Murder of Patsy Morris

Patricia Morris was a blonde 14-year-old schoolgirl born to George Morris, a retired army chief, and Marjorie Morris.{{sfn|Wansell|2011}} She had moved with her family from Birmingham to Isleworth, South West London, in 1979. She attended Feltham Comprehensive School with her sister and two brothers.{{sfn|Wansell|2011}}

{{Infobox News event

| title = Murder of Patsy Morris

| date = 16 June 1980

| time =

| place = Hounslow Heath, London

| cause = Strangulation

| image = Hounslow Heath - geograph.org.uk - 108662.jpg

| coordinates = {{coord|51.45820648957538|-0.3928801137227636|display=inline, title}}

| caption = Hounslow Heath, where Morris was found dead

| image_size = 200

}}

On 16 June 1980, Morris disappeared, having been seen leaving her school during her lunch break.{{sfn|Wansell|2011}} It was believed Morris left school because she had forgotten her raincoat that morning, choosing to return home to change into dry clothes.{{cite web |title=Levi Bellfield: Getting Away with Murder? |url=https://www.channel5.com/show/levi-bellfield-getting-away-with-murder |website=My5 |publisher=Channel 5 |access-date=5 February 2022 |format=Television documentary |date=2021}} This is reportedly what she told her friends she was going to do, and a family friend and neighbour confirmed that she had not taken her coat to school and had gotten soaked as a result.{{cite news |title=Patsy broke rule - never walk alone on heath |work=Liverpool Echo |date=19 June 1980 |page=3}} The neighbour stated that Morris had probably tried to come home without realising that she had left her key at home, and that when she realised she would be unable to get in had probably tried to walk over the heath to Calvary Barracks, where her parents worked, so she could get a key from them. One source instead states that she had a double history lesson scheduled for that afternoon which she often avoided attending, and so played truant for the rest of the school day, although it is not clear what evidence there is for this claim.{{sfn|Clark|Tate|2015|p=289}}

A witness recalled seeing Morris soon after noon near her home.{{sfn|Clark|Tate|2015|p=289}} Another witness recalled seeing a girl who may have been Morris crouching at a bus stop on the Hounslow Heath side of Staines Road, just west of the Hussar public house between 12:20 p.m. and 12:40 p.m.{{sfn|Clark|Tate|2015|p=289}} These were the last sightings of her alive.{{sfn|Clark|Tate|2015|p=289}} After she was reported missing a large search operation was launched to find her, involving hundreds of police officers, helicopters and members of the public who had volunteered to help.

File:Hussar, Hounslow, TW4 (7920763260).jpg

Two days later, on the evening of 18 June, Morris's body was found by a police dog handler on Hounslow Heath. She was discovered face down in a copse beside a path on the edge of the Heath, at a location a quarter of a mile from her home in Cygnet Avenue.{{cite news |title=Girl's Body is Found on Heath |work=The Telegraph |date=19 June 1980}}{{cite news |title=Body found |work=The Guardian |date=19 June 1980 |page=26}}{{cite news |last1=Darbyshire |first1=Robin |title=Brutal murder of Hounslow girl Patsy Morris remains a mystery almost 40 years on |url=https://www.mylondon.news/news/west-london-news/brutal-murder-hounslow-girl-patsy-16241597 |access-date=5 February 2022 |work=MyLondon |date=9 May 2019}}{{sfn|Clark|Tate|2015|p=289}}{{cite news |title=Horror Killing on the Heath |work=Daily Mirror |date=19 June 1980 |page=5}} The place she was found was just a five minute walk from her home, and was on the route between her home and her father's workplace at Calvary Barracks. She was found fully-clothed. She had been found ten yards from a path through one of the small woods.{{sfn|Clark|Tate|2015|p=289}} She had been strangled with a ligature. For an unknown reason, police found that she had been wearing two pairs of knickers that day.{{sfn|Clark|Tate|2015|p=289}} There were no signs of sexual assault.{{sfn|Clark|Tate|2015|pp=289-290}}

File:Staines Road, Hounslow (geograph 3718207 by David Howard).jpgPolice released a public statement after the death, warning parents in west London not to let their children cross Hounslow Heath alone. Morris' mother said that she had no reason to be on Hounslow Heath, stating to the press: "We can't understand what she was doing on the heath. She was always told not to go there and never disobeyed our orders."{{cite news |title=Murder warning |work=The Guardian |date=20 June 1980}} Attacks on women and even deaths were not unknown in the area, but previous attacks had invariably involved the full rape of the victim.{{sfn|Clark|Tate|2015|p=290}}

The police questioned Morris's classmates in an attempt to find out what her final movements had been.{{cite news |title=Murdered girl's friends quizzed |work=Reading Evening Post |date=20 June 1980 |page=1}} On 22 June, 4 days after she was found dead, a detective on the investigative team told the press that they felt another youngster playing truant could hold key information on the murder.{{cite news |title=Murder hunt cops in plea to truants |work=The People |date=22 June 1980 |page=4}} Soon after Morris was found dead, her father received a phoned death threat from an unidentified teenage boy.{{cite news |last1=Edwards |first1=Richard |title=Bouncer 'Confessed to Murder of Schoolgirl' |work=The Telegraph |date=28 February 2008}} The call was from a local caller with a local sounding voice.{{sfn|Wansell|2011}}

In December 1980, the police appealed for a mysterious driver of a blue van with a radio telephone to come forward.{{cite news |title=Calling the radio man |work=Sunday Mirror |date=7 December 1980 |page=21}} The man was seen using a telephone handset in his van near the home of Morris around the time of her murder, and detectives said that he could have seen something that would help the investigation. By this point police had only managed to trace 9 out of 22 people who played golf on the course next to where Morris was found, and detectives also appealed for their help to trace a {{nowrap|5 ft 10 in}} man who had dark greying hair and who was wearing a dark suit. Police investigations at the time drew a blank and the murderer was not apprehended.

In 1996 the case was re-opened and police arrested a man from Hounslow.{{cite news |title=Murder arrest |work=The Times |date=9 July 1996}}{{cite news |last1=Hatter |first1=Anthony |title=Who did kill Patsy? |work=Middlesex Chronicle |date=11 July 1996 |page=1}} The police were acting on new information on the murder and raided the suspect's house at dawn on 8 July of that year. The man, who was arrested at Hounslow bus depot, was then 33 years old, meaning he would have been 17 at the time of the murder in 1980. He was released on bail but was re-interviewed in August. In October the man was released from police custody again on bail, and it was reported that police had applied for permission to charge the suspect from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).{{cite news |title=Unsolved 16 year murder: Suspect is released |work=Middlesex Chronicle |date=3 October 1996 |page=11}} However, the CPS decided not to prosecute the man.

In 2007, Morris's murder was one of a number of cases linked in the press to newly discovered Scottish serial killer Peter Tobin, who was found to have killed three women between 1991 and 2006.{{cite news |last1=Edwards |first1=Richard |title=Has Tobin Left More Bodies Waiting to Be Found? |work=The Telegraph |date=19 November 2007}} After hearing of the discovery of two women's bodies buried at Tobin's former Margate home, George Morris said that something inside him "clicked" and that he believed Tobin had also murdered his daughter.{{cite news |last1=Britten |first1=Nick |last2=Adams |first2=Stephen |title=Father's Anger Erupts as Drifter Faces Court over Daughter's … |work=The Telegraph |date=16 November 2007}} Her case was reviewed as part of an investigation into other potential victims of Tobin, named Operation Anagram, but Morris's family heard no more from the police and the investigation was wound down in 2011, having found no evidence that conclusively linked Tobin to any other murders.{{cite news |title=Peter Tobin police probe Operation Anagram 'wound down' |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-13717063 |access-date=5 February 2022 |work=BBC News |date=9 June 2011}}

In February 2008, police revealed they were investigating a possible confession to the murder made by Levi Bellfield, an Isleworth-born killer who lived nearby at the time and who had just been convicted of two murders and an attempted murder. The attacks had been committed between 2003 and 2004 in the vicinity of the Morris murder site. He was said to have been obsessed with the murder when it occurred and remained 'fascinated' by the unsolved killing.{{cite news |last1=Hamilton |first1=Fiona |last2=Simpson |first2=John |title=Milly's killer has been 'singing like a canary' |url=https://www.thetimes.com/best-law-firms/profile-legal/article/millys-killer-has-been-singing-like-a-canary-986xzcftgpr |access-date=9 July 2022 |work=The Times |date=28 January 2016}}{{cite book |last1=Appleyard |first1=Nick |title=Life Means Life. Jailed Forever: True Stories of Britain's Most Evil Killers |date=2009 |publisher=John Blake |isbn=9781843589617 |chapter=Chapter 5}} Bellfield was alleged to have made the confession to a cellmate while on remand. It was then revealed that Bellfield had attended Feltham Comprehensive with Morris, and that he was her childhood boyfriend.{{cite news |title=Milly calls uncover 97 new leads |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/surrey/7268759.stm |access-date=5 February 2022 |work=BBC News |date=28 February 2008}} Morris's family told the press that they had not known they had known each other, and her sister stated: "We did not know him. It was a shock when we found out they knew each other. Friends told us about it. It is horrendous."{{cite news |last1=Moore-Bridger |first1=Benedict |title=Was Patsy his first victim when she was just 12? |url=https://www.standard.co.uk/hp/front/was-patsy-his-first-victim-when-she-was-just-12-6675485.html |access-date=5 February 2022 |work=Evening Standard |date=12 April 2012}} In 2011, Bellfield was further convicted of the murder of another schoolgirl, Milly Dowler, whom he had abducted and raped in 2002.

Bellfield would have been 12 years old at the time of Morris's murder, which occurred a year before he received his first conviction, for burglary, at the age of 13.{{cite news |last1=Davies |first1=Caroline |title=Levi Bellfield: obsessed with schoolgirls and sexual violence |url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/jun/24/levi-bellfield-profile-milly-dowler |access-date=5 February 2022 |work=The Guardian |date=24 June 2011}} He is known to have repeatedly played truant during his schooldays and was known to frequent Hounslow Heath often when he should have been at school. He is also known to have not attended school on the day of the murder. Former partners of Bellfield recounted that he had a hatred of blonde women and targeted them for attacks, and it was noted that Morris was herself blonde.{{cite news |last1=Mansoor |first1=Sarfraz |title=The murderer in our midst |url=https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2009/jan/30/family-levi-bellfield |access-date=5 February 2022 |work=The Guardian |date=30 January 2009}} Some have claimed that Morris's death could have been the start of Bellfield's violent obsession with blondes.

After it was revealed that Bellfield was being investigated by police for his daughter's murder, George Morris stated that he was certain that the teenage boy who had given him a death threat in a call at the time was Bellfield, saying: "He's a local man, which is why it could be him. And it's terrifying to think that someone of twelve or thirteen could have done it."{{sfn|Wansell|2011}}

{{Main|Murders of Eve Stratford and Lynne Weedon}}

{{Location map many | United Kingdom London Hounslow

| caption = Locations of the murders of Weedon, Parravincina and Morris in the London Borough of Hounslow

| width = 300

| float = right

| label = Murder of Patsy Morris, 1980

| pos = bottom

| bg1 = yellow

| label_size = 100

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| coordinates = {{coord|51.45887027798098| -0.3920956070372829}}

| label2 = Murder of Lynne Weedon, 1975

| pos2 = top

| bg2 = yellow

| label2_size = 100

| mark2size = 12

| coordinates2 = {{coord|51.47786300578841|-0.36726403854866313}}

| label3 = Murder of Elizabeth Parravincina, 1977

| pos3 = centre-right

| bg3 = yellow

| label3_size = 100

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Immediately after Morris's murder, it was noted in the press that she was the third female to be murdered in the area in the previous 5 years, following the murders of 16-year-old schoolgirl Lynne Weedon in 1975 and 27-year-old woman Elizabeth Parravincina in 1977.

In addition to links between these murders being suggested, Morris's case has also been speculatively linked to the murder of model Eve Stratford. Because the murderer of Weedon has been proven with DNA to have been the killer of Stratford too, meaning any links between Weedon's and Morris's murders would mean the killer killed all three (as well as possibly Parravincina).{{sfn|Clark|Tate|2015}}

According to a 2015 book by Chris Clark and Tim Tate, Morris was tied up in a fashion similar to Stratford, with one leg of a pair of tights also being used to tie her hands behind her back and one of the legs being similarly tied around her ankle.{{sfn|Clark|Tate|2015|p=290}} Along with the murder of Morris, Weedon and Parravincina cases remain unsolved, as does the murder of Stratford.{{sfn|Clark|Tate|2015}}

With Bellfield having not been charged with Morris's murder, it was reported in 2012 that he may have been ruled out as a suspect.{{cite AV media |title=His name is Evil: Levi Bellfield |author=Evil Up Close |publisher=Crime+ Investigation |date=2012}} However, in 2016 it was reported that links between Bellfield and other crimes had been reinvestigated after new information had been found, and that Morris's case could have been one of around 20 crimes believed to have been committed by Bellfield that police had questioned him on.{{cite news |title=Levi Bellfield: Police find 'no link' to other crimes |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-37926858 |access-date=5 February 2022 |work=BBC News |date=9 November 2016}} Police subsequently announced that all lines of enquiry had been exhausted and no evidence had been found to link him to any other unsolved crime. Morris's murder remains unsolved. Both of her parents have since died.

{{Main|Chris Clark (writer)}}

In 2015, crime writers Chris Clark and Tim Tate published a book alleging links between a number of unsolved murders and the infamous "Yorkshire Ripper" serial killer Peter Sutcliffe.{{sfn|Clark|Tate|2015}} In the book, the authors claimed that Morris could have been a victim of Sutcliffe, since he was believed to have been house-sitting nearby in Alperton with his brother at the time, and both were regularly cruising and picking up women in their cars for sex.{{sfn|Clark|Tate|2015|p=288}} They also claimed that Morris was found half-naked and that her clothing had been arranged in a typical Yorkshire Ripper-like fashion, with her clothes pushed upwards over the top half of her body.{{sfn|Clark|Tate|2015|p=289}} Clark and Tate further alleged that her knickers and her tights had been pulled down over her ankles.{{sfn|Clark|Tate|2015|p=289}}

A second pair of tights with one leg missing was tied around her leg, they state, and wound upwards until it was knotted four times around her neck, as a form of ligature.{{sfn|Clark|Tate|2015|p=289}} According to the writers an identical pair of one-legged tights was also wrapped three times around both her wrists in front of her body and then over her breasts.{{sfn|Clark|Tate|2015|p=289}} It was asserted that her body was allegedly also posed in the same fashion as Sutcliffe's known victims.{{sfn|Clark|Tate|2015|pp=289-290}} For Clark and Tate, her knickers being pulled down and her clothing supposedly being organised in the way it was suggested a sexual motive to the killing, and indicated the perpetrator had found sexual stimulation without penetration.{{sfn|Clark|Tate|2015|p=290}}

Police have apparently never investigated links to Sutcliffe.{{sfn|Clark|Tate|2015|p=290}}

Clark and Tate also, however, claimed that the person who killed Morris also killed Eve Stratford, Lynne Weedon and Elizabeth Parravincina, and that this person was Sutcliffe.{{sfn|Clark|Tate|2015}} This is despite the fact that the DNA profile of the killer is known in the Stratford and Weedon cases, and police are known to already have a copy of Sutcliffe's DNA and have been able to rule him out of unsolved murders as a result, such as in the Lesley Molseed case.{{cite news |title=Man held over 1975 child murder |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bradford/6118544.stm |access-date=15 March 2022 |work=BBC News |date=6 November 2006}}{{cite news |last1=Fletcher |first1=James |title=Ripper Sutcliffe is DNA tested |work=Daily Record |date=17 December 1997}}{{cite web |last1=Brannen |first1=K |title=Other Yorkshire Ripper Victims? |url=https://www.execulink.com/~kbrannen/otherv.htm |website=Yorkshire Ripper website |access-date=14 March 2022}} Upon Sutcliffe's death in 2020, Clark submitted a Freedom of Information request to the Home Office, asking if Sutcliffe's DNA was on the national DNA database.{{cite web |title=DNA of Peter Sutcliffe Deceased |url=https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/dna_of_peter_sutcliffe_deceased#incoming-1686929 |website=WhatDoTheyKnow |access-date=27 March 2022 |format=Freedom of Information request |date=2020}} The Home Office confirmed that it was, indicating that Sutcliffe can be ruled out of unsolved murder cases in which there is existing DNA evidence, such as in the Stratford and Weedon cases. Notably, the murders of Stratford and Weedon, as well as the cases of Parravincina and Morris, subsequently did not feature in the 2022 ITV documentary based on Clark and Tate's book.{{cite web |title=Yorkshire Ripper: The Secret Murders |url=https://www.itv.com/hub/yorkshire-ripper-the-secret-murders/10a0680a0001 |website=ITV Hub |publisher=ITV |access-date=13 March 2022 |date=23 February 2022}}

Morris's murder has featured in a number of documentaries about Bellfield, such as the 2012 documentary His name is Evil: Levi Bellfield which was shown on Crime + Investigation as part of the Evidence of Evil series. Her murder is also discussed in the 2021 Channel 5 documentary Levi Bellfield: Getting away with Murder?, featuring an interview with Jeff Edwards, the chief crime correspondent at the Daily Mirror at the time.

In 2011, crime writer Geoffrey Wansell released a book on Bellfield that also suggested possible links between him and Morris's murder, titled: The Bus Stop Killer: Milly Dowler, Her Murder and the Full Story of the Sadistic Serial Killer Levi Bellfield.{{sfn|Wansell|2011}} Wansell speculated that the murder could have been as a result of her rejecting Bellfield and him becoming infuriated as a result.{{sfn|Wansell|2011}} Chris Clark and Tim Tate's book which suggested links between Peter Sutcliffe and Morris's death was published by John Blake publishing in 2015.{{sfn|Clark|Tate|2015}} ITV filmed a documentary based on the book titled Yorkshire Ripper: The Secret Murders which was shown in February 2022, although the murder of Morris was notably not featured (alongside the discredited theory linking the murders of Stratford, Weedon and Parravincina to Sutcliffe).

• List of solved missing person cases
• List of unsolved murders in the United Kingdom
• Murder of Helen Gorrie – similar unsolved UK murder
• Murders of Eve Stratford and Lynne Weedon – cases which have been linked to Morris' murder
• Murder of Lindsay Rimer – unsolved 1994 case of a British child who disappeared from Yorkshire and who was found dead in a nearby canal one year later
• David Smith – convicted rapist who was living in the area at the time of the murder, later convicted of murder
• Colin Campbell – murdered two young women nearby in west London in sexually-motivated attacks, also in the early 1980s

{{reflist}}

• [https://www.channel5.com/show/levi-bellfield-getting-away-with-murder 2021 Channel 5 documentary that features a section on the murder of Patsy Morris (04:14-07:10)]

• {{cite book |last1=Clark |first1=Chris |last2=Tate |first2=Tim |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 |date=2015 |publisher=John Blake |location=London |isbn=978-1-78418-418-6}}
• {{cite book |last1=Wansell |first1=Geoffrey |title=The Bus Stop Killer: Milly Dowler, Her Murder and the Full Story of the Sadistic Serial Killer Levi Bellfield |date=2011 |publisher=Penguin |location=UK |isbn=978-0241952818}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Morris, Patsy}}

Category:1980 crimes

Category:1980 in London

Category:1980s missing person cases

Category:1980 murders in the United Kingdom

Category:1980s murders in London

Category:Child murder in England

Category:Deaths by person in London

Category:Female murder victims

Category:Formerly missing British people

Category:History of the London Borough of Hounslow

Category:Incidents of violence against girls

Category:June 1980 in the United Kingdom

Category:Missing person cases in London

Category:Unsolved murders in London

Category:Violence against children in London