UK UK - Shelley Morgan, 34, stabbed, (Former Iowan), Bristol, 11 June 1984

[Tortoise]

It is puzzling.

The Guardian article from 2019 said "The major crime review team recently came upon two postcards", "The tear-off postcards are from a calendar sold by..." and "Avon and Somerset police say they cannot spell out how they got hold of the postcards"

The Mail article said "Police were keen to speak to anyone who may have bought this calendar or who kept the tear-off postcards with these specific images, possibly for some time."


They do not look like they were photographed in June, the day of the murder, with the autumn colours. I suppose they could have been taken previous autumn and developed and sold after the murder.

I think it's more likely they were sent the postcards by the killer, and they want to know if anyone knows who kept them from the 80s/90s, or they are appealing to the person who sent them because that person knows who kept the postcards.

 

[trendsetter]

I wouldn't take the Daily Mail article too seriously - it says: "...detectives would now particularly like to hear from anyone with information about ... the identity of the killer."
It sounds as though an ex-Viz writer has been taken on by the Mail.

 

[trendsetter]

There are three whys:

• Why won't the police say how they got these postcards? The Guardian article says: Avon and Somerset police say they cannot spell out how they got hold of the postcards or how they may fit in with the investigation.
• Why do the police think they are linked to the murder? There must be something very special to suggest the link. Of course, the police must been keen to establish that it's not merely a hoax.
• Why don't the police know when the calendar the postcards came from was published (they say it was sometime in the 1980s or 1990s)? I doubt that the same pictures were used by the charity for twenty years. The timespan both pre-dates and post-dates the murder which is more than a little odd.

 

[Jenesaisquoi]

I had a look on ebay to see if I could see any examples of the tear-off postcard calendars, but I can’t find any. Does no one collect this kind of thing?

 

[Tortoise]

I had a look on ebay to see if I could see any examples of the tear-off postcard calendars, but I can’t find any. Does no one collect this kind of thing?

I found an example of one on ebay, but not for Bristol. I doubt I am allowed to link to it but you can do a search for "North Devon Hospice 2021 calendar including 12 tear off postcards of North Devon". In the last image it shows the back of the postcard (unrelated to this case) bears the photographer's name.

 

[Legally Bland]

Strangely this caption is underneath one of the images but it's not stated in the accompanying article published today -

"The tear-off postcards are from a calendar sold by the local Bristol Hospice charity in the 1980s or 1990s. Avon and Somerset Police believe Shelley may have taken these pictures"


Both are linked to the areas where Shelley was heading for on the day she disappeared and where her body was found five months later.

Police were keen to speak to anyone who may have bought this calendar or who kept the tear-off postcards with these specific images, possibly for some time.

Missing Olympus camera may hold key to solving murder of mother-of-two, 33, in 1984 | Daily Mail Online

I've found the Bower Ashton postcard on ebay but it has someone else's name owning the copyright, who I'd assume is the photographer. As we don't know the significance of the postcard I don't want to start sleuthing the copyright owner so I won't link, but you can find it by searching ebay for "Postcard Clifton Terraces From Bower Ashton".

 

[Jenesaisquoi]

Thank you. Now I know what the calendars may look like.

I wonder how they selected photos for the calendar in the pre-internet era.

 

[trendsetter]

Was it the police who removed the photographer's name from the postcards or was the name erased before they received them?
The photographer seems still to be very active - I wonder if he could help the police with the publication date of the calendar.

 

[Spy Versus Spy]

1984 Crimewatch Broadcast. S. M case @13m25s

2019 ITV News

 

[trendsetter]

The seller (on eBay) of the "Clifton Terraces" postcard is also selling another - "Backwell Ploughing Contest" - published by the same charity - so it could be from the same calendar as the other two (but maybe not, as the format is very slightly different with the title and photographer credit on the back). It does demonstrate that it is probably quite easy to obtain cards from this calendar if nothing else.

 

[Legally Bland]

1984 Crimewatch Broadcast. S. M case @13m25s

2019 ITV News

Cheers for those SVS. Just copying over Shelley's commissioned paintings of Bristol from the Crimewatch video. Not sure how they'd be useful though.

 

[Wurzel]

I am glad I found this thread, as like Emmy Mae on the previous page, I too had not heard about this murder. I was living in an area covered by the Bristol based BBC Points West and HTV West regional news programmes at that time. In fact I only heard about this murder through the latest appeal which was reported in the Daily Mail last month.

The seller (on eBay) of the "Clifton Terraces" postcard is also selling another - "Backwell Ploughing Contest" - published by the same charity - so it could be from the same calendar as the other two (but maybe not, as the format is very slightly different with the title and photographer credit on the back). It does demonstrate that it is probably quite easy to obtain cards from this calendar if nothing else.

I too found the "Backwell Ploughing Contest" postcard trendsetter but I think that can safely be ruled out as not coming from the same calendar, and it may not even be from a calendar at all. As you say the format is slightly different, but I think what eliminates this from being from the same calendar is the different charity address on the back, which suggests they are from a different period of time. The postcard also has no visible signs of being torn off from a calendar (perforated edge), of course someone could always have trimmed the edge at some point.

I have also found another postcard which is credited to the same photographer as the two the police are interested in. This postcard is a perfect match to the other two, exactly the same format and signs of having been detached from a calendar.

They do not look like they were photographed in June, the day of the murder, with the autumn colours.

You are right Tortoise. And this is where the Olympus OM20 camera becomes interesting, and whether Shelley took that photograph with her camera.

Olympus only started manufacture of the OM20 in 1983, the year before Shelley was murdered. Therefore at the very most she would have only have had use of the camera for one autumn, autumn 1983, before her disappearance in June 1984, and that assumes that the camera went on sale in the UK and Shelley obtained it prior to autumn 1983.

If the OM20 went on sale in the UK any later than autumn 1983 or Shelley obtained the camera any later than autumn 1983, she could not have taken that photograph with her camera.

 

[Jenesaisquoi]

There is some suggestion in the media previously that Christopher Halliwell may be responsible for Shelley’s death. I wonder if the stash of 60 clothes that were thought to be his trophy store have been matched against Shelley’s dress.

Given that Shelley’s sandals were found in a bush close to where her body was found, are we assuming that she was sadly killed where she was found?

It also seems that she had only moved to Bristol fairly close to the time she disappeared. I don’t know how that would affect the possibility of her having taken the photos. (Although would a different photographer’s name be published on it if she had taken them).

 

[dotr]

I am glad I found this thread, as like Emmy Mae on the previous page, I too had not heard about this murder. I was living in an area covered by the Bristol based BBC Points West and HTV West regional news programmes at that time. In fact I only heard about this murder through the latest appeal which was reported in the Daily Mail last month.



I too found the "Backwell Ploughing Contest" postcard trendsetter but I think that can safely be ruled out as not coming from the same calendar, and it may not even be from a calendar at all. As you say the format is slightly different, but I think what eliminates this from being from the same calendar is the different charity address on the back, which suggests they are from a different period of time. The postcard also has no visible signs of being torn off from a calendar (perforated edge), of course someone could always have trimmed the edge at some point.

I have also found another postcard which is credited to the same photographer as the two the police are interested in. This postcard is a perfect match to the other two, exactly the same format and signs of having been detached from a calendar.



You are right Tortoise. And this is where the Olympus OM20 camera becomes interesting, and whether Shelley took that photograph with her camera.

Olympus only started manufacture of the OM20 in 1983, the year before Shelley was murdered. Therefore at the very most she would have only have had use of the camera for one autumn, autumn 1983, before her disappearance in June 1984, and that assumes that the camera went on sale in the UK and Shelley obtained it prior to autumn 1983.

If the OM20 went on sale in the UK any later than autumn 1983 or Shelley obtained the camera any later than autumn 1983, she could not have taken that photograph with her camera.

Welcome to Ws Wurzel, thanks for the great insight!

 

[dotr]

June 2019 re-post.
Shelley Morgan: Why postcards could help solve 1984 Bristol murder | ITV News
''Police believe two postcards may help crack the unsolved inquiry into the murder of a Bristol mother 35 years ago.''

''A keen artist, she had told her children she planned to photograph the Clifton Suspension Bridge that day so she could paint it later.''

The two postcards.

''they are from a charity calendar printed in the 1980s. It had 12 tear-off images. One for each month.

One image shows the Clifton Suspension Bridge - where she was heading. Another shows St Andrew's Church at Backwell - near where she was found.''

Missing Olympus camera may hold key to solving murder of mother-of-two, 33, in 1984 | NewsColony

Police trying to end the 36 year mystery surrounding her death would like to speak to anyone who bought an Olympus CM20 camera around the time of her disappearance

''It is thought that the missing Olympus OM20 35mm film – camera serial number 1032853 – may have been given or sold on to an innocent purchaser.''

 

[Wurzel]

Obviously we do not know the significance of the postcards from the charity calendar, but I have passed on the details of the additional postcard that I found (mentioned in my post #32 above), which appears to be a perfect match to those two of interest, to Avon & Somerset Police.

Staying on the subject of the calendar, what I could not understand was why the Police could not narrow down when it was on sale. Most articles/press releases refer to sometime and I quote "in the 1980s or 1990s". That's a wide timespan.

Last month I passed on some information to Avon & Somerset Police that would narrow the date of sale for the calender from a 'between' years to a 'from' year, using OSINT. As this was gained through OSINT, there is nothing confidential in its nature and I am sharing it here.

So this is the image on the postcard we have got use to seeing:-



And this is an image on the front of another postcard, and back (for sale on eBay) from nearly exactly the same position as the above. This postcard is not connected to the charity, nor produced by the same postcard publisher as that of the charity.



This is a bit like spot the difference, what differences can you spot between the two postcard images above ? So there are some minor differences, which will not be documented anywhere - as an example the overhead road structure with the road signs above - the signs are spaced differently and one is a different shape.

There is however one noticeable difference in the landscape, a new residential building can be seen in the charity calendar postcard, but not in the used postcard.



Now if you take a look at the back of the used postcard above you will see that it is hand dated May 1992 and post franked 1992, but this is the postcard without the new residential building. You could therefore assume that the photograph for the charity calendar postcard was taken later than May 1992, however that assumption is flawed unless you know when the the used postcard photograph was actually taken. The postcard could have been on sale for many years before someone bought it, so could still pre-date the charity postcard.

However the important fact is that the construction date of this new residential building with be recorded at the UK Land Registry. This date will be the earliest that the photograph for the charity postcard could have been taken and the earliest year that the calendar could have been sold from.

 

[Jenesaisquoi]

I wonder why the year of the postcard is so important anyway?

 

[trendsetter]

I wonder why the year of the postcard is so important anyway?

It may not be and of course if it's a hoax then it definitely won't be. But it is certainly more than a little strange that the police haven't been able to narrow the date of publication down to anything vaguer than a 20-year timespan; especially as they are treating these two postcards as important to the investigation.

 

[Tortoise]

Obviously we do not know the significance of the postcards from the charity calendar, but I have passed on the details of the additional postcard that I found (mentioned in my post #32 above), which appears to be a perfect match to those two of interest, to Avon & Somerset Police.

Staying on the subject of the calendar, what I could not understand was why the Police could not narrow down when it was on sale. Most articles/press releases refer to sometime and I quote "in the 1980s or 1990s". That's a wide timespan.

Last month I passed on some information to Avon & Somerset Police that would narrow the date of sale for the calender from a 'between' years to a 'from' year, using OSINT. As this was gained through OSINT, there is nothing confidential in its nature and I am sharing it here.

So this is the image on the postcard we have got use to seeing:-

View attachment 270414

And this is an image on the front of another postcard, and back (for sale on eBay) from nearly exactly the same position as the above. This postcard is not connected to the charity, nor produced by the same postcard publisher as that of the charity.

View attachment 270416 View attachment 270417

This is a bit like spot the difference, what differences can you spot between the two postcard images above ? So there are some minor differences, which will not be documented anywhere - as an example the overhead road structure with the road signs above - the signs are spaced differently and one is a different shape.

There is however one noticeable difference in the landscape, a new residential building can be seen in the charity calendar postcard, but not in the used postcard.

View attachment 270418 View attachment 270419

Now if you take a look at the back of the used postcard above you will see that it is hand dated May 1992 and post franked 1992, but this is the postcard without the new residential building. You could therefore assume that the photograph for the charity calendar postcard was taken later than May 1992, however that assumption is flawed unless you know when the the used postcard photograph was actually taken. The postcard could have been on sale for many years before someone bought it, so could still pre-date the charity postcard.

However the important fact is that the construction date of this new residential building with be recorded at the UK Land Registry. This date will be the earliest that the photograph for the charity postcard could have been taken and the earliest year that the calendar could have been sold from.

Very interesting!

This is the google maps location خرائط ‪Google‬‏‏

The two adjoining houses are listed and it mentions in the listing that it was extended to the right in 1987 : 20 and 21, Freeland Place, Bristol, City of Bristol

- which would seem to be evidence that Shelley could not have taken the photo.

 

[Tortoise]

I would say the postcards are important to the investigation because one was where Shelley said she was going that morning, and the other is close to where her body was located. The two places are about 7 miles apart.

This shows the two locations: خرائط ‪Google‬‏‏