Keith Lyon was a British schoolboy who was murdered in 1967 while walking alone on the South Downs. [1] The murderer has never been identified and no charges have ever been made. [2] [3] The murder investigation that took place following the murder has been described as one of the biggest to have ever taken place in Sussex. [3]
Keith Lyon was 12 years old when he was murdered. [1] Lyon attended Brighton, Hove and Sussex Grammar School and was a gifted classical musician. [4] His parents were Valda and Ken Lyon, the latter of whom was a band leader in Brighton. [2] He had a younger brother, named Peter, [2] who was 7 at the time of the murder. [5] The family lived in the village of Ovingdean. [2]
On Saturday 6 May 1967 [1] Lyon left his house after 2 pm [6] to walk to Woodingdean on his own to buy a geometry set. [2] Lyon was walking along a bridleway that links the villages of Ovingdean and Woodingdean, in an area called Happy Valley near Brighton. [4] Keith was wearing his school uniform even though it was a Saturday. [4] At approximately 3 pm (about 45 minutes after leaving his home) Lyon was attacked and stabbed to death. [6]
At 4:15pm a 16 year old girl discovered the body while walking her dog. [1] The body was found in a location that overlooks the English Channel and is above the private girls school Roedean. [2] The body was discovered under some bushes [1] on a grassy bank. [3] and it appeared to have been thrown from the bridleway down the hill. [2] The girl ran back to Woodingdean to fetch the police who arrived quickly and cordoned off the area. [6]
Lyon had been stabbed 11 times in his front and back. [4] Lyon’s pockets had been turned out and his 4 shilling pocket money and keys were missing. [1] [2] Later that day Ken Lyon was preparing to perform at the Metropole Hotel in Brighton when he was notified of the death of his son. [7]
A few days after the murder a steak knife with a white handle was found in the grounds of a school around a mile away. [4] Evidence was also discovered that someone had cleaned blood off themselves at a nearby public toilet. [1] The blood was found to be Lyon’s. [8] Two female witnesses reported seeing four boys fighting near some bushes on the bridleway on the afternoon of the murder at a time prior to the discovery. [2] A bus driver reported that on the day of the murder he noticed that two youths on his bus, that was travelling to Whitehawk, were in a visibly agitated state. [2]
The murder investigation that took place following the murder has been described as one of the biggest to have ever taken place in Sussex. [3] 75,000 house-to-house inquiries were made and 2000 school children were interviewed. [2] The police took the fingerprints of over 5000 teenagers in the area. Despite there being a number of suspects no charges were ever made. [3]
In 2002 the murder weapon and other items associated with the case were rediscovered in the basement of the Brighton police station. [3] The other items included a cigarette butt, clothes and a blood stained tissue. [7] Following this rediscovery, two men were arrested. However, they were released on bail and after four months the police confirmed that they were no longer suspects. [8]
In 2006 it was announced that police were looking for a family that emigrated to Canada with their teenage son shortly after the murder. [3]
Brighton is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove. Located on the south coast of England, in the county of East Sussex, it is 47 miles (76 km) south of London.
Brighton and Hove is a city and unitary authority in East Sussex, England. It consists primarily of the settlements of Brighton and Hove, alongside neighbouring villages.
Richard Coates is an English linguist. He was Professor of Linguistics at the University of the West of England, Bristol, now emeritus. From 1977 to 2006 he taught at the University of Sussex, where he served as Professor of Linguistics (1991–2006) and as Dean of the School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences (1998–2003). From 1980–9 he was assistant secretary and then secretary of the Linguistics Association of Great Britain. He was honorary director of the Survey of English Place-Names from 2003 to 2019, having previously (1997–2002) served as president of the English Place-Name Society which conducts the Survey, resuming this role in 2019. From 2002 to 2008, he was secretary of the International Council of Onomastic Sciences, a body devoted to the promotion of the study of names, and elected as one of its two vice-presidents from 2011–17. He was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1992 and of the Royal Society of Arts in 2001.
Brian Mark Blackwell is a British man who, aged 18 years old, killed his parents by stabbing and beating them with a carving knife and claw hammer in their home near Liverpool, England on 25 July 2004.
Rottingdean is a village in the city of Brighton and Hove, on the south coast of England. It borders the villages of Saltdean, Ovingdean and Woodingdean, and has a historic centre, often the subject of picture postcards.
The Brighton trunk murders were two murders linked to Brighton, England, in 1934. In each, the body of a murdered woman was placed in a trunk. The murders are not believed to have any connection with each other aside from how they were carried out, and the first of the two victims remains unidentified; a suspect was arrested and tried for the second murder but was found not guilty.
Woodingdean is an eastern suburb of the city of Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, separated from the main part of the city by downland and the Brighton Racecourse. The name Woodingdean came from Woodendean Farm which was situated in the south end of what is now Ovingdean.
Ovingdean is a small, formerly agricultural, village in the east of Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, England.
The Manningham riot was a short but intense period of racial rioting which took place from 9–11 June 1995, in the district of Manningham in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England.
The Big Lemon is a bus and coach operator in Brighton, East Sussex. It is registered as a Community Interest Company.
St Wulfran's Church, dedicated to the 7th-century French archbishop Wulfram of Sens, is an Anglican church in Ovingdean, a rural village now within the English city of Brighton and Hove. Parts of the structure date from the early 12th century, and the church is listed at Grade I, a designation used for buildings "of outstanding architectural or historic interest".
Ovingdean Hall School (OHS) was a special day and boarding secondary school for the severely and profoundly deaf children and young people including those with additional special needs. It closed in July 2010.
The Tottenham Mandem were an organised street gang based in Tottenham, North London, that began on the Broadwater Farm estate prior to the Broadwater Farm riot in 1985. One of the early members and later leader Mark Lambie was a suspect in the murder of PC Keith Blakelock during that riot. Lambie had been top of Operation Trident's wanted list due to the close links he had built with gangs in Wembley, Harlesden and south London. He was jailed in 2002. During the 90s, TMD was one of the largest gangs in North East London and controlled much of the drug markets in the area.
Ovingdean Grange is a Grade II listed manor house situated on the south coast of England in the village of Ovingdean, east of Brighton. One of the oldest and most historical residences in Brighton, it gave its name to the novel Ovingdean Grange by the popular 19th-century writer William Harrison Ainsworth.
Newmarket Hill is situated in the parish of Kingston near Lewes. It is located midway between, and within walking distance of, two of the most important population centres in East Sussex, Brighton and Lewes.
The Babes in the Wood Murders were the murders of two nine-year-old girls, Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway, on 9 October 1986, by a 20-year-old local roofer, Russell Bishop in Wild Park, Moulsecoomb, Brighton, England. Bishop was tried and acquitted in 1987. The case remained open until 10 December 2018, when Bishop was found guilty of the murders in a second trial. The investigation into the two girls' murders is the largest and longest-running inquiry ever conducted by Sussex Police.
Elsie Frost, a 14-year-old school-girl was killed in an underpass beneath a railway line near to Wakefield, West Riding of Yorkshire, England, on 9 October 1965. Despite a massive manhunt and national coverage, there has been no successful conviction of anyone responsible for her death. In 2015, after pressure from Elsie's family, West Yorkshire Police re-opened the case, and then, in March 2018 the primary suspect died.
St Mary's Hall,Brighton, Sussex, England, was an independent secondary girls' school from 1836 to 2009.
Vishal Mehrotra was an 8-year-old boy who was abducted from Putney, London on 29 July 1981. Vishal's partial remains were discovered 25 February 1982 on an isolated farm in Sussex. The killers were never identified and no one has ever been charged with his murder.
EncroChat was a Europe-based communications network and service provider used primarily by organized crime members to plan criminal activities. Police infiltrated the network between at least March and June 2020 during a Europe-wide investigation. An unidentified source associated with EncroChat announced on the night of 12–13 June 2020 that the company would cease operations because of the police operation.