More than 20 Bristol cases are included in a new map revealing 1,000 unsolved murders, highlighting the cold cases where killers continue to evade justice despite advances in forensic science and technology. Every case has been the subject of a major police investigation with some of them dating back to the pre-war era and others in the last decade.
Cases include many seemingly random attacks, usually on women, carried out by strangers, as well as violent robberies, gangland killings, and contract murders. Our exclusive list was sourced from Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to every police force in the country, and supported with research through a wide variety of local newspaper archives.
That includes 21 unsolved murders that took place in Bristol. The oldest Bristol case in the timeline is from 1946. On the evening of May 30 the Odeon cinema on the corner of Union Street and Broadmead was showing the movie The Light That Failed.
Manager Robert Parrington Jackson, a former actor, radio presenter and race car driver, was at work in his office. At around 6.40pm an unknown assassin entered Mr Jackson’s office and fired two gunshots, timed to coincide with the sound effects in the movie.
When staff found him a message was flashed on the cinema screen calling for a doctor. He was rushed to hospital but medics were unable to save him.
Despite a nationwide manhunt, the killer could not be traced. Years later, in 1989, a petty criminal known as Billy “The Fish” Fisher confessed to the crime on his deathbed.
Police were told about the confession, but the case officially remains unsolved. These are all the other unsolved murders in Bristol:
– Gertrude O’Leary, 66. Stokes Croft, 30/06/1949. She was found beaten and strangled to death in her off-licence.
– June Sheasby, 7, and Royston Sheasby, 5. Snuff Mills Park, 20/06/1957. The brother and sister vanished after leaving home to visit horses. Their bodies were found in some undergrowth near the River Frome. Both children had been bludgeoned with a blunt object, leaving them with skull fractures. The killing was dubbed the “Babes in the Woods” murder.
– Louise Dunne, 74. Easton, 28/06/1967. The widow was raped and strangled to death in the front room of her own home in Britannia Road, Easton, where she lived alone.
– Philip Green, 11. Shirehampton, 31/03/1970. He was strangled to death and bludgeoned on a golf course. He was thought to have been killed as he collected lost golf balls.
– Glenis Carruthers, 20. Stoke Bishop, 19/01/1974. She was strangled to death in the dark at a grassy spot near Bristol Zoo.
– Susan Donaghue, 45. Stoke Bishop, 05/08/1976. The nurse was battered with a truncheon and sexually assaulted while in bed at her flat.
– Wendy Jenkins, 32. St Paul’s, 28/08/1979. Her body was found buried in sand on a building site. She had been savagely beaten.
– Derek Grain, 39. Brandon Hill, 31/10/1980. He was battered around the head with a sand-filled traffic cone.
– Mark Yendall, 33. Old City Docks, 12/10/1984. The British Rail steward was beaten to death before his body was dumped in the water.
– Violet Milsom, 62. St Paul’s, 1/10/1985. She had been sexually assaulted, strangled with her own clothing, and mutilated with a knife.
– Wayne Lomas,36. Southville, 30/8/1988. His remains were found in a one ton slab of concrete hidden beneath the floorboards of a terraced house.
– Michael Fahey, 33. Montpelier, 12/01/1989. The homeless was bludgeoned to death on a derelict site. Several people walked past his body, not realising he was dead.
– George Tyson Thorley, 46. Bristol, 28/07/1989. He died of injuries he received during a robbery.
– Keith Burgess, 39. Clifton Down, 17/12/1989. The railway steward was battered with a ball-headed hammer and stabbed in the back at his home.
– John Kilcoyne, 47. St Paul’s, 28/01/1995. The homeless man was stabbed in the neck in a flat and was already dead when paramedics arrived.
– Christopher Paul Hewitt, 18. Barton Hill, 10/06/2001. The teenager was stabbed 10 times in front of numerous witnesses during a street brawl.
– Evan Jones, 46. St Paul’s, 13/03/2002. The dad-of-two was left for dead, lying unconscious in a pool of blood, after being viciously beaten with a chain.
– Dean Myles, 19. Stokes Croft, 16/09/2006. He was shot in the chest at nightclub.
– Dean Paul Jeffery, 38. Eastville, 28/09/2008. The dad-of-three was battered in a “motiveless attack” on the street. He died after spending a week in a coma.
A common thread among many of the unsolved cases is that they appear to have been carried out by a stranger or someone with no obvious connection to the victim or a clear motive. Criminologist Dr David Wilson – who has investigated many cold cases – said: “Nine in ten murders are solved by police because usually the victim and the perpetrator know one other.
“Husbands kill wives, parents kill their children, friends kill each other. There is the phenomenon of young men killing other young men, but usually, they know each other.
“There’s usually a relationship between the murderer and victim. Unsolved cases tend to be when there is no prior relationship between the murderer and victim, or the police have no physical evidence to connect the main suspect.
“Victims of unsolved murders are usually people who don’t have well-established roots in the community, so no one will know when they have gone missing, no one will think it’s suspicious.”
We submitted Freedom of Information requests to every police force and most responded with official lists of cold cases dating back to the 1960s, with some providing information of older cases. Some police forces declined to supply the information and in these areas the unsolved murders have been added through additional research.
Britain’s unsolved murders newsprint edition is available to buy at participating independent retailers and supermarkets in the UK from Wednesday, November 6, 2024 OR you can purchase it online HERE. For online purchases postage and packaging applies.