UK UK - Penny Bell, 43, Ealing, London, 6 June 1991

[tes1984]

Could be.

One thing I was wondering about in respect of the cash. One early not unreasonable suggestion was that she may have been paying the builders in cash. That's been discounted but can anyone be sure? If you were one of the builders and had been being paid in cash would you come forward or admit it? Knowing the likely consequences from HMRC etc. As its a murder enquiry you'd hope they would but I'm not sure everyone would.

I think she was quite meticulous in terms of record keeping, so I'm presuming she would have demanded invoices/receipts for any significant work, regardless of whether she paid by cheque or cash. You never know though.

Builders don't usually receive full payment until the work is finished. They get some of the money upfront, but the rest once the job is done. A bit like hitmen really!

 

[tes1984]

I was wondering if Penny had an alarm/security system at home, or was planning to get one. It seems strange so spend so much money on redevelopment without a state of the art security system.

She lived in a very exclusive area, next to some extremely famous people, who no doubt were security conscious, so did she include a security upgrade when she did up her dream home?

 

[rvlvr]

Something I’ve often pondered is why she didn’t just crash or try to jump out of the car? Surely if she feared for her life she wouldn’t have been concerned with not pranging her expensive motor? If she really was mouthing ‘help me’ to passersby then she must’ve been quite frightened at that point, but was she being threatened with a knife at this point, or was her male passenger intimidating her verbally but also reassuring her she wouldn’t be harmed if she just kept driving? My wife’s POV regarding stuff like this is it’s better to try to fight back in a bid to flee and risk being killed, than to comply and be killed anyway. The car wouldn’t have been travelling particularly quickly at times so simply running off the road or into the back of another vehicle would surely have attracted enough attention to allow her to escape.

 

[tes1984]

It depends if we think that the sightings of Penny struggling in the car are genuine sightings. Witness recollections are often inaccurate, particularly when reported weeks/months/years after the event, and AFAIK the police don't seem to have confirmed any of the potential sightings in the Penny Bell case.

The sighting that the composite sketch was made from seems to be the one they are most confident in. Which witness was it who provided the information for the sketch?

Perhaps we should list all the potential sightings, and how long after the murder they were called in.

 

[tes1984]

For starters (and please feel free to correct anything I've got wrong) we have the sighting of the man with the bronze car.

Then we have IIRC two sightings of car struggles, plus one of a man entering a car in traffic.

In the carpark, there's a sighting of a man in a suit. Plus a sighting of a car speeding off.

There's also the sighting (reported just a few years ago) of the man walking in boxer shorts and carrying a backpack.

Anything else?

 

[davidt]

For starters (and please feel free to correct anything I've got wrong) we have the sighting of the man with the bronze car.

Then we have IIRC two sightings of car struggles, plus one of a man entering a car in traffic.

In the carpark, there's a sighting of a man in a suit. Plus a sighting of a car speeding off.

There's also the sighting (reported just a few years ago) of the man walking in boxer shorts and carrying a backpack.

Anything else?

The one about the man in boxer shorts I find very odd. Given it was reported many years after, there must be doubt about the time and date. How accurate a recollection is it? Why take so long to report it and how come in a busy area no one else reported it when he would have stuck out like a sore thumb? Is he thought to have put his blood stained clothing in his backpack? How did he manage that without being seen. Or if he discarded his clothing wouldn't it have been found nearby?

 

[davidt]

The sighting of a man and the bronze car seems to have changed over the years. In the original reconstruction he's shown (and its stated as well based on witness evidence) in tne car waiting for Penny and getting out when she arrives. Later reports however just mention him standing by or near the car. So how connected this person is to the bronze car is debatable.

 

[tes1984]

The one about the man in boxer shorts I find very odd. Given it was reported many years after, there must be doubt about the time and date. How accurate a recollection is it? Why take so long to report it and how come in a busy area no one else reported it when he would have stuck out like a sore thumb? Is he thought to have put his blood stained clothing in his backpack? How did he manage that without being seen. Or if he discarded his clothing wouldn't it have been found nearby?

Sometimes witnesses report things at the time, hear nothing back from the police, and presume the information is irrelevant. It is odd if this sighting wasn't first reported in the early 90s.

IIRC there was a similar sighting in the Rachel Nickell case. A man seen cleaning himself by a stream. I'm not sure how many witnesses reported seeing this man, but it was a much less public location than where the boxer shorts man was allegedly seen after Penny's murder.

 

[dotr]

Wondering if the money was to buy jewelry, a watch, or other special item in a private estate sale? speculation.

Ealing's Local Web site

Online resource for Ealing, the site for property , restaurants , shops and information on the Ealing Community

www.ealingtoday.co.uk

rbbm.
''Penny kept a meticulous record of the spending on the building work. On Monday 3 June, 1991, at around 2.30pm, she went to her bank in Kilburn High Road and withdrew £8,500 in cash from her joint personal account.''

''One witness described the man in the car as about 40 with dark hair, possibly sporting a beard and wearing a bracelet on his right hand. But circulation of the description failed to bring any new leads.''

''In January, 2019, a new witness contacted the police to report that they believed on the day Penny was killed they saw a man in his underwear who appeared wet, as if he had just washed, walking across the footbridge that crosses the A40 Western Avenue, Greenford. The witness said it was around 10.50am to 10:55am that she saw him and described him as a bronzed/tanned male, tall, with short brown hair which was lighter on top and aged in his early thirties. She added that he was wearing blue striped boxer shorts, a white t-shirt, had a chunky chain link thick bracelet and was carrying a rucksack.''
....
''Talking about this latest piece of information, DS Stansfield said, "Following some previous media coverage, a new witness has come forward with what I would call very significant information that might help us catch Penny's killer.''

 

[tes1984]

The January 2019 sighting is completely baffling. How does anyone remember such details 28 years on?

It was a female witness, so did she write things down at the time, or agonise over reporting what she had seen, committing every detail to memory?

She tells her husband what she's seen, and he tells her not to go to the police. She does what she's told, until he dies around 2018, and she finally builds up the courage to contact the authorities?

 

[tes1984]

The police said that the new witness provided 'very significant information', but that was over six years ago and it doesn't seem to have led anywhere.

AFAIK the sighting was between 10.50 and 10.55am, on the footbridge across the A40. That's 3.6 miles away from the leisure centre where Penny was murdered.

Police think that Penny was killed at 10.30am, so how does the killer cover 3.6 miles wearing a suit and carrying a backpack, wash and get changed, and get onto the footbridge all within 20-25 minutes?

Not many people could cover that distance on foot in those conditions within 20-25 minutes, and no other witnesses seem to have noticed a businessman running like a professional athlete.

The man could probably have got there in time by car, but if he has a vehicle then why doesn't he drive somewhere far more isolated to clean himself up? And if he has a car and also the backpack, then why doesn't he have a change of clothing?