk" ]. He finds her looking a million dollars, with an overnight bag packed, and his suspicions seem confirmed.

But how do we begin to explain all the other circumstances under which Janice left in the car? Did Tony pretend to be pleased to see her, and not to notice anything wrong? Did he give her some pretext for cutting short his business trip and wanting them to drive to Clopton Hall together, with her overnight things? If he had confronted her angrily at the flat with his suspicions, he'd have had a job to get her in the car voluntarily and there is no evidence she went against her will. And what about the draft of her book on company law? Hardly bedtime reading, with husband or secret lover in tow. And how on earth could Tony have got away with it, when all the focus was only ever on him, as a man with more than one potential motive?

Sex and/or money seems to me to lie behind the crime - but the rest is shrouded in fog.

What if Tony was an innocent [literally] abroad, and Janice had attracted a 'bit of rough', who was smitten with her body, her brain and her bank balance, and wanted more from her - so much more - than a one-night stand in a dusty old country house? What if he talked to her about a future together on the drive? What if he asked her to leave her husband for him? What might her reaction have been? Would she have laughed at him, mocked him, told him he had to be joking? That all she wanted was the thrill of a brief encounter with no strings, and thought that was what he wanted too?

Whoever battered Janice to death must have worked himself up into a considerable rage about something, and it just doesn't looked planned to me. I would also think Janice had no idea, when she left home bound for Clopton Hall, that the man who killed her was yet harbouring any thoughts of harming her - probably because he wasn't at that point.

Love,

Caz
X

[Graham]

Sorry, in my last post I made the mistake of suggesting that Clopton Manor was not in the Westons' ownership at the time of Janice's death, which of course it was. What I meant to say, was that the development of the place under Tony Weston presumably went ahead after her death, but I don't know if he still owned it when it was advertised for sale in 1992.

Graham

[Abby Normal]

I expect the police saw it as a case for 'chasing the money'.

Assuming Tony, as co-trustee, knew the contents of his wife's will, was the thought of 200 grand to lighten his financial load, just too much to resist? The bonus being no more humiliation from a wife who not only wore the trousers but three pairs of 'em?

It's a pretty irresistible idea, but if it has to be manipulated into shape to make it work in practice, I'm not sure...

I could perhaps imagine Tony coming back early from France unannounced, if he suspected his highly desirable wife was going off the boil and it was only a matter of time before some big hunk would steal her away [I always hated those Cliff Richard lyrics: "gonna lock her up in a trunk" ]. He finds her looking a million dollars, with an overnight bag packed, and his suspicions seem confirmed.

But how do we begin to explain all the other circumstances under which Janice left in the car? Did Tony pretend to be pleased to see her, and not to notice anything wrong? Did he give her some pretext for cutting short his business trip and wanting them to drive to Clopton Hall together, with her overnight things? If he had confronted her angrily at the flat with his suspicions, he'd have had a job to get her in the car voluntarily and there is no evidence she went against her will. And what about the draft of her book on company law? Hardly bedtime reading, with husband or secret lover in tow. And how on earth could Tony have got away with it, when all the focus was only ever on him, as a man with more than one potential motive?

Sex and/or money seems to me to lie behind the crime - but the rest is shrouded in fog.

What if Tony was an innocent [literally] abroad, and Janice had attracted a 'bit of rough', who was smitten with her body, her brain and her bank balance, and wanted more from her - so much more - than a one-night stand in a dusty old country house? What if he talked to her about a future together on the drive? What if he asked her to leave her husband for him? What might her reaction have been? Would she have laughed at him, mocked him, told him he had to be joking? That all she wanted was the thrill of a brief encounter with no strings, and thought that was what he wanted too?

Whoever battered Janice to death must have worked himself up into a considerable rage about something, and it just doesn't looked planned to me. I would also think Janice had no idea, when she left home bound for Clopton Hall, that the man who killed her was yet harbouring any thoughts of harming her - probably because he wasn't at that point.

Love,

Caz
X

Hi caz
I could see a row taking place, between her and her lover, during the tire change, after probably an already tension heightened meeting (seems he showed up /called unannounced) and she tells him its over , screams at him probably, at which point he loses it.