List of unsolved murders in the United Kingdom (1970s)

|Allan Graham

|Ponteland, Northumberland

|11-year-old Graham went missing during a trip to the shop while he was staying with his older brother and his wife in Gerald Street, Benwell, Newcastle, on 24 January 1970. His body was found in a ditch near Ponteland – about seven miles northwest of Newcastle – the following day. He had been strangled. No one has ever been arrested in connection with Graham's death.{{Cite web|last=Doughty|first=Sophie|title=As probe into murder of schoolboy Allan Graham enters 50th year, detective says someone is shielding killer|url=https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/allan-graham-murder-newcastle-unsolved-15462175|website=Chronicle Live|date=1 January 2019|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201127112246/https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/allan-graham-murder-newcastle-unsolved-15462175|archive-date=27 November 2020|access-date=24 November 2019}}

|Albert Cox

|Pimlico, London

|69-year-old Cox was found suffocated to death at his bedsit in Moreton Place, Pimlico, on 28 February 1970. He had been bound and gagged, dying from suffocation as a result of the gagging, and all the money in the property had been stolen.{{Cite news|title=POLICE ASK: DID YOU SEE THIS MAN?|work=Evening News|location=London|date=4 March 1970|page=2}} In 1975, police linked Cox's murder to five others, including the then-recent slaying of Thomas Bradford Wilson (also described in this list), but two of these were later solved.{{Cite news|title=Maniac has killed 6 times|work=Evening News|location=London|date=16 July 1975|page=1}}

|Jacqueline Ansell-Lamb, Barbara Mayo

|Mere, Cheshire and Ault Hucknall, Derbyshire

|Ansell-Lamb was an 18-year-old hitchhiking from London to Manchester on 8 March 1970 when she was last seen alive. Her body was discovered by a farmer six days later in Square Wood, Mere, near Knutsford. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled to death with an electrical cord.{{Cite web|title=Unsolved Cheshire murders: 1970 mystery of Jackie Ansell Lamb adds to grim statistics|url=http://www.cc-publishing.co.uk/Archives/lamb.html|website=Cheshire Magazine|publisher=C.C. Publishing|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161231120207/http://www.cc-publishing.co.uk/Archives/lamb.html|archive-date=31 December 2016|access-date=12 August 2009}}{{Cite web|last=Keeling|first=Neal|title=Did a serial killer who stalked young girls hitchhiking murder party-loving teenager Jacci Ansell-Lamb?|url=https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/serial-killer-who-stalked-young-14618227|website=Manchester Evening News|date=6 May 2018|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180507002023/https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/serial-killer-who-stalked-young-14618227|archive-date=7 May 2018|access-date=11 October 2018}}

On 12 October of the same year, Mayo, a 24-year-old teacher, set off from her London home to hitchhike north. Six days later her body was found in woodland near Hardwick Hall, close to the northbound carriageway of the M1. She had been strangled.{{Cite web|title=M1 murder case may be solved, 20 years on|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/m1-murder-case-may-be-solved-20-years-on-1240107.html|website=The Independent|date=19 September 1997|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090719092725/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/m1-murder-case-may-be-solved-20-years-on-1240107.html|archive-date=19 July 2009|access-date=22 June 2022}}{{Cite web|last=Walsh|first=Aly|title=Unsolved murders could be solved thanks to new technology|url=http://www.thisisderbyshire.co.uk/Unsolved-murders-solved-thanks-new-technology/story-18673172-detail/story.html|website=This is Derbyshire|date=11 April 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130413144907/http://www.thisisderbyshire.co.uk/Unsolved-murders-solved-thanks-new-technology/story-18673172-detail/story.html|archive-date=13 April 2013|access-date=22 June 2022}}

In 1990, detectives from Cheshire Police and Derbyshire Constabulary revealed on Crimewatch that they suspected the murders of Ansell-Lamb and Mayo had been committed by the same person.{{Cite web|title=Crimewatch UK January 1991|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDOnBKjucuQ|format=TV appeal|website=YouTube|publisher=BBC|date=January 1991|access-date=18 February 2022}} It is often erroneously reported that the murders were proven to be linked by DNA in 1990;{{Cite book|last1=Wilson|first1=David|last2=Harrison|first2=Paul|author1-link=David Wilson (criminologist)|year=2010|title=The Lost British Serial Killer: Closing the Case on Peter Tobin and Bible John|publisher=Sphere|location=London|page=218|isbn=978-0-7515-4232-5}} a DNA profile has only ever been extracted in the Mayo case, and this did not happen until 1997.{{Cite news|last=Steele|first=John|title=DNA 'fingerprint' may lead to 1970 motorway killer|work=The Telegraph|date=23 September 1997}}

|Susan Long

|Aylsham, Norfolk

|The Norwich Union worker went to the Gala Ballroom in Norwich and caught a night bus home to Aylsham on 10 March 1970. The bus arrived at Market Place in the town at around 11:10 p.m., but Long never made it to her parents' home, which was a seven-minute walk away. Her body was found in a lovers' lane the following morning. On the 50th anniversary of Long's murder, police confirmed they had DNA from the crime scene that could uncover the identity of the man who sexually assaulted and strangled the 18-year-old.{{Cite web|title=DNA breakthrough over 1970 murder|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/norfolk/3477377.stm|website=BBC News|date=10 February 2004|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180102013813/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/norfolk/3477377.stm|archive-date=2 January 2018|access-date=6 November 2009}}{{Cite web|last=Devlin|first=Laura|title=Susan Long murder: Case 'could still be solved' 50 years on|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-51818439|website=BBC News|date=11 March 2020|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200311042431/https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-norfolk-51818439|archive-date=11 March 2020|access-date=11 March 2020}}

|Philip Green

|Shirehampton, Bristol

|11-year-old Green left his home in Sea Mills on 31 March 1970 to collect lost golf balls on the nearby Shirehampton golf course. His battered body was found the following day in a wooded area of the course. Green's case remains unsolved despite a massive police inquiry, which was assisted by Scotland Yard. A detective from Avon & Somerset Constabulary made a fresh appeal for information on the 40th anniversary of the murder.{{Cite web|title=New appeal over 1970 murder of boy in Bristol|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bristol/8579024.stm|website=BBC News|date=31 March 2010|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100401040605/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/bristol/somerset/8579024.stm|archive-date=1 April 2010|access-date=3 May 2012}}

|Helen Kane

|Edinburgh

|The 25-year-old mother-of-four was hit over the head with something that cracked her skull (probably a rock, a paving slab or a large stone) after she had left her husband and friends one Saturday night to make her way home. Police quizzed Angus Sinclair about the murder because he lived in Edinburgh and had been locked up for six years for killing a young girl, but they were unable to charge him because evidence linking him to Kane was lacking and someone had vouched for an alibi he had given.{{Cite web|title=Did Angus Sinclair kill Edinburgh mum Helen Kane?|url=https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/did-angus-sinclair-kill-edinburgh-mum-helen-kane-1520794|website=Edinburgh Evening News|date=17 November 2014|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240930011522/https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/did-angus-sinclair-kill-edinburgh-mum-helen-kane-1520794|archive-date=30 September 2024|access-date=23 December 2020}}

|Andre Mizelas

|Hyde Park, London

|The 48-year-old royal hairdresser was found shot dead in his car on 9 November 1970. A motive is not known, but a private detective who spoke to him over the telephone three days earlier said Mizelas told him he wanted him to keep tabs on two men whose names he would disclose at a meeting scheduled for 10 November.{{Cite web|title=Andre Mizelas|url=http://www.unsolved-murders.co.uk/murder-content.php?key=1323|website=Unsolved Murders|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210121072757/http://www.unsolved-murders.co.uk/murder-content.php?key=1323|archive-date=21 January 2021|access-date=29 August 2022}}

|Margaret Connolly

|Skipton, North Yorkshire

|23-year-old Connolly lived in Skipton's Burnside Crescent and was strangled to death about five days before Christmas Day. A man from the same town and also aged 23 was charged with her murder but acquitted by a jury in March 1971 at the direction of the presiding judge.{{Cite web|title=SKELTON, Malcolm: murder of Margaret Joan CONNOLLY on or about 20 December 1970 at...|url=https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C11246229|website=The National Archives|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201117204409/https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C11246229|archive-date=17 November 2020|access-date=17 November 2020}}{{Cite news|title=Man cleared of murder|work=Liverpool Echo|date=25 March 1971|page=11}}

|James Keltie

|Blairgowrie, Perth and Kinross

|Keltie, 52, was murdered on 11 January 1971 at the hotel which he ran. He was bound, gagged and beaten in the Muirton House Hotel before being dragged out to a garage in the hotel grounds. Keltie was still alive when found, but he died of his injuries on the way to hospital. The phone lines to the hotel had been cut and there was speculation that the attack had been a robbery gone wrong.{{Cite web|last=Ritchie|first=Gayle|title=Bound, gagged and beaten: Brutal Perthshire murder remains unsolved after 50 years|url=https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/past-times/1867459/bound-gagged-and-beaten-brutal-perthshire-murder-remains-unsolved-after-50-years/|website=The Courier|date=8 January 2021|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220829110736/https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/past-times/1867459/bound-gagged-and-beaten-brutal-perthshire-murder-remains-unsolved-after-50-years/|archive-date=29 August 2022|access-date=16 February 2021}}

|"Fred the Head"

|Burton on Trent, Staffordshire

|An off-duty special constable stumbled upon the upper half of a skull alongside the River Trent at Burton on 27 March 1971. Further excavating at the site revealed the skull belonged to a man who had been buried in a kneeling position with his hands tied and wearing socks that were mostly pinkish beige in colour but mustard yellow at the heels and toes. The only personal possession on him was his wedding ring.{{Cite news|title=Mysterious case of Fred the Head - a grisly crime unsolved after 50 years|url=https://www.staffordshire-live.co.uk/news/history/mysterious-case-fred-head-grisly-2291243|work=Staffordshire Live|date=4 December 2018|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210207225404/https://www.staffordshire-live.co.uk/news/history/mysterious-case-fred-head-grisly-2291243|archive-date=7 February 2021|access-date=29 October 2022}} After months of investigation, including the co-operation of Interpol, the authorities had come nowhere near to discovering the man's identity.{{Cite book|last=Posner|first=Michael|year=2008|title=Fred the Head and Other Unsolved Mysteries|publisher=Cpod|location=Trowbridge, Wiltshire|pages=45, 72|isbn=978-1-906775-00-1}}

In 2017, analysis of dental records led police to believe that Fred the Head could have been John Henry Jones from Trevor, near Wrexham in North Wales, who had gone missing in 1970.{{Cite news|last=Kreft|first=Helen|title=Fred the Head murder: cops baffled by ID of victim found with pink socks make breakthrough|url=https://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/news/local-news/fred-head-murder-cops-baffled-142217|work=Derbyshire Live|date=27 June 2017|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200923043220/https://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/news/local-news/fred-head-murder-cops-baffled-142217|archive-date=23 September 2020|access-date=24 July 2017}} This theory proved to be incorrect, and neither case has been solved.{{Cite news|title=Mystery murder man not John Henry Jones of Llangollen, DNA shows|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-40709489|work=BBC News|date=24 July 2017|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171005015109/http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-40709489|archive-date=5 October 2017|access-date=24 July 2017}} Following an autopsy and expert opinion, no cause of death was recorded and the police filed the case as a suspicious death.{{Cite book|last=Posner|first=Michael|year=2008|title=Fred the Head and Other Unsolved Mysteries|publisher=Cpod|location=Trowbridge, Wiltshire|page=52|isbn=978-1-906775-00-1}}

|Lena Farr

|Stotfold, Bedfordshire

|Farr, 77, was found dead in a chair in the sitting room of her home on Brook Street, Stotfold, on 12 April 1971. Her face, skull and left hand had cuts and bruises on them, but it was strangulation that caused the widow's death.{{Cite news|title=Jury verdict is murder|work=Biggleswade Chronicle|date=2 July 1971|page=1}}

|Dorothy Leyden

|Manchester

|17-year-old Leyden went to a Jimmy Ruffin concert at the Golden Garter nightclub in Wythenshawe, Manchester, on Saturday 24 April 1971 before getting a taxi into central Manchester with friends. She got out of the taxi at Piccadilly Gardens bus station at about 2:30 a.m. on 25 April, and it is believed she was planning to catch a bus home but decided to walk instead to save money.

Leyden's body was found after dawn that day on wasteland behind the Spread Eagle pub on Rochdale Road, Collyhurst. She had been raped and beaten to death with a brick. It was later thought that the offender might have been serial killer Trevor Hardy, but DNA eliminated him as a suspect in 2008.{{Cite web|title=Crimewatch appeal over Dorothy Leyden's murder in 1971|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-37405114|website=BBC News|date=19 September 2016|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160921141639/https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-manchester-37405114|archive-date=21 September 2016|access-date=19 January 2019}}

|Rose Lifely

|Bournemouth, Dorset

|Lifely, 73, was stabbed to death in her home on Northcote Road, Bournemouth, between 15 and 17 May 1971. She suffered a "maniacal attack", according to police, who believed that the assailant lived in the local area, broke into the residence to steal and repeatedly stabbed her when confronted by her. On 25 May, the Evening Times reported that investigators were hunting for a "cuddly" buxom 18-year-old blonde and two youths, who had gone to second-hand shops in Bournemouth attempting to sell jewellery similar to pieces missing from Lifely's home.{{Cite news|title=Police hunt for "cuddly" blonde|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=6-dAAAAAIBAJ&pg=2646,3818308&dq=lifely|work=Evening Times|date=25 May 1971|page=15|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200805184939/https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=6-dAAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Y6cMAAAAIBAJ&pg=2646,3818308|archive-date=5 August 2020|access-date=1 November 2017}}{{Cite news|last=Reader|first=Jane|title=Ancestry researchers saddened by details of Rose Lifely's violent death|url=https://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/11620942.ancestry-researchers-saddened-by-details-of-rose-lifelys-violent-death/|work=Daily Echo|date=24 November 2014|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201112012540/https://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/11620942.ancestry-researchers-saddened-by-details-of-rose-lifelys-violent-death/|archive-date=12 November 2020|access-date=1 November 2017}}

|Patrick Walsh

|Holloway, London

|26-year-old Walsh's body was discovered in his van on 22 May 1971. He had been stabbed, and, according to detectives of the time, probably by a fellow motorist with whom he had become embroiled in an argument.{{Cite web|title=P WALSH: found stabbed to death in his van in Hercules Street, Holloway, London on 22...|url=https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/record?catid=8438446&catln=6|website=The National Archives|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200805183544/http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/record?catid=8438446&catln=6|archive-date=5 August 2020|access-date=5 August 2020}}

|Gloria Booth

|Ruislip, Middlesex

|Booth's naked body was discovered on the morning of Sunday 13 June 1971 on a recreation ground off Nairn Road, approximately half a mile from South Ruislip Underground station and a mile from the scene of the murder of Jean Townsend 17 years earlier. Like Townsend, Booth – a 29-year-old housewife from Ealing – had died from strangulation, and it appeared that, as in the Townsend killing, a scarf had been used.{{Cite news|title=Police search for clues in murder hunt|work=Middlesex County Times and Gazette|date=18 June 1971|page=1}}

|John Augustus Roden Orde

|Colney Heath, Hertfordshire

|On 26 August 1971, 45-year-old Orde was shot on his farm at Colney Heath during a run-in with a group of people trying to steal the rear number plate of his car. A man said by his sister to have admitted killing him was acquitted.{{Cite web|last=Mountney|first=Dan|title=5 mysterious unsolved murders that shocked Hertfordshire|url=https://www.thecomet.net/news/23326678.5-mysterious-unsolved-murders-shocked-hertfordshire/|website=The Comet|date=16 February 2023|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241218212703/https://www.thecomet.net/news/23326678.5-mysterious-unsolved-murders-shocked-hertfordshire/|archive-date=18 December 2024|access-date=18 December 2024}}

|Susan Turner

|Hartlepool, County Durham

|Two schoolboys came across the 19-year-old newlywed's body on 22 October 1971 whilst playing in a derelict house during their lunchbreak. She had been strangled. Turner's widower was accused of the murder at a trial that took place the following February, but the paucity of evidence against him (forensic scientists had found no trace in his house of dust from the derelict building) prompted the judge to order the jury to deliver a verdict of not guilty.{{Cite web|last=Corrigan|first=Naomi|title=The unsolved murder of pregnant new bride whose body was dumped in a Hartlepool slum|url=https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/unsolved-murder-pregnant-new-bride-17544112|website=Teesside Live|date=12 January 2020|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200112101554/https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/unsolved-murder-pregnant-new-bride-17544112|archive-date=12 January 2020|access-date=5 March 2020}}

|Lillian Richards

|Paddington, London

|65-year-old Richards was found strangled to death in a room of the Great Western Royal Hotel on 13 January 1972. In October of that year, a 52-year-old man from Swindon in Wiltshire was acquitted of killing her but sent to jail for a lesser offence.{{Cite news|title=DEATH HUNT MAN IS NAMED|work=The People|date=23 January 1972|page=5}}{{Cite news|title=Death charge acquittal|url=https://www.thetimes.com/archive/page/1972-10-20/2.html|url-access=subscription|work=The Times|date=20 October 1972|page=2|access-date=26 November 2020}}

|Stan James

|Gowerton, near Swansea

|James's body was found in the living room of his house on Sterry Road on 30 January 1972. He had been bound, gagged and beaten during a burglary at the property the night before. Two men were charged with the 79-year-old retired greengrocer's murder in 1979 and later cleared.{{Cite web|last=Evans|first=Jason|title='Jones the Sex', 'Jones the Grass', and the brutal murder of a pensioner who was bound, gagged and beaten|url=https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/stan-james-gowerton-murder-unsolved-24241546|website=Wales Online|date=19 June 2022|url-status=live|archive-url=https://archive.today/20230918203055/https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/stan-james-gowerton-murder-unsolved-24241546|archive-date=18 September 2023|access-date=18 September 2023}}

|Harry Barham

|Stratford, London

|The fatal Valentine's Day shooting of Barham, a 52-year-old bookmaker, in his car on Windmill Lane in Stratford was followed by the theft of between £20,000 and £40,000 from the vehicle.{{Cite news|title=Bookie shot in car 'had £40,000'|work=Liverpool Daily Post|date=19 February 1972|page=14}} He had made the money by buying and reselling cheap jewellery to help pay off debt he owed.{{Cite web|title=Harry Barham|url=https://www.truecrimelibrary.com/crimearticle/harry-barham/|website=True Crime Library|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210717181527/https://www.truecrimelibrary.com/crimearticle/harry-barham/|archive-date=17 July 2021|access-date=17 July 2021}}

|Isaac Hughes and Arthur Waite

|Blaenavon, Torfaen

|70-year-old Hughes and 50-year-old Waite, a friend of his, were killed in Hughes's cottage in the small Welsh mining town. Hughes was hit on the head once with a blunt object and Wait was struck numerous times with the same object, and they were found dead there two days after Easter Monday – a day they had spent much of at the local pub. Because there was no evidence that anyone had been in the cottage without permission that Monday or the following day, the police believed that the victims had known their killer.{{Cite web|last=Lewis|first=Anna|title=The horrific Blaenavon murders that remain unsolved almost 50 years on and the 'mistakes' made by police according to one of its officers|url=https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/blaenavon-murder-police-williams-waite-17298403|website=Wales Online|date=24 November 2019|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191127233752/https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/blaenavon-murder-police-williams-waite-17298403|archive-date=27 November 2019|access-date=22 June 2022}}

|Harold Fisher

|Cardiff

|54-year-old Fisher was fatally stabbed outside the Avana bakery on Pendyris Street in Cardiff during a robbery on 14 April 1972.{{Cite web|title=Police review 28 unsolved murders|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/wales_politics/8351889.stm|website=BBC News|date=10 November 2009|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121102035117/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/wales_politics/8351889.stm|archive-date=2 November 2012|access-date=6 May 2012}}{{Cite web|author=South Wales Police|title=Response 364 13 Data.pdf|url=https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/407933/response/993654/attach/5/Response%20364%2013%20Data.pdf|format=response to Freedom of Information request|website=WhatDoTheyKnow|date=19 June 2017|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201211223947/https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/407933/response/993654/attach/5/Response%20364%2013%20Data.pdf|archive-date=11 December 2020|access-date=11 December 2020}}

|Maxwell Confait

|Catford, London

|Two youths locked up in November 1972 for the killing of Maxwell Confait (a 26-year-old transgender sex worker also known as Michelle) and arson at her residence, plus a third youth sentenced to serve four years at the Royal Philanthropic School in Redhill (Surrey) for burglary and arson, were acquitted in October 1975. Strangulation was the cause of the victim's death.{{Cite book|last=Lane|first=Brian|year=1992|title=The Murder Guide to London: Detailed Accounts of the Capital's Most Gruesome and Bizarre Murders|publisher=Magpie|location=London|pages=25–28|isbn=1-85813-064-6}}

In 1980, a prisoner became a suspect in Confait's murder when an incriminating conversation between him and a fellow inmate was overheard, but because he and the person he claimed to have been with at the time of the offence each maintained that it was the other who committed it, neither of them could be charged with it.{{Cite web|last=Yaqoob|first=Janine|title=Three youths wrongly jailed for murder changed police investigations forever|url=https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/three-youths-wrongly-jailed-killing-20655052|website=Mirror Online|date=19 October 2019|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191229175635/https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/three-youths-wrongly-jailed-killing-20655052|archive-date=29 December 2019|access-date=7 January 2020}}

The case led to changes in police procedures.{{Cite book|last=Lane|first=Brian|year=1992|title=The Murder Guide to London: Detailed Accounts of the Capital's Most Gruesome and Bizarre Murders|publisher=Magpie|location=London|page=29|isbn=1-85813-064-6}}

|Judith Roberts

|Tamworth, Staffordshire

|14-year-old Roberts was found battered to death in a field not far from her home in Wigginton, a village just north of Tamworth. A teenager recently discharged from Whittington Barracks confessed to her murder and was convicted; however, he later claimed that his confession was a result of psychological problems he was experiencing at the time. The Court of Appeal overturned his conviction in 1997 – 24 years after his trial at Birmingham Crown Court – based on new psychiatric evidence.{{Cite web|title=From The Archives: Wrong man jailed for murder of teenager|url=https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/local-news/from-the-archives-wrong-man-jailed-for-murder-160953|website=Birmingham Live|date=8 September 2011|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191021044132/https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/local-news/from-the-archives-wrong-man-jailed-for-murder-160953|archive-date=21 October 2019|access-date=30 March 2023}}

|Pauline Riolo

|Liverpool

|Riolo, a 29-year-old married mother-of-three, had at least three stab wounds when she was found dying in Mulgrave Street, Toxteth, on 29 July 1972. Police wanted to trace someone she was seen with (a man who was driving a blue Ford Capri and appeared to be in his late 30s) 10 to 15 minutes prior to receiving the injuries.{{Cite news|title=Car is clue in murder hunt|work=Liverpool Echo|date=31 July 1972|page=1}}{{Cite web|last=Kirwin|first=Ellen|title=166 unsolved murders detectives in Merseyside want to crack|url=https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/166-unsolved-murders-detectives-merseyside-22586298|website=Liverpool Echo|date=1 January 2022|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220101211145/https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/166-unsolved-murders-detectives-merseyside-22586298|archive-date=1 January 2022|access-date=15 October 2022}}

|Emmy Werner

|Bayswater, London

|68-year-old Werner was strangled to death while staying at the Queens Hotel in Bayswater – apparently by someone who went into her room to steal and killed her when she awoke. A 16-year-old boy was charged with her murder, but a jury acquitted him in 1973. Almost 45 years after that acquittal, the Metropolitan Police reappealed for information that might help them identify who was responsible for Werner's death and offered a £20,000 reward.{{Cite news|title=Emmy Werner: Holocaust survivor murder appeal renewed 45 years later|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-41251236|work=BBC News|date=13 September 2017|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180208222319/https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-41251236|archive-date=8 February 2018|access-date=26 November 2020}}

|Amala Ruth De Vere Whelan

|Maida Vale, London

|On 12 November 1972, a 22-year-old woman was found dead at her home in Randolph Avenue, Maida Vale, west London. She had been beaten, raped, and strangled, but the subsequent investigation failed to link anyone to the crime. In January 2017, police made a fresh appeal for information.{{Cite news|last=Grafton-Green|first=Patrick|title=Fresh appeal over brutal 1972 'ripper' murder of Maida Vale woman strangled with a stocking|url=https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/maida-vale-murder-fresh-appeal-after-woman-brutally-beaten-raped-and-strangled-a3432896.html|work=Evening Standard|date=5 January 2017|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170209152027/https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/maida-vale-murder-fresh-appeal-after-woman-brutally-beaten-raped-and-strangled-a3432896.html|archive-date=9 February 2017|access-date=5 January 2017}}

|Nora Wilfred

|Cardiff

|Wilfred, 33, was found dead on 4 December 1972, her body having been dumped on wasteland off Pugsley Lane, Herbert Street, in Butetown, Cardiff. A prostitute at the time of her death, Wilfred had been stabbed multiple times and some of her clothing, along with her handbag, was missing.{{Cite news|last=Edwards|first=Steve|title=Justice at last: Nora's murder echoed death of poor Lynette|url=https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Justice+at+last%3A+Nora%27s+murder+echoed+death+of+poor+Lynette.-a0104722576|work=South Wales Echo|publisher=The Free Library|date=4 July 2003|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200316165915/https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Justice+at+last%3A+Nora%27s+murder+echoed+death+of+poor+Lynette.-a0104722576|archive-date=16 March 2020|access-date=16 March 2020}}

|Helen Will

|Longtown, Cumbria

|54-year-old Will was strangled. She was from the Scottish city of Aberdeen but her body was just over the border in England when it was discovered in a wood on the weekend of 23–24 December 1972.{{Cite news|title=MOTORWAY KILLER HUNT|work=Herald Express|date=27 December 1972|page=1}} A lorry driver's conviction for her murder was overturned in 1981 after the forensic evidence that was used to help convict him failed to stand up to closer scrutiny.{{Cite web|title=John Preece|url=https://evidencebasedjustice.exeter.ac.uk/case/john-preece/|website=Evidence-Based Justice Lab|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210615201148/https://evidencebasedjustice.exeter.ac.uk/case/john-preece/|archive-date=15 June 2021|access-date=10 September 2022}}

|Martha Graham

|Swinton, Manchester

|65-year-old Graham was killed at her home on 16 January by being battered around the head with a rolling pin and a bottle. In March of the following year, her husband was acquitted of murder at the close of a trial at Manchester Crown Court.{{Cite news|title=HOUSEWIFE, 65, IS FOUND MURDERED|work=Daily Mirror|date=17 January 1973|page=7}}{{Cite news|title=OAP cleared of murder|work=Herald Express|date=26 March 1974|page=4}}

|James Cockerell

|Leeds

|65-year-old Cockerell was stabbed to death at his flat in the Hyde Park area of Leeds on 2 March 1973. A jury at Leeds Crown Court found a 39-year-old labourer not guilty of the widower's murder the following autumn.{{Cite web|last=Robinson|first=Andrew|title=89 unsolved murders in West Yorkshire and one horrific act that left 12 people dead|url=https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/west-yorkshire-news/89-unsolved-murders-west-yorkshire-22652049|website=Yorkshire Live|date=15 January 2022|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220228232143/https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/west-yorkshire-news/89-unsolved-murders-west-yorkshire-22652049|archive-date=28 February 2022|access-date=10 September 2022}}{{Cite news|title=Man cleared in Lonely Jim case|url=http://digital.library.leeds.ac.uk/10069/1/LUA-PUB-002-LS-71_000.pdf|work=Leeds Student|date=2 November 1973|page=5|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220910162517/http://digital.library.leeds.ac.uk/10069/1/LUA-PUB-002-LS-71_000.pdf|archive-date=10 September 2022|access-date=10 September 2022}}

|Ann Law

|Body not found

|34-year-old Ann Law, a mother-of-two, went missing from her home on Copperas Lane, West Denton, Newcastle, on 24 March 1973. She was in the process of divorcing her husband Gilbert Law, but the couple still lived together. Gilbert was questioned about his wife's disappearance in 1975 but not charged. In 1982 he allegedly confessed to his son, his son-in-law and a friend that he had buried her on the bank of the River Tyne near Bywell. After his arrest, Gilbert allegedly told police that Ann had drunk herself to death and, later, that he had strangled her. He then denied making any confession. Gilbert stood trial in 1983, but this was halted due to his mental state. At his next trial in June 1984, the judge ordered the jury to acquit him of murder. No one else has ever been charged in connection with Ann's disappearance or murder and her body has never been found, despite extensive excavations of the riverbank in 1982.{{Cite news|last=Murphy|first=Phil|title=Man 'forgot about burying his wife'|work=The Journal|location=Newcastle|date=20 June 1984|page=5}}{{Cite news|title=Ecstatic, says Law after verdict|work=The Journal|location=Newcastle|date=30 June 1984|page=8}}

|Mary Armstrong

|Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire

|Armstrong was a 32-year-old prostitute stabbed to death on 25 March 1973 and found later that day in a car park in Hanley.{{Cite news|title=MURDER VICTIM MAY HAVE BEEN TO AN ALL-NIGHT SHOW|work=Evening Sentinel|location=Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire|date=27 March 1973|page=1}} Four trials for her murder were held, with a 33-year-old man being acquitted of it at the end of the last one. The number of days covered by the trials (63 in total) caused the case to make legal history in Britain.{{Cite news|title=Man is cleared after longest murder trial|work=The Birmingham Post|date=23 May 1974|page=7}}

|Velma Beulah Murray

|Coventry, West Midlands

|Murray, a 15-year-old Jamaican girl, was killed early on 28 April 1973 when paraffin and a propane gas cylinder were used to create an explosion at 143 Rotherham Road, Holbrooks. She was staying at the house with a friend of her mother's.{{Cite news|title=Girl's fire death was murder|work=Coventry Evening Telegraph|date=14 September 1973|page=35}}{{Cite web|author=West Midlands Police|title=7259 attachment 1.pdf|url=https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/unsolved_murders_23/response/1003371/attach/3/7259%20attachment%201.pdf|format=response to Freedom of Information request|website=WhatDoTheyKnow|date=10 July 2017|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221206215518/https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/407625/response/1003371/attach/3/7259%20attachment%201.pdf|archive-date=6 December 2022|access-date=6 December 2022}}

|Christine Markham

|Body not found

|Just after boarding a bus without her to take them to different schools on the morning of 21 May 1973, nine-year-old Markham's 10-year-old brother and 13-year-old sister looked out of a window and saw her double back on herself instead of continuing to walk in the direction of her own school. That evening, when she had not come home, a police hunt for her began that led to around 5,000 residences within a 15-mile radius of her house in Scunthorpe (Lincolnshire) being searched, but no trace of her was found.{{Cite news|title=Massive hunt for missing Lincs girl (9)|work=Grimsby Evening Telegraph|date=22 May 1973|page=1}}{{Cite web|last=Davidson|first=Lauren|title=The Scunthorpe schoolgirl, 9, who disappeared without a trace half a century ago|url=https://www.grimsbytelegraph.co.uk/news/local-news/scunthorpe-schoolgirl-9-who-disappeared-8440047|website=Grimsby Live|date=21 May 2023|url-status=live|archive-url=https://archive.today/20240208180204/https://www.grimsbytelegraph.co.uk/news/local-news/scunthorpe-schoolgirl-9-who-disappeared-8440047|archive-date=8 February 2024|access-date=8 February 2024}} Robert Black, a serial killer known to have murdered at least four young girls, is suspected of being behind Markham's disappearance.{{Cite web|last=Moody|first=Jenny|title=How retired postman caught sick serial killer who dumped child's body in Staffordshire village|url=https://www.staffordshire-live.co.uk/news/local-news/how-retired-postman-caught-sick-7539556|website=Staffordshire Live|date=2 September 2022|url-status=live|archive-url=https://archive.today/20240208180608/https://www.staffordshire-live.co.uk/news/local-news/how-retired-postman-caught-sick-7539556|archive-date=8 February 2024|access-date=8 February 2024}}

|Mary Ann Mackey

|Newcastle

|Mackey, an 80-year-old woman whom locals knew as Old Polly, was battered over the head and stabbed in the face on the afternoon of 18 June 1973 before being found in a back lane close to her home.{{Cite web|title=DNA crime fight takes on killers|url=https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/dna-crime-fight-takes-killers-1649781|website=Chronicle Live|date=29 April 2003|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241006212402/https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/dna-crime-fight-takes-killers-1649781.amp|archive-date=6 October 2024|access-date=6 October 2024}}

|Heidi Mnilk

|London

|Mnilk, a 17-year-old German au pair, was stabbed and thrown from a train as it travelled between London Bridge and New Cross railway stations on 9 July 1973.{{Cite web|title=Heidi Mnilk|url=https://www.truecrimelibrary.com/crimearticle/heidi-mnilk/|website=True Crime Library|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210508211045/https://www.truecrimelibrary.com/crimearticle/heidi-mnilk/|archive-date=8 May 2021|access-date=8 May 2021}} Serial killer Patrick Mackay claimed responsibility for her death but later withdrew his confession.{{Cite web|last=Blackburn|first=Ralph|title=Family of butchered priest beg for killer to remain in jail 40 years after killing spree|url=https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/family-butchered-priest-beg-killer-18457225|website=Mirror Online|date=20 July 2019|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200912193156/https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/family-butchered-priest-beg-killer-18457225|archive-date=12 September 2020|access-date=8 May 2021}}

|Bridgid Hynds

|Kentish Town, London

|Bridgid Hynds, a 74-year-old spinster who lived on Kentish Town's Willes Road and was also known as Mary Hynes, was battered to death at her home on 20 July 1973. In a statement to the police that contained accurate information about the residence, serial killer Patrick Mackay said he was sure that he was the offender. Later, however, he told them that the murder was not one of his, and a judge left Hynds's case to lie on file. Official records indicate that Mackay was in custody at a remand centre in Surrey when Hynds was killed, but it has been observed that the staff situation there in July 1973 might have made it possible for an inmate to escape and return without anyone noticing.{{Cite web|title=Unsolved: Nephew of woman bludgeoned in her Kentish Town home 43 years ago talks of family's pain|url=https://www.islingtontribune.co.uk/article/hynds-killing|website=Islington Tribune|date=23 February 2016|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221206220333/https://www.islingtontribune.co.uk/article/hynds-killing|archive-date=6 December 2022|access-date=6 December 2022}}

|Iris Thompson and Caroline Woodcock

|Brentwood, Essex

|53-year-old Thompson and 79-year-old Woodcock (Thompson's mother) were bludgeoned and stabbed on 11 September 1973 at the Shenfield address they shared with Thompson's husband, who had left to go to work a short time before the killings. No sign of forced entry into their home was discovered.{{Cite web|title=Iris Thompson and Caroline Woodcock|url=https://www.truecrimelibrary.com/crimearticle/iris-thompson-and-caroline-woodcock/|website=True Crime Library|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200730205423/https://www.truecrimelibrary.com/crimearticle/iris-thompson-and-caroline-woodcock/|archive-date=30 July 2020|access-date=30 July 2020}}

|Wendy Sewell

|Attacked in Bakewell, died in hospital in Chesterfield (both in Derbyshire)

|The 32-year-old legal secretary was savagely beaten in a churchyard on 12 September 1973, and later died of her wounds. Church groundskeeper Stephen Downing was convicted of the murder, but the verdict was overturned on appeal when he had served 27 years. The case was re-investigated by police, but no further arrests were made.{{Cite web|title=In Denial of Murder - the background to the film by Neil McKay|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2004/02_february/12/denial_murder_mckay.shtml|website=BBC|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191012024341/https://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2004/02_february/12/denial_murder_mckay.shtml|archive-date=12 October 2019|access-date=21 July 2008}}

|Jacqueline Johns

|Battersea, London

|16-year-old Johns was suffocated after attending a friend's wedding in Leigh-on-Sea in Essex on 29 September 1973 and being given a lift to Upminster that night to catch a train to Victoria Station in central London. Her naked body was found at the southern end of Chelsea Bridge on 1 October. It was believed that the insurance clerk may have become stranded at Victoria Station as a result of missing the last train to Norbury, which would have taken her to near her home in the Thornton Heath area of south London. Serial killer Robert Black's involvement in the slaying has been suspected.{{Cite news|title=INQUEST OPENS|work=Kent Evening Post|date=4 October 1973|page=1}}{{Cite news|title=Murder hunt police seek mystery girl|work=Evening News|location=London|date=9 November 1973|page=9}}{{Cite news|title=How many more victims?|work=The Scotsman|date=21 May 1994|pages=8–9}}

|Jacqueline Seston

|Peterborough, Cambridgeshire

|15-year-old Seston was found stabbed to death and sexually assaulted at her home in Mountsteven Avenue, Peterborough, on 2 October 1973. Her sister's boyfriend was convicted of murder in April 1974, but his conviction was overturned in March 1979. It was overturned because in spite of the claim that the "silent" clock at Peterborough Railway Station would not have made the clicking sound he said he heard coming from it at 1:15 p.m. on the day Seston was killed, the appeal judges were told that a worn spindle meant there were times when it did make such a sound after all.{{Cite news|title=INNOCENT MAN DOES 6 YEARS|work=Evening News|location=London|date=13 March 1979|page=1}}

|Bridget Findlay

|Bargeddie, North Lanarkshire

|Findlay was murdered and sexually assaulted before being discovered, on Sunday 7 October, in a country lane off the A8 road. The 19-year-old was from the nearby town of Airdrie.{{Cite news|title=Hunt for killer|work=Belfast Telegraph|date=8 October 1973|page=7}}{{Cite web|title=Case files for the murder of Bridget Findlay|url=https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/case_files_for_the_murder_of_bri|website=WhatDoTheyKnow|date=23 July 2019|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220221224144/https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/case_files_for_the_murder_of_bri|archive-date=21 February 2022|access-date=21 February 2022}}

|Warren and Elizabeth Wheeler

|Boars Hill, Oxfordshire

|Warren Wheeler, 83, and his wife Elizabeth, 79, were found battered to death at their home, Yatscombe Cottage, in the Oxfordshire hamlet of Boars Hill, on 9 October 1973. A man stood trial in 1974 after confessing to the murders, but the judge directed that he be cleared, stating that he was an attention seeker and that it was not his first false murder confession.{{Cite web|last=Chipperfield|first=John|title=Murder mystery still unsolved 40 years on|url=https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/10741494.murder-mystery-still-unsolved-40-years/|website=Oxford Mail|date=16 October 2013|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200325214049/https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/10741494.murder-mystery-still-unsolved-40-years/|archive-date=25 March 2020|access-date=25 March 2020}}

|Stephanie Britton and Christopher Martin

|Barnet, London

|The bodies of 57-year-old Britton and four-year-old Martin, Britton's grandson, were found in a house on Hadley Green Road, Barnet, on 12 January 1974. They had been stabbed. Serial killer Patrick Mackay claimed responsibility for their deaths but later withdrew his confession.{{Cite web|title=S E BRITTON and her four year old grandson, C J N MARTIN: victims of unsolved murder at...|url=https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/record?catid=8540760&catln=6|website=The National Archives|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210509175353/https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/record?catid=8540760&catln=6|archive-date=9 May 2021|access-date=9 May 2021}}

|Glenis Carruthers

|Clifton, Bristol

|The 20-year-old student teacher from Little Chalfont in Buckinghamshire was found strangled on Clifton Down on Saturday 19 January after she had left a friend's 21st birthday party at about 10 p.m.{{Cite news|title=MURDER ON THE DOWNS|work=Western Daily Press|date=21 January 1974|page=1}}{{Cite news|title=Glenis: still no clue to her killer|work=Bucks Examiner|date=18 October 1974|page=1}}

|Neil McCann

|Edinburgh

|37-year-old McCann was beaten and stabbed in Craigmillar on 20 February 1974 after getting off a bus. A man told a newspaper in 2008 that he believed that he and not McCann was the intended target and that gangster Arthur Thompson helped to arrange the attack.{{Cite web|last=McKenzie|first=Jamie|title=From Ann Ballantine to Neil McCann: 7 of Edinburgh's most tragic murder cases which remain unsolved|url=https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/crime/from-ann-ballantine-to-neil-mccann-7-of-edinburghs-most-tragic-murder-cases-which-remain-unsolved-2869935|website=Edinburgh Evening News|date=31 May 2020|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200609010825/https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/crime/ann-ballantine-neil-mccann-7-edinburghs-most-tragic-murder-cases-which-remain-unsolved-2869935|archive-date=9 June 2020|access-date=12 August 2021}}

|Rosina Hilliard

|Leicester

|Hilliard's body was discovered on a building site in Leicester on 22 February 1974. The postmortem uncovered both evidence of compression to the neck and injuries consistent with vehicle impact, but precisely which injury it was that ended the life of the 24-year-old prostitute could not be ascertained.{{Cite web|title=13 unsolved murder cases in Leicestershire|url=http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/13-unsolved-murder-cases-Leicestershire/story-26773197-detail/story.html|website=Leicester Mercury|date=27 June 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150628011154/http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/13-unsolved-murder-cases-Leicestershire/story-26773197-detail/story.html|archive-date=28 June 2015|access-date=31 December 2019}}{{Cite web|title=Murder of Rosina Hilliard - a Freedom of Information request to Leicestershire Constabulary|url=https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/murder_of_rosina_hilliard|website=WhatDoTheyKnow|date=July 2013|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191231055743/https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/murder_of_rosina_hilliard|archive-date=31 December 2019|access-date=31 December 2019}}

|Kay O'Connor

|Colchester, Essex

|Someone smashed the glass of the back door of 37-year-old O'Connor's house on Wickham Road in Colchester to gain access to the building before beating, strangling and stabbing her in the kitchen on Friday 1 March 1974. A woman came forward in 2018 to say that 44 years previously, one of her then co-workers told her in private that he was that person.{{Cite web|last=Jennings|first=Ryan|title=My 44-year secret holds the key to tragic Kay's death|url=https://www.gazette-news.co.uk/news/16859204.my-44-year-secret-holds-key-tragic-kays-death/|website=Daily Gazette|date=14 September 2018|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221015195622/https://www.gazette-news.co.uk/news/16859204.my-44-year-secret-holds-key-tragic-kays-death/|archive-date=15 October 2022|access-date=15 October 2022}}

|Caroline Allen

|Near Old Dalby, Leicestershire

|Allen, a 17-year-old schoolgirl from Kinoulton in Nottinghamshire, vanished on 10 April 1974 while hitchhiking from the Nottingham suburb of Bramcote, where she had a part-time job as a nanny.{{Cite news|title=Caroline death probe opens|work=Evening Post|location=Nottingham|date=20 July 1976|page=1}} Her skeleton was found in rural Leicestershire in December 1975. She had received several blows to the head from a large blunt instrument.{{Cite news|title=Jury returns murder verdict|work=Melton Times|date=23 July 1976|page=28}}

|Barbara Forrest

|Birmingham

|The body of Forrest, 20, was left in Pype Hayes Park after she had been raped and strangled following a night out on 27 May 1974. It was found there eight days later, on 4 June. A man who had been a colleague of Forrest's stood trial for her murder but was acquitted.{{Cite web|last=Lockley|first=Mike|title=Family of murdered Barbara Forrest demand DNA tests 38 years on|url=https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/local-news/family-murdered-barbara-forrest-demand-187122|website=Birmingham Live|date=19 June 2012|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201106095235/https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/local-news/family-murdered-barbara-forrest-demand-187122|archive-date=6 November 2020|access-date=22 December 2020}}

|Intaz Ali

|Birmingham

|An intruder gained entry to Ali's home in Alston Street, Ladywood, on 7 June 1974 by smashing a rear window and stabbed him multiple times in his bedroom.{{Cite web|title=Grisly catalogue of unsolved murders spanning 25 years|url=https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Grisly+catalogue+of+unsolved+murders+spanning+25+years.-a060529606|website=The Free Library|date=24 July 1999|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210410194217/https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Grisly+catalogue+of+unsolved+murders+spanning+25+years.-a060529606|archive-date=10 April 2021|access-date=30 October 2024}} It was suggested at the 37-year-old caster's inquest that his backing away from an agreement to marry a 16-year-old girl may have been the motive for the crime.{{Cite news|title=Jilted girl's family may have hired an assassin|work=Express & Star|location=Wolverhampton, West Midlands|date=28 August 1974|page=1}}

|Frank Goodman

|Finsbury Park, London

|62-year-old Goodman was bludgeoned to death at his confectionery on Rock Street, Finsbury Park, in mid-June 1974. Serial killer Patrick Mackay claimed responsibility for his death but later withdrew his confession, and Goodman's case was left to lie on file.{{Cite web|title=L F GOODMAN: victim of unsolved murder at a confectioner's shop at 26 Rock Street,...|url=https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C11360849|website=The National Archives|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221206222152/https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C11360849|archive-date=6 December 2022|access-date=6 December 2022}}

|Gary Shields

|Tynemouth, Tyne and Wear

|Six-year-old Shields was sexually assaulted and suffocated to death after he went out to play football close to his home on 3 August 1974. His body was found nearby in reeds on the bank of the River Tyne the next day. A man confessed to killing Shields and then retracted his statement; his mental state was described as unstable. He was found guilty of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, but his conviction was quashed in 1976 after a second man confessed. The second confession was made in 1975 by Kenneth Woodhouse, who was already serving time in jail for offences against children. Despite this, no charges were ever brought against him in relation to Shields's death.{{Cite web|title=Viv Graham's mam speaks of her heartache|url=https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/viv-grahams-mam-speaks-heartache-1399983|website=Chronicle Live|date=2 June 2011|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150715112318/https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/viv-grahams-mam-speaks-heartache-1399983|archive-date=15 July 2015|access-date=13 January 2020}}

|Norfolk headless body

|Cockley Cley, Norfolk

|A 19-year-old tractor driver found a woman's headless body in undergrowth at Cockley Cley, near Swaffham, on 27 August 1974. It was tied up, clothed in a pink Marks & Spencer nightdress and covered by a brown plastic National Cash Register dustsheet, and had been dumped two to three weeks previously. The woman was believed to have been aged 20 to 30.{{Cite web|last=Last|first=Mike|title=Cockley Cley: Murder hunt draws a blank|url=http://www.lynnnews.co.uk/news/Cockley-Cley-Murder-hunt-draws.4098649.jp|website=Lynn News|date=20 May 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080720145741/http://www.lynnnews.co.uk/news/Cockley-Cley-Murder-hunt-draws.4098649.jp|archive-date=20 July 2008|access-date=6 November 2009}}

Police have suggested that the woman could have been an escort known as "The Duchess" who worked in Great Yarmouth before disappearing one day. A full DNA profile has been obtained from the woman's remains, so a possible family member could have their DNA compared with hers in order to confirm or rule out relatedness.{{Cite web|title=Norfolk headless body inquiry: Woman 'was a mother'|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-35402014|website=BBC News|date=26 January 2016|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190628192206/https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-norfolk-35402014|archive-date=28 June 2019|access-date=4 February 2020}}

|Tom Hewitt

|Attacked in Bury, died in hospital in Salford (both in Greater Manchester)

|30-year-old Hewitt was hit across the head with an iron bar at the garage workshop he owned on Bright Street, Bury, on 7 September 1974. A police officer whose father had lost a court case to Hewitt over a minor collision between their vehicles was investigated by colleagues as a suspect in the murder, but he did not become aware of this until years after retiring.{{Cite web|title=No new evidence in 27-year-old murder|url=https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/6004604.no-new-evidence-27-year-old-murder/|website=Lancashire Telegraph|date=16 October 2001|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231212212440/https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/6004604.no-new-evidence-27-year-old-murder/|archive-date=12 December 2023|access-date=12 December 2023}}{{Cite web|last=Haslam|first=Dale|title=Retired police officer reveals shock after being falsely linked to murder of Bury man|url=https://www.burytimes.co.uk/news/14647529.retired-police-officer-reveals-shock-after-being-falsely-linked-to-murder-of-bury-man/|website=Bury Times|date=28 July 2016|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231212214855/https://www.burytimes.co.uk/news/14647529.retired-police-officer-reveals-shock-after-being-falsely-linked-to-murder-of-bury-man/|archive-date=12 December 2023|access-date=12 December 2023}}

|Brenda McAuley

|Brighton, East Sussex

|42-year-old Glyndwr Collins and 27-year-old Brenda McAuley were a couple who sustained stab wounds and other injuries in a flat above an antique shop in Kensington Place, Brighton, on the night of 23/24 September 1974. The flat was then torched, and it was smoke inhalation that killed McAuley as opposed to any of her previous injuries. The owner of the shop was charged with two counts of murder after his van was pulled over and cannabis found inside it in August 1990. During a trial in 1991, he claimed that he intervened to stop Collins attacking McAuley before having his face slashed and being pushed down the stairs by him, causing him to pass out. He further claimed that he heard a Scottish man fighting with Collins when he awoke, and left before the fire began.{{Cite web|last=Parsons|first=Ben|title=Bizarre tale of 'Gipsy' and a double murder|url=https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/10001464.bizarre-tale-of-gipsy-and-a-double-murder/|website=The Argus|date=23 October 2012|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250329233029/https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/10001464.bizarre-tale-of-gipsy-and-a-double-murder/|archive-date=29 March 2025|access-date=29 March 2025}} The jury found him guilty of Collins's manslaughter but cleared him of any involvement in McAuley's death.{{Cite news|title=Ford sentenced to three years|work=Coventry Evening Telegraph|date=23 November 1991|page=7}}

|Billy Moseley

|Essex

|Moseley, a 36-year-old underworld figure, went missing on 26 September 1974 and his torso was found washed up from the River Thames nine days later. In June 1977, following a trial during which the prosecution alleged that he was killed for having an affair with another criminal's wife, two men were jailed for both Moseley's murder and that of Micky Cornwall, who died in the summer of 1975. Moseley's defrosting head was found wrapped up on the seat of a public toilet in the London district of Islington in July 1977. Continuing to protest their innocence, one of the men imprisoned for the slayings was released in 1997 and the other in 2000, but their murder convictions stood until the Court of Appeal overturned them in 2002.{{Cite web|last=Burrell|first=Ian|title=I can still clear my name, says murderer freed after 22 years|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/i-can-still-clear-my-name-says-murderer-freed-after-22-years-1244152.html|website=The Independent|date=7 August 1997|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201124220352/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/i-can-still-clear-my-name-says-murderer-freed-after-22-years-1244152.html|archive-date=24 November 2020|access-date=24 November 2020}}{{Cite web|last=Campbell|first=Duncan|title=Fall guys|url=https://www.theguardian.com/g2/story/0,3604,752376,00.html|website=The Guardian|date=10 July 2002|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230421220912/https://www.theguardian.com/g2/story/0,3604,752376,00.html|archive-date=21 April 2023|access-date=24 November 2020}}{{Cite web|title=Torso pair cleared after 25 years|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2131783.stm|website=BBC News|date=16 July 2002|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201124220033/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/2131783.stm|archive-date=24 November 2020|access-date=24 November 2020}}{{Cite web|title=Was torso case man framed?|url=https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/5127967.was-torso-case-man-framed/|website=The Argus|date=24 July 2002|url-status=live|archive-url=https://archive.today/20210211202333/https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/5127967.was-torso-case-man-framed/|archive-date=11 February 2021|access-date=24 November 2020}}

|Josephine Backshall

|Near Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire

|39-year-old Backshall went missing after travelling to Witham in Essex on 29 October 1974 to meet a man regarding some work he had promised her. Three days later her body was discovered in countryside approximately 35 miles from her Maldon (also in Essex) home, and it was found during the autopsy that she had been choked but not sexually assaulted. The man who Backshall had gone to meet had apparently given his name as Peter.{{Cite web|last=Cornell|first=Adam|title=Hunt goes on for killer of Josephine Backshall|url=https://www.maldonandburnhamstandard.co.uk/news/8239727.hunt-goes-on-for-killer-of-josephine-backshall/|website=Maldon Standard|date=25 June 2010|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200531143835/https://www.maldonandburnhamstandard.co.uk/news/8239727.hunt-goes-on-for-killer-of-josephine-backshall/|archive-date=31 May 2020|access-date=31 May 2020}}{{Cite web|title=Josephine Backshall|url=https://www.truecrimelibrary.com/crimearticle/josephine-backshall/|website=True Crime Library|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200117204243/https://www.truecrimelibrary.com/crimearticle/josephine-backshall/|archive-date=17 January 2020|access-date=31 May 2020}}

|Sarah Rodmell

|Hackney, London

|92-year-old Rodmell had head injuries when she was found murdered in the porch of the house where she had a flat.{{Cite news|title=Hunt for killer of woman, 92|work=The Birmingham Post|date=24 December 1974|page=10}} Serial killer Patrick Mackay claimed responsibility for her death but later withdrew his confession.

|Ivy Davies

|Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex

|48-year-old Davies was battered to death with a steel bar at her Westcliff home in early February 1975. In 2005, following a tip-off, police recovered from someone's loft a bloodstained carpet thought to possibly have some connection to the crime and arrested that person (a 68-year-old onetime neighbour of Davies's) over it, but insufficient evidence meant they could not actually charge him with it.{{Cite web|last=Lucas|first=John|title=These eight unsolved Essex murders are still causing agony for families|url=https://www.echo-news.co.uk/news/15466772.these-eight-unsolved-essex-murders-are-still-causing-agony-for-families/|website=Basildon Canvey Southend Echo|date=11 August 2017|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200805182602/https://www.echo-news.co.uk/news/15466772.these-eight-unsolved-essex-murders-are-still-causing-agony-for-families/|archive-date=5 August 2020|access-date=5 August 2020}} Another suspect is a man said to have visited Davies's café in late 1974 or early 1975 – a man purporting to be a doctor but in reality an escapee from a psychiatric hospital, according to a woman who worked at the café when Davies ran it.{{Cite web|last=Lucas|first=John|title=New hope for cold case detectives probing 42-year-old murder of Westcliff cafe owner Ivy Davies|url=https://www.echo-news.co.uk/news/15142531.new-hope-for-cold-case-detectives-probing-42-year-old-murder-of-westcliff-cafe-owner-ivy-davies/|website=Basildon Canvey Southend Echo|date=8 March 2017|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200805182950/https://www.echo-news.co.uk/news/15142531.new-hope-for-cold-case-detectives-probing-42-year-old-murder-of-westcliff-cafe-owner-ivy-davies/|archive-date=5 August 2020|access-date=5 August 2020}}

|Elsie Clayden

|Linslade, Bedfordshire

|Clayden, a 76-year-old widow living on Church Road in Linslade, was stabbed and battered at her home on 17 March 1975. Despite not finding any evidence that anything had been stolen, detectives were convinced nonetheless that she had been slain because she had interrupted an intruder with theft as their motive for breaking in. Dry-cleaners based in the area were asked by police to keep an eye out for clothing that looked as if it might be stained with blood.{{Cite news|title=Murder search plea to cleaners|work=The Daily Mail|location=Hull, East Yorkshire|date=20 March 1975|page=16}}{{Cite web|title=Unsolved murders information - Annex A - Bedfordshire Police|url=https://www.bedfordshire.police.uk/assets/Beds-FOI/FOI-2017/FOI-Beds-FOI201701320-AnnexA-Dec2017.pdf|website=Bedfordshire Police|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180913210820/https://www.bedfordshire.police.uk/assets/Beds-FOI/FOI-2017/FOI-Beds-FOI201701320-AnnexA-Dec2017.pdf|archive-date=13 September 2018|access-date=9 February 2020}}

|Eve Stratford, Lynne Weedon

|London

|Stratford was killed on 18 March 1975. The 21-year-old Bunny Girl, who worked at the Playboy Club in Park Lane, had her throat cut between eight and 12 times. She had been tied up too and was found by her boyfriend in the bedroom of their flat in Lyndhurst Drive, Leyton, London.{{Cite web|last=Menhinnitt|first=Dan|title=DNA evidence links murders after 32 years|url=https://www.yourlocalguardian.co.uk/news/1712630.dna-evidence-links-murders-after-32-years/|website=Your Local Guardian|date=25 September 2007|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231211221137/https://www.yourlocalguardian.co.uk/news/1712630.dna-evidence-links-murders-after-32-years/|archive-date=11 December 2023|access-date=11 December 2023}}{{Cite web|last=Mudie|first=Keir|title=Hunt for murderer of schoolgirl and Bunnygirl stepped up as police renew appeal 40 years on|url=https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/hunt-murderer-schoolgirl-bunnygirl-stepped-5460690|website=Mirror Online|date=4 April 2015|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150404212055/https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/hunt-murderer-schoolgirl-bunnygirl-stepped-5460690|archive-date=4 April 2015|access-date=11 December 2023}}

In 2007, police revealed that a link had been found between Stratford's murder and that of 16-year-old Weedon. Weedon had been taking a shortcut home through an alleyway in Hounslow six months after Stratford's death when she was hit on the head with a blunt object before being thrown over a fence into the grounds of an electricity substation and raped. She died in hospital a week later.{{Cite web|last=Davenport|first=Justin|title=Police find DNA link in murders of school pupil and Bunny girl|url=https://www.standard.co.uk/hp/front/police-find-dna-link-in-murders-of-school-pupil-and-bunny-girl-6644236.html|website=The Standard|date=25 September 2007|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231211221628/https://www.standard.co.uk/hp/front/police-find-dna-link-in-murders-of-school-pupil-and-bunny-girl-6644236.html|archive-date=11 December 2023|access-date=11 December 2023}}

Both murders featured on the BBC programme Crimewatch in September 2007, where it was said that they were sexually motivated and, thanks to new DNA techniques, were now known to have had the same culprit.{{Cite web|last=Evans|first=Holly|title=Killer of schoolgirl, 16, who was raped and left for dead while walking home in Hounslow remains on the loose nearly 50 years later|url=https://www.mylondon.news/news/nostalgia/killer-schoolgirl-16-who-raped-25282884|website=MyLondon|date=22 October 2022|url-status=live|archive-url=https://archive.today/20231211222149/https://www.mylondon.news/news/nostalgia/killer-schoolgirl-16-who-raped-25282884|archive-date=11 December 2023|access-date=11 December 2023}}

|Thomas Bradford Wilson

|Pimlico, London

|62-year-old Wilson was found battered to death at his flat in Alderney Street, Pimlico.{{Cite news|title=Murder verdict|work=Liverpool Daily Post|edition=Welsh|date=7 February 1976|page=3}} Police linked his murder to five others, including the February 1970 slaying of Albert Cox (also described in this list), but two of these were later solved.

|John Wortley

|Sheffield

|On 5 June 1975, 66-year-old Wortley was battered to death with a fire extinguisher and £50–70 stolen from the kiosk at the car park where he worked as an attendant. Police have never managed to trace a man he was seen talking to five minutes before his body was discovered.{{Cite web|last=Grove|first=Alex|title=The mystery behind the brutal car park murder which remains unsolved|url=https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/local-news/car-park-murder-mystery-brutal-18040845|website=Yorkshire Live|date=19 April 2020|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200419191203/https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/local-news/car-park-murder-mystery-brutal-18040845|archive-date=19 April 2020|access-date=14 September 2021}}

|David Williams

|Stout Point, South Wales

|The body of Williams, a 49-year-old civil service executive officer from Swansea, was found on 30 June 1975 at the bottom of cliffs near the town of Llantwit Major.{{Cite news|title=Murder hunt appeal|work=Glamorgan Gazette|date=11 July 1975|page=10}}

|Renee McGowan

|Bradford, West Yorkshire

|McGowan, 55, was strangled in her flat on the top floor of a tower block on 22 or 23 July. Although drawers and cupboards in the flat were open when her fiancé discovered her body, nothing appeared to have been stolen from the property. Detectives suspected that the killer might belong to the Bradford Phoenix Society, a club to help divorced and separated people find new partners and to which McGowan herself had belonged, and so decided to compare with the fingerprints of its members some unidentified fingerprints that had been found in the flat. No match was made, however.{{Cite web|last=Ross|first=Alex|title=Murder of secretive divorcee Renee McGowan has baffled police for 43 years|url=https://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/17255320.murder-of-secretive-divorcee-renee-mcgowan-has-baffled-police-for-43-years|website=Telegraph & Argus|date=26 November 2018|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181126074705/https://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/17255320.murder-of-secretive-divorcee-renee-mcgowan-has-baffled-police-for-43-years|archive-date=26 November 2018|access-date=20 February 2020}}

|Helen Bailey

|Great Barr, Birmingham

|The eight-year-old schoolgirl was last seen when she left her home in Great Barr to play outside at 3:30 p.m. on 10 August 1975. Her body was found the following morning in woodland at Booths Farm, close to her home. She had cuts to her throat and the inquest found that her death could have been the result of an "accident or practical joke gone wrong". Bailey's death was re-examined in 2014, with a pathologist stating that it was a "clear case of homicide". The verdict of the original inquest was overturned in 2018 and a new inquest was held in 2019, which ruled that she had been unlawfully killed. An imprisoned man reportedly confessed to Bailey's murder in 1979 and is still the only suspect. He was back in prison by mid-May 2019, but the Crown Prosecution Service has decided not to prosecute him over her death.{{Cite web|last=Paxton|first=Charlotte|title=Serving prisoner 'only suspect' in Little Girl Blue murder as police confirm she WAS strangled|url=https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/serving-prisoner-only-suspect-little-16278605|website=Birmingham Live|date=16 May 2019|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210121215652/https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/serving-prisoner-only-suspect-little-16278605|archive-date=21 January 2021|access-date=3 December 2019}}

|Micky Cornwall

|Hatfield, Hertfordshire

|Cornwall, a 37-year-old bank robber who had been friends with Billy Moseley (murdered in September 1974), disappeared towards the end of August 1975 and was found shot dead in a shallow grave in woodland near the outskirts of Hatfield on 7 September. At the trial of two men accused of murdering them, it was alleged that the decision to kill Cornwall had been taken because he was keen to find out who had killed Moseley so he could avenge him. The jury found the defendants guilty of both murders, but in 2002 their convictions were quashed. Moseley and Cornwall's deaths now seem unlikely to be connected.

|Margaret Lightfoot

|Epping Forest, Essex

|48-year-old Lightfoot's naked body was found in Epping Forest the day after she failed to return home from taking her dog for a walk. She lived nearby, and her death was due to strangulation.{{Cite web|last=Shaw|first=Danny|title=Cold cases: The detectives on the trail of undiscovered killers|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38347852|website=BBC News|date=17 December 2016|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161220143314/http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-38347852|archive-date=20 December 2016|access-date=13 October 2019}}

|Kathleen Cock

|Effingham, Surrey

|The 78-year-old widow was murdered in her own home by having her head pounded, most likely with a hammer. A neighbour found her body there on 27 November 1975. Apart from wedding and engagement rings, none of Cock's possessions were taken away following the attack, which whoever was behind is believed to have struck again in March 1976 by murdering Khantoon Teja in New Malden.{{Cite web|title=Kathleen Maud Cock: 1975 Effingham murder reviewed|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-34937941|website=BBC News|date=27 November 2015|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200206180816/https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-surrey-34937941|archive-date=6 February 2020|access-date=24 January 2020}}{{Cite web|last=Townshend|first=Georgina|title=Effingham murder case from 1975 to have 'new forensic review'|url=https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/effingham-murder-case-1975-new-10515768|website=Surrey Live|date=28 November 2015|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200129235629/https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/effingham-murder-case-1975-new-10515768|archive-date=29 January 2020|access-date=29 January 2020}}

|Hugh Watson

|Llanrwst, Conwy County

|Watson, 77, was attacked on 9 December 1975 after spending the evening at the Pen-y-Bryn Hotel. The recluse lived in a cowshed off Station Road, and his body was found in a hay barn close to his home after the barn was set alight. Watson died from asphyxia and was stabbed with a weapon similar to a pitchfork.{{Cite web|last=Crump|first=Eryl|title=Crime Files Reopened: Brutal 'pitchfork' murder of Llanrwst man still unsolved after 40 years|url=https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/crime-files-reopened-brutal-pitchfork-11049566|website=North Wales Live|date=19 March 2016|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200201173404/https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/crime-files-reopened-brutal-pitchfork-11049566|archive-date=1 February 2020|access-date=1 February 2020}}

|Esther Soper

|Plymouth, Devon

|Widowed Soper, a 51-year-old grandmother, was found dead in her home on Trematon Terrace, Mutley, Plymouth, on New Year's Day 1976. Her body had been wrapped in her curtains after she had been bludgeoned with a cider bottle and strangled. Soper had been trying to sell her home and a mysterious "estate agent" had called round in the days before her death. The case was reviewed in 1997 using DNA testing, but only Soper's DNA was found from the scene.{{Cite web|last=Greenwood|first=Andy|title=Unsolved murder of Plymouth mum - cold case review|url=https://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/news/history/unsolved-murder-plymouth-mum-cold-3399607|website=Plymouth Live|date=6 October 2019|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200813180716/https://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/news/history/unsolved-murder-plymouth-mum-cold-3399607|archive-date=13 August 2020|access-date=21 November 2019}}

|Andrew Smith

|Leeds

|52-year-old Smith was bludgeoned to death in Hunslet Road, Leeds, on 29 January 1976.{{Cite web|title=Unsolved Murders West Yorkshire 1966 to 1980|url=https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/238367/response/592015/attach/3/Clark%20110%2014.pdf|website=WhatDoTheyKnow|date=3 December 2014|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231109230305/https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/238367/response/592015/attach/3/Clark%20110%2014.pdf|archive-date=9 November 2023|access-date=24 June 2023}}{{Cite web|last=Hyde|first=Nathan|title=The 30 brutal murders in Leeds that have never been solved|url=https://www.leeds-live.co.uk/news/leeds-news/brutal-murders-leeds-never-solved-17985929|website=Leeds Live|date=4 April 2020|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200930165734/https://www.leeds-live.co.uk/news/leeds-news/brutal-murders-leeds-never-solved-17985929|archive-date=30 September 2020|access-date=5 May 2024}}

|Helen Hooper

|Body not found

|31 years old and living in the Hertfordshire village of Standon, Hooper disappeared on 13 February 1976 after informing her husband that she was moving out because she did not want to be with him anymore. (She was already seeing another man.) He was subsequently arrested and charged with her murder, but the case was thrown out at the magistrates' court, despite small amounts of blood having been found on a knife and on shoes in the house they had shared.{{Cite web|title=Helen Rosemary Hooper|url=http://www.unsolved-murders.co.uk/murder-content.php?key=496|website=Unsolved Murders|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200612211408/http://www.unsolved-murders.co.uk/murder-content.php?key=496|archive-date=12 June 2020|access-date=12 June 2020}}{{Cite web|title=Murder investigations|url=https://www.herts.police.uk/assets/FOI-Herts/FOI-2017/FOI-Herts-FOI201701107-Nov2017.pdf|website=Hertfordshire Constabulary|date=23 November 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200612211043/https://www.herts.police.uk/assets/FOI-Herts/FOI-2017/FOI-Herts-FOI201701107-Nov2017.pdf|archive-date=12 June 2020|access-date=12 June 2020}}{{Cite web|title=Walter George HOOPER: murder of Helen Rosemary HOOPER on or about 13 February 1976 in...|url=https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C11497287|website=The National Archives|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200612211207/https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C11497287|archive-date=12 June 2020|access-date=12 June 2020}}

|Maureen Mulcahy

|Port Talbot, South Wales

|Mulcahy, 22, was last seen at the Green Meadow pub in Aberavon on the night of 23 February 1976. A dog walker found her body the following morning on waste ground close by; she had been strangled. There is speculation that Mulcahy was murdered by the "Saturday Night Strangler", a serial killer who was posthumously identified as Joe Kappen in 2002. DNA evidence revealed that Kappen had murdered three teenagers in the area in 1973: Sandra Newton, Geraldine Hughes and Pauline Floyd. Detectives believe Mulcahy could have been a fourth victim, but no conclusive evidence has been found.{{Cite web|last=Williams|first=Nino|title=The unsolved murder of the young mum feared to have been a victim of the Saturday Night Strangler|url=https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/maureen-mulcahy-murder-aberavon-police-17881971|website=Wales Online|date=8 March 2020|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200309154245/https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/maureen-mulcahy-murder-aberavon-police-17881971|archive-date=9 March 2020|access-date=18 March 2020}}

|Robert Jones

|Liverpool

|Jones, a 73-year-old artist, was one of three victims (all adult males) of a man who went on a knife rampage on 27 February 1976, but the only one who was injured fatally. Also the oldest of the three, Jones was stabbed near his home in Liverpool's Huskisson Street.{{Cite news|last=Oldfield|first=Stephen|title=Attack victim tells of 'night I nearly died'|work=Liverpool Echo|date=2 March 1976|page=7}}

|Avis West

|Northampton

|82-year-old West was found battered to death at her house in Northampton at the end of February 1976. Police looked into whether the killing was connected to an alleged incident on 29 February involving a gun-toting hitchhiker with a Southern Irish accent ordering a man to drive him to Liverpool.{{Cite news|title=KILLER LINK IN HIJACK?|work=Evening Mail|location=Birmingham|date=1 March 1976|page=1}}{{Cite web|title=Police committed to seeking justice in Northamptonshire's unsolved murders|url=https://www.northantstelegraph.co.uk/news/police-committed-to-seeking-justice-in-northamptonshires-unsolved-murders-849288|website=Northamptonshire Telegraph|date=17 August 2017|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240912222826/https://www.northantstelegraph.co.uk/news/police-committed-to-seeking-justice-in-northamptonshires-unsolved-murders-849288|archive-date=12 September 2024|access-date=12 September 2024}}

|Jack Wood

|Pangbourne, Berkshire

|Bookmaker Wood, 73, was murdered during a robbery at his betting shop and home on 3 March 1976. He was bound, gagged, then bludgeoned.{{Cite news|title=Police link-up over betting shop murders|url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0002471/19770204/185/0014|url-access=subscription|work=Evening Post|location=Reading, Berkshire|date=4 February 1977|page=14|access-date=17 May 2020|via=the British Newspaper Archive}}

|William "Tank" McGuinness

|Glasgow

|McGuinness, a 46-year-old career criminal, was repeatedly kicked in the head on 12 March 1976 and died of his injuries on 25 March.{{Cite news|title=Blood phial query|work=The Press and Journal|location=Aberdeen|date=24 August 1976|page=17}}{{Cite news|title=Police tell of vital evidence|work=Birmingham Evening Mail|date=19 November 1976|page=11}} John Winning, who was later himself murdered, was acquitted on 24 August after the court heard that bloodstains on McGuinness's clothing were not examined scientifically.{{Cite news|title=McGuinness case ends as charges are dropped|work=Evening Express|location=Aberdeen|date=24 August 1976|page=1}}{{Cite news|title=CRIEFF MAN JAILED ON HOMICIDE CHARGE|work=Strathearn Herald|date=21 June 1980|page=1}} McGuinness was suspected of being involved in the 1969 murder of a woman from Ayr.{{Cite web|last=Smith|first=Anna|title=You have made a terrible mistake; Chilling words that sparked 7-year fight for justice|url=https://www.thefreelibrary.com/You+have+made+a+terrible+mistake%3B+Chilling+words+that+sparked+7-year...-a083178841|website=The Free Library|date=23 February 2002|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230624222114/https://www.thefreelibrary.com/You+have+made+a+terrible+mistake%3B+Chilling+words+that+sparked+7-year...-a083178841|archive-date=24 June 2023|access-date=24 June 2023}}

|David Cross

|Dartford, Kent

|Cross, a 39-year-old guard working for Securicor, was shot on the evening of 27 March 1976 after three cars forced the van he was in to come to a halt on a slip road on the outskirts of Dartford.{{Cite news|title=BIG REWARD TO FIND KILLERS|work=Kent Evening Post|date=29 March 1976|page=1}} Over £100,000 was stolen.{{Cite news|title=Man cleared of A2 murder|work=Kent Evening Post|date=12 May 1977|page=4}} A trial the following spring saw four men found not guilty of the killing but one of them sentenced to 12 years in prison for being the getaway driver.{{Cite news|title=A2 MURDER: TWO ARE CLEARED|work=Western Daily Press|date=28 May 1977|page=5}}{{Cite news|title=Getaway driver jailed 12 years|work=The Journal|location=Newcastle|date=28 May 1977|page=2}}

|Stanley Taylor

|Attacked in Wembley, London, died in hospital

|Taylor, 66, was kicked and robbed of a bag of money belonging to the Wembley and District Mutual Loan Society as he took the bag to deposit it in a bank's night safe on 14 April 1976. Four youths were acquitted in December.{{Cite news|title=Youths cleared of murdering pensioner|work=Harrow Observer|date=3 December 1976|page=4}}

|Powlo Bublyczenko

|Rochdale, Greater Manchester

|60-year-old Bublyczenko, a grocer originally from Ukraine, was found battered to death behind his store in Oldham Road, Rochdale, on 17 May 1976. No evidence of forced entry, a struggle or theft was found at the property, however.{{Cite news|title=Killers who remain free|work=Manchester Evening News|date=17 November 1988|page=12}}

|Joan Mashek

|Nottingham

|48-year-old Mashek was beaten to death in her bedsit on Douglas Road in Lenton – probably with her own guitar – at some point between 10 and 13 July 1976. Although investigators were never able to put a name to anyone who they thought would have wished her harm, they did manage to narrow the list of possible culprits down to two untraced and unidentified individuals in whose company she was seen in the weeks before she was killed – one of them a scruffy young man who shared her interest in classical music and ballet, the other a young man she was spotted with near County Hall in West Bridgford.{{Cite web|title=The Joan Mashek murder: A case that baffled police|url=http://www.nottinghampost.com/murder-baffled-police/story-26120044-detail/story.html|website=Nottingham Post|date=5 March 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150309064953/http://www.nottinghampost.com/murder-baffled-police/story-26120044-detail/story.html|archive-date=9 March 2015|access-date=21 November 2020}} There was an arrest over Mashek's murder in 1990.{{Cite web|title=Central News East: 29.05.1990: Murder Arrest|url=https://www.macearchive.org/films/central-news-east-29051990-murder-arrest|website=MACE|date=29 May 1990|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201121192902/https://www.macearchive.org/films/central-news-east-29051990-murder-arrest|archive-date=21 November 2020|access-date=21 November 2020}}

|Enrico Sidoli

|Hampstead, London

|15-year-old Sidoli died at Hampstead's Royal Free Hospital on 19 July 1976 from brain damage caused by cardiac arrest, having been admitted 11 days earlier after being assaulted and held under the water in an outdoor swimming pool on Parliament Hill, Hampstead Heath. The incident was said to have been preceded by an argument between him and three older boys.{{Cite web|last=Carrier|first=Dan|title=Who is this man?, police ask in bid to solve 1976 Lido mystery|url=https://www.islingtontribune.co.uk/article/who-is-this-man-police-ask-in-bid-to-solve-1976-lido-mystery|website=Islington Tribune|date=17 July 2017|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240630201859/https://www.islingtontribune.co.uk/article/who-is-this-man-police-ask-in-bid-to-solve-1976-lido-mystery|archive-date=30 June 2024|access-date=30 June 2024}}

|Susan Donoghue

|Bristol

|Donoghue, a 44-year-old night nurse, was battered with a truncheon and sexually assaulted whilst in bed in her flat in Bristol's Sneyd Park area on 5 August 1976. The perpetrator left a tobacco tin, a pair of gloves and the murder weapon behind, but none of these items nor anything else resulted in him being caught. Nevertheless, because his semen was also recovered from the scene, advances in technology meant that detectives had a full DNA profile of him by the 40th anniversary of the murder.{{Cite web|last=Churchill|first=Laura|title=The nurse battered to death with truncheon in Bristol flat and sexually assaulted|url=https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/nurse-susan-donoghue-bristol-murder-4300|website=Bristol Live|date=1 January 2018|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190927195759/http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/nurse-susan-donoghue-bristol-murder-4300|archive-date=27 September 2019|access-date=27 September 2019}}

|Alan McDonald Flisher

|Attacked in Ashford, died in hospital in Canterbury (both in Kent)

|Flisher, 30, was found fatally injured in a phone box on Jemmett Road, Ashford, in the early hours of Saturday 7 August 1976 after a night out. He had abdominal stab wounds and died a short time later.{{Cite news|title='Phone box' murder starts hunt|work=The Daily Mail|location=Hull, East Yorkshire|date=7 August 1976|page=1}}{{Cite web|author=Kent Police|title=Murder Offences with a Recorded Crime Outcome of Undetected, up to December 2012|url=https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/unsolved_murders_10/response/982906/attach/4/17%2005%20533%20Appendix.pdf|format=response to Freedom of Information request|website=WhatDoTheyKnow|date=24 May 2017|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241215175147/https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/unsolved_murders_10/response/982906/attach/4/17%2005%20533%20Appendix.pdf|archive-date=15 December 2024|access-date=24 November 2024}}

|Douglas Jones

|Birmingham

|58-year-old Jones was found dead in his flat on the 14th floor of a tower block on 18 August 1976. The tower block was on Birchfield Road in Perry Barr, and the cause of death was strangulation or blows to the head. A neighbour of the victim told his inquest that she heard two people fighting there two nights before his body was found.{{Cite news|title=Mystery of 14th-floor murder unsolved|work=Express & Star|location=Wolverhampton, West Midlands|date=28 April 1978|page=11}}

|Francis Jegou

|Maidstone, Kent

|65-year-old Jegou, a former special constable, was fatally knifed in Brenchley Gardens, a park in Maidstone, on 12 September 1976. Michael Stone, convicted in 1998 of murdering two members of a family and attempting to murder a third as they walked along a country lane in Kent in July 1996, has been suspected by police of being the culprit in Jegou's murder, too.{{Cite news|title=DID A WAR GRUDGE LEAD TO MURDER?|work=Kent Evening Post|date=3 December 1976|page=14}}{{Cite web|last1=Jury|first1=Louise|last2=Buncombe|first2=Andrew|title=THE RUSSELL MURDERS: Stone fantasised about killing and pleaded for help|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/the-russell-murders-stone-fantasised-about-killing-and-pleaded-for-help-1180131.html|website=The Independent|date=23 October 1998|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211120111136/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/the-russell-murders-stone-fantasised-about-killing-and-pleaded-for-help-1180131.html|archive-date=20 November 2021|access-date=10 March 2025}}

|Jane Bigwood

|Deptford, London

|Bigwood, an art student aged 20, was knifed to death at her flat in Speedwell House, Deptford, on 21 October 1976. A man was convicted of her murder, but the conviction was overturned in December 1983 after further analysis of hairs found in her hand revealed that they were not his. The cleared man, a squatter in the same block of flats at the time of the slaying, was the owner of the murder weapon when the crime was committed but claimed that fellow squatters had access to it as well.{{Cite web|title=Convicted of murder -- freed by 22 hairs|url=https://www.upi.com/Archives/1983/12/07/Convicted-of-murder-freed-by-22-hairs/2703439621200/|website=UPI|date=7 December 1983|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241215180926/https://www.upi.com/Archives/1983/12/07/Convicted-of-murder-freed-by-22-hairs/2703439621200/|archive-date=15 December 2024|access-date=6 July 2023}}{{Cite web|title=TV man's call over landmark murder|url=https://www.thefreelibrary.com/TV+man%27s+call+over+landmark+murder.-a0287190538|website=The Free Library|date=22 April 2012|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230706211949/https://www.thefreelibrary.com/TV+man%27s+call+over+landmark+murder.-a0287190538|archive-date=6 July 2023|access-date=6 July 2023}}{{Cite web|title=Jane Bigwood|url=http://www.unsolved-murders.co.uk/murder-content.php?key=3879&termRef=Jane%20Bigwood|website=Unsolved Murders|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230706212212/http://www.unsolved-murders.co.uk/murder-content.php?key=3879&termRef=Jane%20Bigwood|archive-date=6 July 2023|access-date=6 July 2023}}

|Raymond Wharton

|Birmingham

|The 47-year-old doorman was shot at the New Gary Owen Club in the early hours of Sunday 24 October 1976 by a hooded man who seemed to be firing indiscriminately. The club was on Wordsworth Road in Small Heath, and it was speculated that the gunman was someone with a grudge against the establishment.{{Cite news|title=Grudge clue to killing|work=Western Daily Press|date=25 October 1976|page=5}} Three men were acquitted in August 1977.{{Cite news|title=Three are cleared of killing|work=The Birmingham Post|date=3 August 1977|page=4}}

|Annie Walsh

|Hulme, Manchester

|Walsh, 51, was discovered beaten to death with a lampstand in her sixth-floor flat on 31 January 1977. A man was convicted of the offence later in the year and he remained in prison for it until 2002, when, because it had been divulged that police officers had extracted a confession from him by assaulting and severely interrogating him, the Court of Appeal found his conviction to be unsafe.{{Cite web|last=Thompson|first=Dan|title=I spent 25 years in jail after being framed for a murder I didn't commit - why won't GMP say sorry?|url=https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/spent-25-years-jail-after-16355857|website=Manchester Evening News|date=2 June 2019|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211008070353/https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/spent-25-years-jail-after-16355857|archive-date=8 October 2021|access-date=3 January 2021}}

|Barbara Ann Young

|Doncaster, South Yorkshire

|29-year-old Young, a prostitute and mother-of-two, was severely beaten in an alleyway in Doncaster on 22 March 1977 and died later from a haemorrhage caused by a fractured skull.{{Cite web|last1=Hicks|first1=Tim|last2=Clark|first2=Chris|title=The Ripper's Lorry Murders 4: Doncaster & Sheffield|url=https://nyenquirer.uk/the-rippers-lorry-murders-4-doncaster-sheffield/|website=North Yorks Enquirer|date=25 November 2019|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231211191512/https://nyenquirer.uk/the-rippers-lorry-murders-4-doncaster-sheffield/|archive-date=11 December 2023|access-date=12 February 2020}}

|Debra Schlesinger

|Leeds

|18-year-old Schlesinger was stabbed in the heart outside her home on 21 April 1977 after a night out with friends.{{Cite web|last1=Hicks|first1=Tim|last2=Clark|first2=Chris|title=The Ripper's Lorry Murders #2|url=https://nyenquirer.uk/the-rippers-lorry-murders-2/|website=North Yorks Enquirer|date=4 November 2019|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220812191610/https://nyenquirer.uk/the-rippers-lorry-murders-2/|archive-date=12 August 2022|access-date=15 February 2020}} West Yorkshire Police announced in 2002 that they were ready to charge "Yorkshire Ripper" Peter Sutcliffe, but as he was subsequently issued with a whole-life tariff for his convictions from 1981, no further action was taken.{{Cite book|last1=Clark|first1=Chris|last2=Tate|first2=Tim|year=2015|title=Yorkshire Ripper – The Secret Murders: The True Story of How Peter Sutcliffe's Terrible Reign of Terror Claimed at Least Twenty-Two More Lives|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uTutDwAAQBAJ|publisher=John Blake Publishing Limited|location=London|page=351|isbn=978-1-78418-418-6|access-date=1 January 2022}}

|Joy Sweatman

|Coulsdon, London

|Sweatman, a 25-year-old mother of two young children, died at her suburban home when someone beat her with a hammer on 1 June 1977. Her two-year-old daughter was also attacked but survived, despite being unconscious in hospital for four days. A witness saw a man outside the house wipe a hammer on his coat before leaving in a white Austin Maxi saloon. He was never traced. The apparent lack of forced entry caused police to deduce that Sweatman probably knew the assailant.{{Cite web|last=George|first=Sarah|title=The chilling murder of a Coulsdon mum brutally beaten to death in her home remains unsolved 40 years on|url=https://www.croydonadvertiser.co.uk/news/croydon-news/chilling-murder-coulsdon-mum-brutally-509761|website=Croydon Advertiser|date=22 September 2017|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211009223529/https://www.croydonadvertiser.co.uk/news/croydon-news/chilling-murder-coulsdon-mum-brutally-509761|archive-date=9 October 2021|access-date=17 June 2020}}

|Thomas Morris

|Attacked in Castle Vale, Birmingham, died in hospital in Sutton Coldfield

|79-year-old Morris was beaten with a spanner at his home in Farnborough Road on 8 June 1977. A provider of the meals on wheels service found him with head, facial and knee injuries at the address, and he died on 14 June. Police thought the perpetrator was not a stranger to him.{{Cite news|title=Man dies after attack|work=The Birmingham Post|date=15 June 1977|page=3}}

|Rachel Levine

|Salford, Greater Manchester

|70-year-old Levine was found trussed up and lifeless at her home in Moor Street, Salford, following her death sometime after 10:00 a.m. the previous day (4 August). Money had been taken from a safe and a strongbox despite the keys to them being two of nearly a thousand in the house.{{Cite news|title=KEYS MYSTERY IN HOUSE OF MURDER|work=Daily Mirror|date=9 August 1977|page=11}}

|Dennis Oakley

|Birmingham

|Oakley, a 54-year-old butcher, was assaulted at night on 27 August 1977 as he and his ex-wife, whom he was planning to remarry, left an Indian restaurant in Digbeth, Birmingham. He was punched to the ground by one of two men after admonishing them for swearing in her presence and died about four hours later.{{Cite news|title=Murder hunt plea|work=The Birmingham Post|date=1 September 1977|page=3}}

|Elizabeth Parravincina

|Isleworth, London

|27-year-old Parravincina was only yards from her parents' house when a mystery assailant killed her by hitting her head with a hard object. The route taken by her to get to the house that day was said to have been uncharacteristic of her.{{Cite web|title=Looking back, 8/11/02|url=https://www.newsshopper.co.uk/news/6285512.looking-back-81102/|website=News Shopper|date=12 November 2002|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200105164210/https://www.newsshopper.co.uk/news/6285512.looking-back-81102/|archive-date=5 January 2020|access-date=5 January 2020}}

Parravincina's death has been informally linked to Peter Sutcliffe. It is believed that he may have been staying in London, specifically Alperton, at the time.{{Cite book|last1=Clark|first1=Chris|last2=Tate|first2=Tim|year=2015|title=Yorkshire Ripper – The Secret Murders: The True Story of How Peter Sutcliffe's Terrible Reign of Terror Claimed at Least Twenty-Two More Lives|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uTutDwAAQBAJ|publisher=John Blake Publishing Limited|location=London|pages=223–224|isbn=978-1-78418-418-6|access-date=5 January 2020}}

|Brenda Evans

|Poulton, Cheshire

|Evans, 17, was murdered on 7 October 1977 while on her lunch break from Poulton post office and general stores. She had walked to her aunt and uncle's house to have lunch and failed to return to work. Evans's body was found down a manhole; she had been strangled with her own tights. Her fiancé, who had been working close by cutting hedges that day, was questioned and released on bail.{{Cite web|last=Holmes|first=David|title=Detectives review historic Cheshire murder case which took place south of Chester|url=https://www.cheshire-live.co.uk/news/chester-cheshire-news/detectives-review-historic-cheshire-murder-5197587|website=Cheshire Live|date=24 February 2011|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191216180947/https://www.cheshire-live.co.uk/news/chester-cheshire-news/detectives-review-historic-cheshire-murder-5197587|archive-date=16 December 2019|access-date=16 December 2019}}

|Carol Wilkinson

|Bradford, West Yorkshire

|Wilkinson, 20, was partially stripped, sexually assaulted and battered with a large stone in Woodhall Road, Bradford, as she walked to her workplace – a bakery in nearby Gain Lane – on 10 October 1977.{{Cite web|title=Steel, R v [2003] EWCA Crim 1640|url=https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Crim/2003/1640.html|website=BAILII|date=10 June 2003|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250430202415/https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Crim/2003/1640.html|archive-date=30 April 2025|access-date=30 April 2025}} She died at Bradford Royal Infirmary when her life support machine was switched off two days later.{{cite web|title=R v Malcherek|url=https://vlex.co.uk/vid/r-v-malcherek-793536869|website=vLex United Kingdom|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250430202608/https://vlex.co.uk/vid/r-v-malcherek-793536869|archive-date=30 April 2025|access-date=30 April 2025}} Peter Sutcliffe committed a frenzied attack on the body of one of his confirmed victims earlier on the day of the attack on Wilkinson, which was investigated as a possible "Yorkshire Ripper" attack before Anthony Steel, a man with learning difficulties, was suspected of the crime. Steel spent 20 years in prison for Wilkinson's murder and had his conviction quashed at the Court of Appeal in 2003.{{Cite web|title=Ripper mystery|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/content/articles/2008/09/23/yorks_lincs_ripper_s14_w2_feature.shtml|website=Inside Out|date=23 September 2008|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220305003058/https://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/content/articles/2008/09/23/yorks_lincs_ripper_s14_w2_feature.shtml|archive-date=5 March 2022|access-date=4 March 2022}}

|Marie Lister

|Kegworth, Leicestershire

|89-year-old Lister was found dead in her house on Packington Hill, Kegworth, on 11 January 1978. She had sustained several axe blows to the head between 8:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m. that day, and the short-handled weapon was still at the scene.{{Cite news|title=WIDOW (89) FOUND DEAD BY HOME HELP VISITOR|work=Long Eaton Advertiser|date=12 January 1978|page=1}}

|Beryl Culverwell

|Bath, Somerset

|The 52-year-old welfare worker was found dead in the garage of her home in Widcombe Hill, Bath, on 13 January 1978. She had been stabbed 21 times after being bludgeoned with a shotgun. Her body was tied with twine, although there were no signs of a violent struggle. The telephone wires in the house were cut. A motive for Culverwell's murder has never been clearly determined.{{Cite news|last=Linham|first=Laura|title=Cold case: Who murdered Beryl Culverwell in Bath?|url=https://www.somersetlive.co.uk/news/somerset-news/cold-case-who-murdered-beryl-1418071|work=Somerset Live|date=8 April 2018|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210510194818/https://www.somersetlive.co.uk/news/somerset-news/cold-case-who-murdered-beryl-1418071|archive-date=10 May 2021|access-date=5 July 2019}}Crimewatch UK, season 1, episode 3 (16 August 1984).

|Leslie Guntrip

|Winsford, Cheshire

|A bread delivery man found 72-year-old Guntrip battered to death at the victim's farmhouse near Winsford on 15 February 1978. A shotgun was missing from the farmhouse but nothing else.{{Cite web|title=New police bid to catch killer|url=https://www.crewechronicle.co.uk/news/local-news/new-police-bid-catch-killer-5666156|website=Crewe Chronicle|date=12 September 2001|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210228033253/https://www.crewechronicle.co.uk/news/local-news/new-police-bid-catch-killer-5666156|archive-date=28 February 2021|access-date=20 June 2021}}

|John Connors

|Neath, South Wales

|Connors' home help discovered the 85-year-old retired dentist's battered body in his house on Lewis Road on 31 March 1978. A suspect was spotted running from the house and being driven away in a white car the day before the discovery. He was about {{convert|6|ft}} tall, had dark hair, and appeared to be between the ages of 30 and 40.{{Cite web|title=Police reopen murder case after 30 years|url=https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/local-news/police-reopen-murder-case-after-2140676|website=Wales Online|date=20 November 2008|url-status=live|archive-url=https://archive.today/20231207211853/https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/local-news/police-reopen-murder-case-after-2140676|archive-date=7 December 2023|access-date=7 December 2023}}{{Cite web|last=Evans|first=Jason|title=The face of the man suspected of brutally murdering a dentist|url=https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/murder-pensioner-john-connors-neath-25093869|website=Wales Online|date=2 October 2022|url-status=live|archive-url=https://archive.today/20231207212248/https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/murder-pensioner-john-connors-neath-25093869|archive-date=7 December 2023|access-date=7 December 2023}}

|Bill Simpson

|Birmingham

|45-year-old Simpson was a mechanic and his body was found burning inside his locked garage in Small Heath on 12 May 1978 after he had been shot there. He had been fined earlier in 1978 for possession of three stolen blank MOT certificates following the smashing of a racket involving about 300 such certificates, but no proof was uncovered that his murder was connected to his part in that racket.{{Cite web|title=From the Archives: Mystery of killer who blasted peace-loving Bill|url=https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/local-news/from-the-archives-mystery-of-killer-who-blasted-129170|website=Birmingham Live|date=29 July 2010|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210925205837/https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/local-news/from-the-archives-mystery-of-killer-who-blasted-129170|archive-date=25 September 2021|access-date=25 September 2021}}

|Michael Page

|Orpington, Kent

|Page, an 18-year-old bank clerk at NatWest in the Elephant and Castle, was stabbed to death as he walked home, having attended a party with friends at Crofton Hall in Orpington. A passing motorist spotted his body lying on the pavement at around 3:42 a.m. just a few hundred yards from his home in Avalon Road. Newspaper reports claimed that Page had suffered six deep stab wounds. His wallet containing his driving licence, a £50 cheque card and a railway season ticket was missing, along with less than £3 in change.{{Cite web|title=The unsolved murder of Michael Page|url=https://www.murdermap.co.uk/unsolved-murders/michael-page-murder-orpington-1978-unsolved/|website=murdermap.co.uk|date=2 February 2022|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220813091536/https://www.murdermap.co.uk/unsolved-murders/michael-page-murder-orpington-1978-unsolved/|archive-date=13 August 2022|access-date=10 January 2023}}

|Genette Tate

|Body not found

|Although Tate's body has never been found, Devon and Cornwall Police are treating her disappearance as murder. 13-year-old Tate disappeared while delivering newspapers in Aylesbeare, Devon, on 19 August 1978. Serial killer Robert Black came to be considered the main suspect, but evidence to support his involvement in her murder was not strong enough to charge him with it before his death in prison in 2016.{{Cite web|last=Bird|first=Jacquie|title=Full report: The mystery of Genette Tate, 35 years on|url=https://www.itv.com/news/westcountry/topic/genette-tate/|website=ITV News|date=19 August 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131001080013/https://www.itv.com/news/westcountry/topic/genette-tate/|archive-date=1 October 2013|access-date=21 November 2019}}

|Georgi Markov

|London

|Assisted by the KGB, agents of the Bulgarian secret police, the Darzhavna Sigurnost, made two failed attempts to kill Markov before a third attempt succeeded. On 7 September 1978, 49-year-old Markov parked his car close to Waterloo Bridge – a bridge spanning the River Thames – and was waiting at a nearby bus stop when he was jabbed in the leg and had a tiny poison pellet fired or injected into him by a man holding an umbrella. The man apologized, hurried across the street and got into a taxi. Markov later said that the man had spoken with a foreign accent. The event is known as the Umbrella Murder, with the assassin said to have been Francesco Gullino, code-named "Piccadilly".{{Cite web|title=The Curious Case Of The Poisoned Umbrella: The Death Of Georgi Markov|url=https://www.novinite.com/articles/131999/The+Curious+Case+Of+The+Poisoned+Umbrella:+The+Death+Of+Georgi+Markov|website=Sofia News Agency|date=12 September 2011|url-status=live|archive-url=https://archive.today/20240430215944/https://www.novinite.com/articles/131999/The+Curious+Case+Of+The+Poisoned+Umbrella:+The+Death+Of+Georgi+Markov|archive-date=30 April 2024|access-date=30 April 2024}}{{Cite journal|last1=Salisbury|first1=Daniel|last2=Dewey|first2=Karl|title=Murder on Waterloo Bridge: placing the assassination of Georgi Markov in past and present context, 1970 - 2018|journal=Contemporary British History|date=18 January 2023|volume=37|pages=128–156|doi=10.1080/13619462.2022.2160707|doi-access=free}}

|Carl Bridgewater

|Yew Tree Farm, Kinver, Staffordshire

|13-year-old Bridgewater was shot in the head at close range when he disturbed burglars while delivering a newspaper to a house on 19 September 1978. The Bridgewater Four were convicted in 1979 but acquitted in 1997.{{Cite web|title=1978: Police hunt Bridgewater killers|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/september/20/newsid_2524000/2524697.stm|website=BBC News|date=20 September 1978|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151008133854/http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/september/20/newsid_2524000/2524697.stm|archive-date=8 October 2015|access-date=8 October 2015}}

|Nimraj Bibi

|Oldham, Greater Manchester

|35-year-old Bibi was struck once with a blunt instrument and died at her home in Waterloo Street, Oldham, on 4 October 1978. Her 21-month-old son was in a nearby cot when her body was discovered and is likely to have witnessed the attack.

|Margaret Frame

|Brighton, East Sussex

|The 36-year-old mother-of-one disappeared on 12 October 1978 and was found dead 10 days later in a shallow grave in Stanmer Park.{{Cite web|last=Parsons|first=Ben|title=Brighton murder case that lives on|url=https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/3751317.brighton-murder-case-that-lives-on/|website=The Argus|date=13 October 2008|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250111023356/https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/3751317.brighton-murder-case-that-lives-on/|archive-date=11 January 2025|access-date=29 December 2018}} She had been hit over the head, stabbed in the back and raped. No one was charged with Frame's murder,{{Cite web|title=22 years after her murder, police re-open hunt for Margaret Frame's killer|url=https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/5162304.22-years-after-her-murder-police-re-open-hunt-for-margaret-frames-killer/|website=The Argus|date=8 June 2000|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240215235142/https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/5162304.22-years-after-her-murder-police-re-open-hunt-for-margaret-frames-killer/|archive-date=15 February 2024|access-date=9 April 2019}} but the father of Russell Bishop, a local man responsible for the nearby Babes in the Wood Murders in Brighton's Wild Park in 1986, was arrested in relation to it.{{Cite web|title=Babes in the Woods murder accused claims he was 'bullied' into false account|url=https://www.itv.com/news/2018-11-23/babes-in-the-woods-murder-accused-claims-he-was-bullied-into-false-account|website=ITV News|date=23 November 2018|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181124135140/https://www.itv.com/news/2018-11-23/babes-in-the-woods-murder-accused-claims-he-was-bullied-into-false-account/|archive-date=24 November 2018|access-date=23 August 2021}}

|Gary Wilson

|Deptford, London

|The body of 14-year-old Wilson was found in the yard of a derelict shop in Deptford in November 1978. He had been stabbed, strangled and sexually assaulted. A man was jailed for Wilson's murder in 1979 but released in 1995 after having his conviction ruled unsafe.{{Cite web|last=Mills|first=Heather|title=Man jailed for sex killing cleared after 16 years|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/man-jailed-for-sex-killing-cleared-after-16-years-1591293.html|website=The Independent|date=13 July 1995|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191230214359/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/man-jailed-for-sex-killing-cleared-after-16-years-1591293.html|archive-date=30 December 2019|access-date=30 December 2019}}

|Walter Taylor

|Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire

|Taylor, 17, was found dead on the Jubilee Playing Fields in Ashby shortly before Christmas 1978. He had been attacked with a piece of wood.{{Cite web|title=Sister's 'cold case' hope over brother's murder in 1978|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-19266812|website=BBC News|date=15 August 2012|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170318011512/https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-humber-19266812|archive-date=18 March 2017|access-date=15 August 2012}}

|Lynda Farrow

|Woodford Green, London

|Pregnant Farrow, a 29-year-old mother-of-two, had her throat slashed in her home in Whitehall Road, Woodford Green, on 19 January 1979. It is believed that she either ran into her home to answer her ringing phone, leaving the door open behind her, or knew her attacker and let him in willingly. Farrow's body was found by her two daughters. The only clues to the killer are a set of footprints in the snow outside the house and a white car seen leaving there at around 2:30 p.m.{{Cite web|title=Mother in appeal over 1979 murder|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7851695.stm|website=BBC News|date=27 January 2009|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090130030726/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/7851695.stm|archive-date=30 January 2009|access-date=23 April 2013}}{{Cite web|last=Evans|first=Holly|title=Murder of pregnant mum found by her own kids remains a mystery|url=https://www.mylondon.news/news/nostalgia/murder-stabbed-pregnant-mum-found-23888645|website=MyLondon|date=26 December 2022|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221226221846/https://www.mylondon.news/news/nostalgia/murder-stabbed-pregnant-mum-found-23888645.amp|archive-date=26 December 2022|access-date=15 November 2024}}

Events leading up to and following Farrow's murder were reconstructed on the BBC's Crimewatch in January 2009.{{Cite web|title=Crimewatch UK January 2009|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7iuYHMHM5k|website=YouTube|access-date=15 November 2024}} As of May of that year, police did not have a suspect's DNA profile, but links have been suggested between this case and the murders of Eve Stratford and Lynne Weedon.{{Cite magazine|last=Smith|first=David James|title=HER KILLER THINKS HE GOT AWAY WITH IT 30 YEARS AGO; This bunny girl's brutal murder was one of the most sensational unsolved crimes of the 1970s. Now, three decades on, is the net finally closing in on her killer? David James Smith investigates|url=http://davidjamessmith.net/pdf_articles/DJS_bunny_girl_killing.pdf|magazine=The Sunday Times Magazine|date=24 May 2009|page=30|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241115231108/http://davidjamessmith.net/pdf_articles/DJS_bunny_girl_killing.pdf|archive-date=15 November 2024|access-date=15 November 2024}}

|Sultan Mahmood

|Bradford, West Yorkshire

|Mahmood was a 31-year-old taxi driver, and it was believed by police that he was killed by members of a van-smuggling gang so they could resell his van in Pakistan. In 1983, a man already in jail for a different crime was put on trial for Mahmood's murder, but the trial collapsed when it was revealed that the two fellow prisoners he supposedly admitted to being the killer to had good reason to believe they would benefit from testifying against him. (Ahead of the hearing, one of the two men was told his charges would be wiped if he did so, the other that he would be given bail.) The case was reopened in 1994 when police received fresh information, but no breakthrough came from this lead.{{Cite web|last=Ross|first=Alex|title=Shocking 1979 murder of Sultan Mahmood stunned police|url=https://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/localbrad/17314173.shocking-1979-murder-sultan-mahmood-stunned-police/|website=Telegraph & Argus|date=21 December 2018|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181222082148/https://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/17314173.shocking-1979-murder-of-sultan-mahmood-stunned-police/|archive-date=22 December 2018|access-date=23 August 2020}}

|Joe Gallagher and Frieda Hunter

|Hyde, Greater Manchester

|Gallagher and Hunter were a young couple bludgeoned to death in the bedroom of their home on Hallbottom Street, Hyde. They had last been seen on Saturday 24 February, when 30-year-old Gallagher, a taxi driver, picked 20-year-old Hunter up from her evening shift as a barmaid at the Queens Hotel in Hyde town centre. This was four days before they were found dead. Both victims had been known to use cannabis (in Gallagher's case apparently for medicinal reasons, to ease pain experienced as a result of operations on a facial disfigurement present since birth) and Gallagher was said to have supplied it too, but no drug-related or other motive for the double murder has been established. The killer or killers appeared to have broken into the house through the rear kitchen window, and the bodies of the pair were discovered when a colleague of Gallagher's had become concerned about his whereabouts. A wage packet and a purse were empty and the couple had been battered with a hammer while in bed together, suggesting a late night or early morning break-in.{{Cite web|last=Keeling|first=Neal|title=Who bludgeoned to death the young lovers who were found entwined in each other's arms 37 years ago?|url=https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/who-bludgeoned-death-young-lovers-12067227|website=Manchester Evening News|date=23 October 2016|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210917154011/https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/who-bludgeoned-death-young-lovers-12067227|archive-date=17 September 2021|access-date=10 July 2024}}{{Cite web|last=Wieland|first=Gabriella|title=Who was the Hallbottom Street Hammer Killer? The story of Hyde's horrific unsolved double murder|url=https://themanc.com/feature/who-was-the-hallbottom-street-hammer-killer-the-story-of-hydes-horrific-unsolved-double-murder/|website=The Manc|date=22 January 2021|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240710185901/https://themanc.com/feature/who-was-the-hallbottom-street-hammer-killer-the-story-of-hydes-horrific-unsolved-double-murder/|archive-date=10 July 2024|access-date=10 July 2024}}

|Resham Kaur Dhillon

|Willenhall, West Midlands

|Dhillon, 49, was found strangled in her bedroom at her home on Fisher Street, Willenhall on 5 March 1979. Although a motive for her murder was not clear, it was believed that cash and gold were stolen. Anonymous letters received after Dhillon's death suggested a lead, but the case remains unsolved.{{Cite web|last=Richardson|first=Andy|title=The five women brutally murdered - but whose killers have never been brought to justice|url=https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/five-women-brutally-murdered-whose-15353307|website=Birmingham Live|date=4 November 2018|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201029190706/https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/five-women-brutally-murdered-whose-15353307|archive-date=29 October 2020|access-date=23 November 2019}}

|Carol Lannen

|Dundee

|Lannen, a part-time prostitute aged 18, was seen getting into a man's red estate car near Dundee city centre sometime after nightfall on 20 March 1979. Her naked body was discovered in Templeton Woods the next day, and the cause of death was asphyxiation. Similarities between the cases have led to speculation that Lannen's murder is linked to that of Elizabeth McCabe in 1980.{{Cite web|last=Strachan|first=Graeme|title=Deathbed confession last remaining hope to crack unsolved murder of Dundee mum|url=https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/dundee/839339/deathbed-confession-last-remaining-hope-to-crack-unsolved-murder-of-dundee-mum/|website=The Courier|date=11 March 2019|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190311111022/https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/local/dundee/839339/deathbed-confession-last-remaining-hope-to-crack-unsolved-murder-of-dundee-mum/|archive-date=11 March 2019|access-date=3 March 2020}}

|Henry Newman

|Ilford, London

|Park keeper Newman, 56, a father-of-three, was beaten to death with a metal crutch in a hut in Valentines Park, Ilford, on 22 March 1979. Police disclosed soon after his murder came to their attention that his £53 wage packet was missing as well.{{Cite news|last=Lucas|first=Norman|title=HORROR WEAPON OF THE PARK KILLER|work=Sunday Mirror|date=25 March 1979|page=9}} A male was prosecuted for the murder and then found not guilty.{{Cite web|title=Information on three murders in the London area|url=https://www.met.police.uk/cy-GB/foi-ai/metropolitan-police/d/march-2022/information-on-three-murders-in-the-london-area/|website=Metropolitan Police|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230618214034/https://www.met.police.uk/cy-GB/foi-ai/metropolitan-police/d/march-2022/information-on-three-murders-in-the-london-area/|archive-date=18 June 2023|access-date=18 June 2023}}

|Gordon Snowden

|Attacked in Sutton Bridge, Lincolnshire; died in hospital in King's Lynn, Norfolk{{Cite news|title=Attendant killed|work=The Birmingham Post|date=18 April 1979|page=5}}

|At around 2:00 a.m. on 17 April 1979 (the day after Easter Monday), 60-year-old Snowden, a petrol pump attendant at Sutton Bridge Motors, located on Bridge Road near Crosskeys Bridge, was found lying beside his kiosk with severe head injuries. A cash till had been stolen. Snowden later died in hospital from his injuries. Part of the investigation centred on trying to trace a Citroën 2CV seen on the garage forecourt shortly before the murder. The cold case remains one of Lincolnshire Police's few unsolved murders.{{Cite news|last=Fletcher|first=Nicholas|title=Four mysterious murders that remain unsolved|url=https://www.lincolnshirelive.co.uk/news/lincoln-news/four-mysterious-murders-remain-unsolved-69777|work=Lincolnshire Live|date=9 April 2017|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171025145614/https://www.lincolnshirelive.co.uk/news/lincoln-news/four-mysterious-murders-remain-unsolved-69777|archive-date=25 October 2017|access-date=13 March 2018}}{{Cite news|last=Norton|first=Emily|title=Lincolnshire's unsolved murder cases span 36 years|url=https://thelincolnite.co.uk/2015/03/lincolnshires-unsolved-murder-cases-span-36-years/|work=The Lincolnite|date=31 March 2015|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180313153659/https://thelincolnite.co.uk/2015/03/lincolnshires-unsolved-murder-cases-span-36-years/|archive-date=13 March 2018|access-date=13 March 2018}}

In the late 1990s, British serial contract killer John "Bruce" Childs from east London,{{Cite news|title=Psycho serial killer dubbed narcissistic told he will die behind bars|url=https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/psycho-serial-killer-dubbed-narcissistic-7703676|work=Mirror Online|date=6 April 2016|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160407215129/https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/psycho-serial-killer-dubbed-narcissistic-7703676|archive-date=7 April 2016|access-date=13 March 2018}} convicted of six killings in the 1970s, confessed to five more murders from his jail cell, claiming that the fifth victim was Snowden.{{Cite news|last=McGowan|first=Patrick|title=Serial killer admits five more murders|work=London Evening Standard|date=17 November 1998}}{{Cite news|last=Edwards|first=Jeff|title=The only way to make Childs laugh is start talking about killing people|url=http://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+only+way+to+make+Childs+laugh+is+start+talking+about+killing...-a060627740|work=The Mirror|date=17 November 1998|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305095128/http://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+only+way+to+make+Childs+laugh+is+start+talking+about+killing...-a060627740|archive-date=5 March 2016|access-date=13 March 2018}} Childs said he had killed Snowden with a cosh because he was afraid he would be recognised after dumping another murder victim's car in the nearby River Nene. Childs claimed that six months earlier, he and associate Henry (Harry) "Big H" Mackenney{{Cite news|last=Muir|first=Hugh|title=Murder case pair convicted on word of liar are cleared|url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/oct/31/ukcrime.hughmuir|work=The Guardian|date=30 October 2003|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140302153937/https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/oct/31/ukcrime.hughmuir|archive-date=2 March 2014|access-date=13 March 2018}}{{Cite news|title=Give whole lifers suicide option|url=https://www.standard.co.uk/news/give-whole-lifers-suicide-option-6946349.html|work=Evening Standard|date=14 January 2004|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180313165348/https://www.standard.co.uk/news/give-whole-lifers-suicide-option-6946349.html|archive-date=13 March 2018|access-date=13 March 2018}} had called at the filling station after murdering Ronald Andrews{{Cite web|title=Crime - Lambeth Magistrates' Court - Henry "Big H" Mackenney - London|url=http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-crime-lambeth-magistrates-court-henry-big-h-mackenney-london-107980159.html|website=Alamy|date=4 October 1979|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180313154423/http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-crime-lambeth-magistrates-court-henry-big-h-mackenney-london-107980159.html|archive-date=13 March 2018|access-date=13 March 2018}} and dumping his car in the River Nene. Fearing that Snowden would remember the two strangers after the car was recovered, Childs went back to secure his silence. He said: "I battered him to death with a cosh in his office and took the till to make it look like robbery. He was an old boy, and when I look back I'm sorry. But in those days I was ruthless about eliminating risks. It may sound silly, but I'm telling this now because I think that man might have relatives and I would like them to know the truth." However, Lincolnshire Police have confirmed that nobody has ever been charged in relation to the murder.

|Sean McGann

|Northampton

|15-year-old McGann visited his grandparents' home on 17 April and left between 5.30 and 6:00 p.m. to walk to a local funfair. He was found dead in an alleyway the day after, having been strangled, and investigators could not establish whether he had made it to the fair. A letter his family received in 1991 purported to contain important information about his killer but has not helped to progress the case.{{Cite web|title=Letter appeal in Sean McGann 1979 Northampton murder case|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-47948275|website=BBC News|date=16 April 2019|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190503164440/https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-47948275|archive-date=3 May 2019|access-date=24 March 2021}}

|Robert Exon

|Liverpool

|42-year-old Exon died after he was found stabbed on the landing of the 11th floor of Entwistle Heights in Edge Hill on the night of 17–18 April.{{Cite news|title=Tower murder|work=The Birmingham Post|date=19 April 1979|page=5}}

|Michael Baker

|Leeds

|A trespasser at Baker's place of employment killed the 28-year-old factory worker on 18 April 1979 by striking his head with a blunt instrument.{{Cite news|title=Brutal death at factory|work=The Birmingham Post|date=19 April 1979|page=17}}

|Blair Peach

|Southall, London

|The 33-year-old special needs teacher was involved in a mass demonstration against a National Front meeting in Southall on 23 April 1979. When police charged at protestors, he was struck on the head and died from his injuries. A report made public in 2010 concluded that Peach was 'almost certainly' killed by a riot police officer; in the same year the Scotland Yard commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, apologised to Peach's family.{{Cite web|last=Chaudhary|first=Vivek|title=Forty years on, Southall demands justice for killing of Blair Peach|url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/apr/21/southall-demands-justice-killing-of-blair-peach-1979|website=The Guardian|date=21 April 2019|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190903030337/https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/apr/21/southall-demands-justice-killing-of-blair-peach-1979|archive-date=3 September 2019|access-date=1 March 2020}}

|John Daniel

|Birmingham

|A 45-year-old garage mechanic who had been trying to persuade friends to lend him money, Daniel was killed on the evening of 1 May 1979 before being found in his car on wasteland in Balsall Heath by a police officer on patrol. He had been shot in the head by an unknown offender after telling people he had an appointment to keep.{{Cite news|title=SHOTGUN KILLER HUNTED|work=Liverpool Echo|date=2 May 1979|page=1}}{{Cite news|title=The man who kept a date with shotgun murderer|work=The Birmingham Post|date=19 May 1979|page=3}}

|Suzanne Lawrence

|Body not found

|14-year-old Lawrence vanished from Harold Hill, London, on 28 July 1979. Although her body has not been found, a murder inquiry was launched nonetheless, and in 1994 she was officially investigated by police as a possible victim of serial killer Robert Black.{{Cite book|last=Swinney|first=Chris|year=2015|title=Robert Black: The True Story of a Child Rapist and Serial Killer|publisher=R. J. Parker|page=114|isbn=978-1-517-62415-6}} Black regularly travelled along the A12, a road near where Lawrence disappeared, when he worked as a delivery driver.{{Cite book|last1=Wilson|first1=David|last2=Harrison|first2=Paul|year=2010|title=The Lost British Serial Killer|publisher=Sphere|location=London|pages=221–222|isbn=978-0-7515-4232-5}} Lawrence's case has also been speculatively linked to Peter Tobin.{{Cite web|title=Tobin house search finds no evidence of crime|url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/jul/29/search-peter-tobin-home-brighton|website=The Guardian|date=29 July 2010|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211221085843/https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/jul/29/search-peter-tobin-home-brighton|archive-date=21 December 2021|access-date=23 October 2022}}

|Eddie Cotogno

|Dumbarton

|Cotogno was the victim of a fatal hammer attack in his flat on 30 July 1979. A policeman on duty had his attention drawn to the flat by a fire there – a fire presumed to have been started by the murderer in order to get rid of forensic evidence. Because Angus Sinclair, who would eventually be exposed as a serial killer, had recently fallen out with Cotogno and was known by the police to have killed a seven-year-old girl when he was 16, it was not long before detectives were questioning him about the murder of the 63-year-old pornographer. Backed up by his wife, Sinclair gave them an alibi that they found satisfactory, but years later she claimed that he had not been with her at the time of Cotogno's death after all.{{Cite web|last=Hamilton|first=Jane|title=Porno king battered to death with hammer after falling out with World's End murderer|url=https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/porno-king-battered-death-hammer-22203793|website=Daily Record|date=17 June 2020|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200802090607/https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/porno-king-battered-death-hammer-22203793|archive-date=2 August 2020|access-date=26 September 2020}}

|Wendy Jenkins

|Bristol

|32-year-old Jenkins was seen talking to a smartly dressed man at the junction of Drummond Road and City Road in St Pauls, Bristol, at daybreak or thereabouts on 27 August 1979 (a Bank Holiday Monday). A labourer found her mutilated body on a building site about 27 hours later. The Yorkshire Ripper was officially a suspect in the early stages of the police investigation into the prostitute's murder.{{Cite web|last=Churchill|first=Laura|title=The Bristol prostitute murdered as the Yorkshire Ripper hunted red light districts|url=https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/bristol-prostitute-murdered-yorkshire-ripper-25329|website=Bristol Live|date=16 April 2017|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201020181907/https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/bristol-prostitute-murdered-yorkshire-ripper-25329|archive-date=20 October 2020|access-date=12 July 2020}}

|Alison Morris

|Ramsey, Essex

|The 25-year-old postgraduate of London's Royal Holloway College was stabbed repeatedly in the chest on the evening of 1 September 1979. Her body was found in a country lane by her father, who had gone out to search for her because she had not returned home after leaving to go for a walk in the woods.{{Cite web|last=Hore|first=James|title=Fresh appeal on 25-year-old murder|url=https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/21316323.fresh-appeal-25-year-old-murder/|website=East Anglian Daily Times|date=1 September 2004|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200130195629/https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/fresh-appeal-on-25-year-old-murder-1-65884|archive-date=30 January 2020|access-date=30 January 2020}}{{Cite web|title=Alison Morris|url=https://www.truecrimelibrary.com/crimearticle/alison-morris/|website=True Crime Library|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200211040529/https://www.truecrimelibrary.com/crimearticle/alison-morris/|archive-date=11 February 2020|access-date=17 March 2020}}

|John (a.k.a. Jack) Armstrong

|Stalling Down, near Cowbridge, South Wales

|On 5 October 1979, 58-year-old Armstrong set off in his taxi to pick up someone calling himself Williams and asking to be taken from Fairwater to Cowbridge. Armstrong's body was found three days later, {{convert|11|mi}} from where the taxi had been found abandoned at 6:00 p.m. on the day of that journey. He had been beaten around the head.{{Cite web|title=Police reopen murder cases|url=https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/police-reopen-murder-cases-2485682|website=Wales Online|date=23 May 2003|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200303230920/https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/police-reopen-murder-cases-2485682|archive-date=3 March 2020|access-date=3 March 2020}}

|Bedgebury Forest Woman

|Bedgebury Forest, Kent

|A mystery woman aged between 30 and 35 was found in Bedgebury Forest on 23 October 1979, having been beaten to death. The discovery led to a murder enquiry, but she was never identified. It was thought she had come from Eastern Europe and had had one child. She was white, about {{convert|5|ft|1|in}} tall, and of thin build, with brown eyes and dark brown shoulder-length straight hair. When found, she was wearing black shoes, a floral dress, and a black polo neck jumper. Police re-investigated the case in 1999, and in May 2000 a man from East Sussex stood trial for her murder but was acquitted after a four-week trial.{{Cite web|title=Driver not guilty of hitcher murder|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/778172.stm|website=BBC News|date=5 June 2000|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170825200821/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/778172.stm|archive-date=25 August 2017|access-date=23 April 2013}}{{Cite web|title=New appeal over 1979 forest death|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7056796.stm|website=BBC News|date=22 October 2007|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160110204136/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/7056796.stm|archive-date=10 January 2016|access-date=23 April 2013}}

|Sally Shepherd

|Peckham, London

|The 24-year-old restaurant manager from Peckham was clubbed, stamped on and sexually assaulted shortly after stepping off a bus during the early hours of 1 December 1979. Three rootless hairs from the scene of the crime are likely to be from the person who took her life, but forensic scientists will refrain from testing them until technology has advanced enough to make the chances of obtaining a full DNA profile from them higher.{{Cite web|last=Evans|first=Holly|title=South London woman raped and murdered before Indian takeaway dumped over body|url=https://www.mylondon.news/news/south-london-news/south-london-woman-raped-murdered-24722055|website=MyLondon|date=14 August 2022|url-status=live|archive-url=https://archive.today/20230227212317/https://www.mylondon.news/news/south-london-news/south-london-woman-raped-murdered-24722055|archive-date=27 February 2023|access-date=27 February 2023}}

|Peter Hennessey

|Kensington, London

|39-year-old Hennessey, landlord of the Dog & Bell pub in Deptford, was stabbed on 12 December 1979 while attending a boxing club dinner at Kensington's Royal Garden Hotel. Two men aged 23 and 49 were charged with his murder and then acquitted, and in November 1982, the older of those two men – Patrick O'Nione – himself became the victim of a murder that remains unsolved.{{Cite news|title=Man knifed to death at boxing gala|work=Daily Mirror|date=13 December 1979|page=11}}{{Cite news|title=Club dinner murder charge|work=The Journal|location=Newcastle|date=14 December 1979|page=1}}{{Cite news|title='Paddy Onions' killing sparks vendetta fear|work=News Letter|location=Belfast|date=2 December 1982|page=3}}