Richie_Rich__
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Could there have been a serial killer operating in Cardiff and South Wales during the blackout and post-war period?
There are several unsolved murders from around that time, with some parallels.
September, 1939: Four year old Joyce Cox was strangled to death in Cardiff. Her body was dumped on a railway embankment. It has been suggested that the prime suspect died in the 1950s.
Joyce's younger age is a key difference to the later cases, which could rule her out from any link. But the next two are very similar.
In November, 1943: Mabel Harper, a 53-year-old widow, was strangled and brutally beaten as she walked home on Western Avenue, Cardiff.
In December, 1943: Alice Daisy Pittman was strangled to death with her own stockings. A work colleague, David Emlyn Hughes, was charged with her murder, but was found not guilty at a trial. It seems police never linked her murder with the Mabel Harper case. Why? Were there so sure that the man found not guilty at trial was responsible, or did it get missed due to the constraints of policing during the war, with wartime duties taking priority and inexperienced officers filling in for others who had perhaps joined the forces?
There were other cases further afield too, in November 1943, just five days after Mabel Harper was murdered, Norah Bartlett, aged 33, was strangled to death in Swansea. She had been last seen with an American soldier, who has never been traced.
Could any of these murders be linked? Is it possible that a serial killer murdered two or more of these victims?
Could the same American soldier be responsible for several of the murders? Or could it have been someone more local, perhaps a serial killer who was caught later and never confessed to his earlier murders, or someone like the notorious Welsh child killer Harold Jones, who was released from prison in 1941 and has been suggested as the possible identity of "Jack the Stripper", nickname of the killer responsible for the Hammersmith Nude Murders in the 1960s?
I'd be very interested in hearing what other people think
There are several unsolved murders from around that time, with some parallels.
September, 1939: Four year old Joyce Cox was strangled to death in Cardiff. Her body was dumped on a railway embankment. It has been suggested that the prime suspect died in the 1950s.
Joyce's younger age is a key difference to the later cases, which could rule her out from any link. But the next two are very similar.
In November, 1943: Mabel Harper, a 53-year-old widow, was strangled and brutally beaten as she walked home on Western Avenue, Cardiff.
In December, 1943: Alice Daisy Pittman was strangled to death with her own stockings. A work colleague, David Emlyn Hughes, was charged with her murder, but was found not guilty at a trial. It seems police never linked her murder with the Mabel Harper case. Why? Were there so sure that the man found not guilty at trial was responsible, or did it get missed due to the constraints of policing during the war, with wartime duties taking priority and inexperienced officers filling in for others who had perhaps joined the forces?
There were other cases further afield too, in November 1943, just five days after Mabel Harper was murdered, Norah Bartlett, aged 33, was strangled to death in Swansea. She had been last seen with an American soldier, who has never been traced.
Could any of these murders be linked? Is it possible that a serial killer murdered two or more of these victims?
Could the same American soldier be responsible for several of the murders? Or could it have been someone more local, perhaps a serial killer who was caught later and never confessed to his earlier murders, or someone like the notorious Welsh child killer Harold Jones, who was released from prison in 1941 and has been suggested as the possible identity of "Jack the Stripper", nickname of the killer responsible for the Hammersmith Nude Murders in the 1960s?
I'd be very interested in hearing what other people think
