Norfolk headless body

Last updated
Norfolk headless body
Born19391951 (approximate)
Status Unidentified for 49 years, 7 months and 29 days
Diedc. First or second week of August 1974 (aged 2335)
Cause of death Murder
Body discovered27 August 1974
Swaffham, Norfolk, England
Resting placeSwaffham Cemetery, Swaffham, Norfolk, England [1]
Other names"The Duchess"
Known for Unidentified decedent
Height5 ft 0 in (1.52 m) to 5 ft 2 in (1.57 m)
ChildrenAt least 1
Position of Swaffham, Norfolk, near where the woman's body was found Cockley Cley, Norfolk, location.jpg
Position of Swaffham, Norfolk, near where the woman's body was found
Approximate position of Brake Hill Farm, near Swaffham (arrowed) Approximate position of Brake Hill Farm, Swaffham.jpg
Approximate position of Brake Hill Farm, near Swaffham (arrowed)
Brake Hill Drove, western end Brake Hill Drove - geograph.org.uk - 507406.jpg
Brake Hill Drove, western end

The Norfolk headless body case relates to a woman who was murdered around the first or second week of August 1974. Her decapitated body was found near Swaffham, Norfolk, England on 27 August 1974. Her head has never been found. Although the woman has never been identified, one theory being investigated is that she was a sex worker known as "The Duchess" who worked the Great Yarmouth docks under that pseudonym prior to her disappearance in mid-1974.

Contents

Death

The badly decomposed body of this woman was discovered on 27 August 1974 by a 19-year-old tractor driver named Andrew Head who had been out walking when he found the body on land belonging to Peter Roberts. Head later recalled: "I lifted one corner of the cover over the body and that was enough – I could see what it was. I went home and phoned the police." [2] The body was discovered near a track leading to Brake Hill Farm, Brandon Road, within Cockley Cley. [3] Combine harvesters were used to clear fields to allow them to be searched. [4]

Police believe the woman died in either the first or second week of August 1974. She was estimated to be aged between 23 and 35 [5] and 5 ft 0 in (1.52 m) to 5 ft 2 in (1.57 m) tall. [6] Her hands and legs were bound to her body [2] and she was wearing only a pink 1969 Marks & Spencer nightdress. [5] She had been decapitated [6] and her head has never been found. [7] Her body was wrapped in a plastic sheet embossed with the words National Cash Registers. [8] A collector in the United States identified the cover as being from a payroll machine and the exact model but the enquiry also established that thousands of the machines would have been made with many exported. [9]

With her body was a length of rope that was unusual in being made of four strands, rather than the more usual three or five strands. An expert told police that the composition of the rope "suggests it was made for use with agricultural machinery". Police traced the place of manufacture of the rope to Dundee in Scotland but the firms that made that type of rope have since ceased trading. [10]

The first murder enquiry into the death ran from 1974 to 1975 during which time police spoke to 15,000 people and took 700 statements. They completed 6,750 house-to-house questionnaires. [5]

In 2008, Norfolk Police exhumed the woman's body under Operation Monton and took a DNA sample but were unable to identify the woman. They established that she was right-handed, had probably given birth, [8] had consumed water found in Scotland and that fish and crabs formed an important part of her diet. [7] They have issued several appeals for information. In 2008, the case was featured on the BBC's Crimewatch programme. [8] In 2011, police made another appeal and identified 540 missing women as a result of fresh enquiries. [5] In 2016, the case featured on television again and twice in the online version of BBC News. [7] [10]

In 2009, police began to examine serial killer Peter Tobin's links to Norfolk via Operation Anagram, to determine whether he could have been involved in the case, or in any other unsolved murders in the county. [11]

Origins

After the woman's remains were exhumed in 2008, samples of her toenails, hair and thigh bone were subjected to DNA and isotopic analysis. A full DNA profile of the victim was obtained but there was no match with any database, but the independent isotopic analyses carried out by professor Wolfram Meier-Augenstein and another scientist, which looks at the traces left in the body from the water consumed during a person's lifetime, both indicated that she was probably from the central Europe area including Denmark, Germany, Austria and northern Italy. [5] [9]

Family

From a second post-mortem examination of the woman, Norfolk police learned that her pelvic girdle had widened which happens during pregnancy to allow a woman to give birth, indicating that she had likely borne at least one child in her lifetime. [5]

"The Duchess"

Following a call from a former police officer, after the case featured on Crimewatch in 2008, [9] Norfolk police were examining a theory that the woman is "The Duchess"; a sex worker who lived in Great Yarmouth docks and who disappeared in mid-1974 leaving all her possessions behind. "The Duchess" is believed to have arrived in the port town on the Esbjerg Ferry from Denmark. Her clients were often lorry drivers who travelled between Esbjerg and Yarmouth using the ferry, and she also sometimes accompanied drivers on deliveries across England. This woman is understood to have worked as an escort around Great Yarmouth in the mid 1970s. She was aged in her late 20s or early 30s, hailed from Denmark, and regularly travelled between East Anglia and Denmark in 197374. She had lived for four or five months in the dockers' hut at the Ocean terminal, [8] and is believed to have also spent time in custody, although contemporary records from this era have been destroyed, and thus the police still do not know this woman's real name. Furthermore, they cannot be sure that the dead woman was indeed "The Duchess". [10]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Disappearance of Suzy Lamplugh</span> 1986 disappearance of woman in London

Susannah Jane Lamplugh was a British estate agent reported missing on 28 July 1986 in Fulham, London, England, United Kingdom. She was officially declared dead, presumed murdered, in 1993. The last clue to Lamplugh's whereabouts was an appointment to show a house in Shorrolds Road to someone she called Mr. Kipper. The case remains unsolved.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cockley Cley</span> Village and civil parish in England

Cockley Cley is a village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. The village covers an area of 17.94 km2 (6.93 sq mi) and falls within the district of Breckland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murders of Eve Stratford and Lynne Weedon</span> British murder victims

The murders of Eve Stratford and Lynne Weedon, two young women from London, England, occurred in separate, sexually motivated attacks by the same unidentified individual during 1975. Stratford was a bunny girl and Weedon was a schoolgirl who was killed almost six months later, on the other side of London. After Weedon's cold case was re-opened in 2004, new DNA techniques revealed that she and Stratford had been murdered by the same person. Stratford's case was re-opened in 2007, but neither case has been solved. A £40,000 reward for information leading to the capture of the killer remains on offer.

Colette Aram was a 16-year-old British trainee hairdresser who was abducted, raped and strangled as she walked from her home to her boyfriend's house in Keyworth, Nottinghamshire, on 30 October 1983. The murder was the first case to be featured on the BBC television series Crimewatch when it began in June 1984. However, despite receiving over 400 calls as a result of the programme, Nottinghamshire Police were unable to catch the killer, and it was not until 2008 and following advances in forensic technology that police were able to develop a DNA profile of the suspect. Paul Stewart Hutchinson was finally charged with the murder in April 2009. He initially pleaded not guilty, but changed his plea to guilty on 21 December 2009 and was sentenced to life imprisonment on 25 January 2010. Following his sentencing, Crimewatch ran a recap of the murder and investigation on BBC TV on 27 January 2010 exposing several inaccuracies reported in the press about his background, notably a lie about being a psychology graduate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murder of Melanie Hall</span> British hospital clerk who disappeared in 1996 at Bath, Somerset, later found murdered

Melanie Hall was a British hospital clerical officer from Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire, who disappeared following a night out at Cadillacs nightclub in Bath. She was declared dead in absentia in 2004.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Tobin</span> Scottish serial killer (1946–2022)

Peter Britton Tobin was a Scottish convicted serial killer and sex offender who served a whole life order at HM Prison Edinburgh for three murders committed between 1991 and 2006. Police also investigated Tobin over the deaths and disappearances of other young women and girls.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murder of Joanna Yeates</span> 2010 event in the west of England

Joanna Clare Yeates was a landscape architect from Ampfield, Hampshire, England, who went missing from the flat she shared with her partner, in a large house in Clifton, Bristol, on 17 December 2010 after an evening out with colleagues. Following a highly publicised appeal for information on her whereabouts and intensive police enquiries, her body was discovered on 25 December 2010 in Failand, North Somerset. A post-mortem examination determined that she had been strangled.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murder of Sian O'Callaghan</span> 2011 murder in the United Kingdom

Sian Emma O'Callaghan was a 22-year-old British woman who disappeared from Swindon, Wiltshire, England, having last been seen at a nightclub in the town in the early hours of 19 March 2011. Her body was found on 24 March near Uffington in Oxfordshire. On 19 October 2012, at Bristol Crown Court, Christopher Halliwell, 48, of Nythe, Swindon pleaded guilty to O'Callaghan's murder.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murder of Ruth Marie Terry</span> Formerly unidentified murder victim

Ruth Marie Terry, also known as Lady of the Dunes, was a formerly unidentified murder victim found on July 26, 1974, in the Race Point Dunes in Provincetown, Massachusetts, United States. Her body was exhumed in 1980, 2000 and 2013 in efforts to identify her. On October 31, 2022, the FBI field office in Boston announced that Terry had been officially identified. Her husband, Guy Muldavin, was officially named as her killer on August 28, 2023.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph Naso</span> American serial killer on death row

Joseph Naso, also known as Crazy Joe or the Double Initial Killer, is an American serial killer and serial rapist sentenced to death for the murders of four women. He was also implicated in the murders of other women.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">St. Louis Jane Doe</span> Unidentified murder victim

The St. Louis Jane Doe is an unidentified girl who was found murdered in the basement of an abandoned apartment building on February 28, 1983 in St. Louis, Missouri. She has also been nicknamed "Hope", "Precious Hope", and the "Little Jane Doe." The victim was estimated to be between eight and eleven when she was murdered and is believed to have been killed via strangulation. She was raped and decapitated. The brutality of the crime has led to national attention.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murder of Deborah Linsley</span> 1988 English murder victim

On the afternoon of 23 March 1988, Deborah Linsley was murdered on a train between Petts Wood and London Victoria stations in Greater London. Although there were about 70 people on the train, and Linsley apparently fought and injured her attacker, only one passenger reported hearing anything suspicious. The killer has not been identified. Stored blood evidence from the scene allowed the case to be re-examined a decade later using DNA technology, and in 2002 it was re-opened with a major publicity campaign. A police reward is on offer.

The Nude in the Nettles is the name given by the media to the body of an unknown female found concealed under what was reportedly a nettle bush near Sutton Bank in North Yorkshire, England in 1981. The police were notified of the body’s location by an anonymous caller who claimed that he could not give his name for reasons of “national security”. Neither the identity of the woman nor that of the caller has ever been established despite an extensive investigation.

The Bedgebury Forest Woman refers to an unknown female whose body was found in Bedgebury Forest, Kent, England, on 23 October 1979. Despite multiple investigations, an arrest and a trial, the woman has never been identified.

Ann Heron was a British woman who was murdered on 3 August 1990 at her home in Darlington, County Durham, by an unidentified killer. The case was heavily featured in British media as well as on the BBC programme Crimewatch in October 1990, but her murder remains unsolved.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph Kappen</span> Welsh serial killer (1941–1990)

Joseph William Kappen, also known as the Saturday Night Strangler, was a Welsh serial killer who committed the rape and murder of three teenage girls in Llandarcy and Tonmawr, near his home town of Port Talbot, in 1973. Kappen is also suspected of committing a fourth murder in February 1976.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murders of Jacqueline Ansell-Lamb and Barbara Mayo</span> British murder victims

Jacqueline Susan Ansell-Lamb and Barbara Janet Mayo were two young women who were murdered in separate incidents in 1970. Both women were last seen hitch-hiking along motorways in England, and both were sexually assaulted before being strangled to death.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murders of Kate Bushell and Lyn Bryant</span> 1990s murders in England

The murders ofKate BushellandLinda "Lyn" Bryant, a 14-year-old schoolgirl and a 41-year-old woman, respectively, occurred in separate incidents of West Country, England. The events occurred in 15 November 1997 and 20 October 1998 respectively. The similar circumstances of the murders led investigators to conclude that there is a high possibility the murders are linked, with both killed with knives while walking dogs along isolated lanes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murder of Helen Gorrie</span> Unsolved UK murder and miscarriage of justice

On 1 August, 1992, Helen Gorrie, a 15-year-old British schoolgirl was found half-naked and strangled in the grounds of Merchistoun Hall in Horndean, Hampshire, after going out one night to meet a 21-year-old man named John Corcoran.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jemma Mitchell case</span> First British murderer to have their sentencing televised

Jemma Mitchell is an Australian-born English former osteopath who was sentenced to life imprisonment for the 2021 murder of her friend, Mee Kuen Chong. Mitchell killed Chong at the latter's home in Wembley, following a disagreement over the withdrawal of an offer of financial help to fund a property renovation. Mitchell put Chong's decapitated body in a suitcase and drove 200 miles (320 km) to Devon to dispose of it in woodland. The case is notable for being the first trial with a murder conviction in England and Wales to have its sentencing phase televised, and the first televised sentencing of a woman in the UK. At the sentencing hearing, which took place at the Old Bailey in London on 28 October 2022, Mitchell was sentenced by presiding judge Richard Marks KC to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 34 years.

References

  1. "Headless Cockley Cley victim reburied". 11 June 2008.
  2. 1 2 "Cockley Cley: Police exhume headless body". News. Lynn News . 29 May 2008. Archived from the original on 4 February 2018. Retrieved 4 November 2023.
  3. bbc.co.uk
  4. "Woman's headless body is found near farm track". The Times. London. 28 August 1974. p. 3.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "DNA could solve historic murder". Norfolk Constabulary . 25 January 2016. Archived from the original on 31 January 2016. Retrieved 1 February 2016.
  6. 1 2 Walsh, Peter (27 August 2011). "Cold case: Headless body found in Norfolk". Eastern Daily Press . Retrieved 25 January 2016.
  7. 1 2 3 Cawley, Laurence (25 January 2016). "England's unclaimed dead and the people trying to give them a name". BBC News . Retrieved 25 January 2016.
  8. 1 2 3 4 Coates, Liz (11 March 2010). "Is headless corpse Yarmouth's". News. Great Yarmouth Mercury . Archived from the original on 16 August 2018. Retrieved 4 November 2023.
  9. 1 2 3 Peachey, Paul (26 January 2016). "Headless corpse discovered in Norfolk 40 years ago 'could be sex worker known as "the Duchess"'". The Independent . Retrieved 21 February 2016.
  10. 1 2 3 "Norfolk headless body inquiry finds missing women". BBC News. 24 January 2016. Retrieved 25 January 2016.
  11. "Killer Tobin's Norfolk links probed". Great Yarmouth Mercury. 24 December 2009.