UK UK - Janice Weston, 36, Murdered, A1 Layby, Brampton, Cambs. / London, 10 September 1983

[davidt]

If it was Conner, or someone with a similar MO, then presumably he would have been hiding out there, hoping to encounter a lone female.

It's difficult to work out why Janice would head to Clopton on her own. Is a spur of the moment decision to live a little and head up there completely unrealistic? It was usually only a 90 minute drive in good conditions.

I don't know. It was heavy traffic and poor conditions. The police thought she left in a hurry and it really does look like that was the case. I still think her intention was a night in and something unexpected cropped up. Of course there are no witnesses to anything up until those who may have seen Janice's car in the layby.

You also have the issue of how someone was waiting in the layby. By all accounts not really one you could walk to easily. Would have required walking across farmland and fields in that weather.

 

[Professor Moriarty]

Whoever did it is most probably dead now.

 

[davidt]

Whoever did it is most probably dead now.

Quite likely.

 

[tes1984]

The perp might well be dead, although someone of a similar age to a Conner or Delgado would still only be in their 60s now.

 

[tes1984]

You also have the issue of how someone was waiting in the layby. By all accounts not really one you could walk to easily. Would have required walking across farmland and fields in that weather.

IIRC the police arrested two travellers, who lived two miles from the lay by. They were both cleared of involvement in Janice's murder.

Is this evidence of the police looking at local, marauder offenders, or was the murder just used as an excuse to spin and search a large gypsy camp?

 

[tes1984]

When the police called in TW for questioning, they also questioned three other men.

The three men were allowed home later that day, but TW remained in police custody for a further 48 hours.

 

[INSP MORSE]

I'm not sure if there is a simple explanation in this case. I can't see why someone like Alan Conner would go and get the false registration plates made up. He was 21 when Janice was murdered, which seems a bit young for him to have been described as 25-35 years old by the Royston witnesses.

It was at night and a bit foggy. Witnesses can get details wrong as e denied in studies. As for the registration plate. The perp drove the car to london after the number plate request, he would need to do this without getti g caught. Maybe intending to get slightly different plates so not as to attract attention of the police who were at that time looking for her car and registration.

 

[rvlvr]

He killed himself not long after murdering Sandra Parkinson, didn’t he. Penned an apology note to her family. Not a very good one mind, and obviously was of no comfort to her loved ones, but he seemed to recognise he had an evil within him that he couldn’t control and so acted accordingly. Just can’t imagine him living with the guilt of killing Janice? I think police tried to link him to many other rapes and murders but his DNA never matched.

The excellent ITV series Murder by the Sea covered Sandra’s murder.

I rewatched the ITV documentary on Sandra’s murder this morning and it appears Conner was living a seemingly pretty ordinary life prior to a rape conviction in 1986. After serving four (!) years he then cut ties with his family and only then, does it seem, did he begin drifting. So I can’t see what reason he’d have had to have been loitering by the A1 in Cambridgeshire back in 1983. It just doesn’t strike me as the sort of place where any opportunistic offender would lay in wait, in all honesty.

 

[tes1984]

It was at night and a bit foggy. Witnesses can get details wrong as e denied in studies. As for the registration plate. The perp drove the car to london after the number plate request, he would need to do this without getti g caught. Maybe intending to get slightly different plates so not as to attract attention of the police who were at that time looking for her car and registration.

Of course witnesses can be unreliable, but the Royston witnesses saw the man the following morning, at close quarters and indoors.

IIRC the witness who got the best look at the man in the lay by described him as 38-45 years old. That doesn't sound like a 21 year old Conner, but as you say it was nighttime and not the best weather conditions.

If the perp intended to get slightly different registration plates, then why did he hand over a piece of paper with Janice's exact registration on it, when ordering them?

 

[tes1984]

Janice was described by her childhood friends as extremely clever, completely focused on her studies and future career, and not a young woman who ever had boyfriends.

There's no conclusive evidence that Janice was actually a black belt in judo. Perhaps she played judo in school, or at university in Manchester, but there doesn't seem to be any record of her in the major judo associations in the 70s or early 80s.

That's strange as the judo community was very well regulated, and not that many women had black belts in those days.