Hi, and welcome back to The Unseen Podcast, a podcast dedicated to missing
people, unresolved cases, and UK true crime. Today we're going to be
exploring the disappearance of Gloria Bilby in nineteen seventy nine. Her disappearance in Bilton,
close to Whole in the East Riding of Yorkshire, was both mysterious and
worrying, given that she left behind an eleven year old son who still does
not know what happened to his mother. Gloria Bilby has not been seen since
nineteen seventy nine, and Humbicide Police have since appealed for any new information.
This episode discusses a missing person, but does also discuss other murders and sexual
assaults, but not in any graphic detail. Listener discretion is our way is
advised. Bilton is a village in the East Riding of Yorkshire, with a
population of around two thousand and three hundred people. It's located around five miles
from the port city of Hull. It's a small village with residents enjoying a
quiet life close to the countryside and the nearby amenities of city life. The
Bilby family lived in Bilton during the nineteen seventies and consisted of Bernard, his
wife Gloria, and their son Nigel. The family lived on Dawnay Road in
Bilton, and Bernard ran a butcher's shop in Bilton Grange in East Hall.
Gloria worked as a secretariat at the company Wreckett and Coleman, a household products
company which had in nineteen thirty eight become associated with Coleman's, famous for their
mustard. The couple were well liked. Bernard's butcher's shop was frequented by many
people in the area, and he was reportedly a jovial and happy man who
was friendly to everyone. Gloria has been described as a very beautiful woman with
a personality to match. She was bubbly and outgoing and made friends easily.
From the outside, Gloria and Bernard appeared to be a happy couple in their
thirties, and their lives seemed to be going in the right direction. This,
however, was not necessarily how it was. On the inside of their
relationship. Gloria and Bernard were not getting on well behind closed doors, and
during the nineteen seventies their relationship had begun to struggle along. From around nineteen
seventy four, The couple had begun sleeping in different rooms and had effectively separated
with different rotors for household chores so they didn't have to see one another.
They decided, for the sake of their son, they would continue to live
together in their home on Darnay Road. Bernard would later tell the Whole Daily
Mail about the situation. For the last five years, we'd gone our own
ways. I suppose we had different personalities. She liked the nightlife, I
didn't. It seemed that they had grown apart and had realized they were very
different people, and this must have been a very tricky situation to manage,
but they continued on living together as amicably as possible throughout the nineteen seventies.
In May nineteen seventy nine, something had changed. Bernard Bilby phoned up the
Humber Side Police to file a missing person report. He explained to them that
he hadn't seen or spoke to his wife Gloria in three months. The last
time he remembered seeing her was on February the first, and he thought he'd
heard her on February the second. This must have seemed like an odd call
for police, given that Bernard was only just reporting his wife missing that long
afterwards. Bernard later explained the situation and that he and Gloria were actually separated.
He also made the point that Gloria had gone away in the past,
and as they weren't together, she didn't necessarily have to tell him where she
was. He was now concerned, however, that Gloria hadn't even made any
attempt to get in touch with her son, and given how loving of a
mother she was, this was certainly unusual. Bernard told the Whole Daily Mail
at the time she had gone away before for several days, telling me it
was in connection with work. I've since found out it was nothing to do
with work. I wasn't bothered because we only stayed together for the sake of
the boy. It was definitely a different situation and one that did concern police.
Gloria hadn't attempted to ring or write to her son in that time,
and the question was why and where was she. Humberside Police established that Gloria
had last been seen on February the second, nineteen seventy nine, and began
to figure out her movements the day prior. They discovered that on Thursday,
February the first, Gloria had been off from work at Wreckett and Coleman as
it was closed due to industrial action. At around nine thirty pm, she
visited her sister's home in Driffield, not far from her own home. She
told her that she'd been in Bridlington and Driffield that day with what has been
described as a male associate. At around eleven pm that night, Gloria's brother
in law had walked her home the short distance to her house. When she
arrived, Bernard made a statement that he gave Gloria three thousand pounds in cash
as part of a separation settlement. She intended to buy a car from a
local garage the next day and was going to use the money to do this.
This amount has also been reported as three thousand, five hundred pounds,
However, it's unclear which is correct from the reporting. Bernard then explained that
the following morning, he woke up at around six am and he heard what
he thought was Gloria leaving the home and a car driving away from the house.
Bernard later explained that it was at this point that he realized she must
have left him, as he noticed that she had taken some of her clothes
he stated about six am on Friday, February the second, the alarm went
off. I woke up, and just after this I heard Gloria leave the
house and a car leave the driveway. I realized then that she had left
me. I always thought in the back of my mind she would leave me,
but I was still upset. It seemed. From that point Bernard believed
that Gloria had simply left him and that was why she hadn't been in touch,
but the fact that she then didn't get in contact with their son made
him concerned. Bernard reportedly told police that Gloria had mentioned to him a few
months before she disappeared that she had a passport, and this was nowhere in
the home. It was strange, however, the other personal paperwork that Gloria
may have needed was left behind, and when police looked into it, there
was no attempt by her to sort out any of her financial affairs. She
had packed most of her clothes and had taken her jewelry. Police checked up
on the fact that Gloria was meant to be paying for a Ford Capri car
at a local garage on Friday the second, and it appeared that she never
arrived there to pay and drive the car away. Whatever had happened that day,
Gloria had changed her plans. The other fact was that she hadn't let
her employer know that she was planning on leaving her job. She hadn't mentioned
it to her bosses or to any of her colleagues. Why had Gloria taken
some of her things but not sorted out everything before she left. The disappearance
was a puzzling one and must have been hugely distressing for everyone involved, including
Gloria's family and of course her son. Police began looking into Gloria's life and
of course her personal relationships. This led police down a path which would come
to define the narrative in this case. Much of the reporting seems to focus
on Gloria's striking looks and her relationships with several other men. While Gloria's relationships
were of course important to the investigation into her disappearance, we do also have
to be said pentative to the fact that Gloria is still a missing person and
her privacy still needs to be taken into account. It's clear that Gloria and
Bernard were separated, and so it's reported that Gloria did have relationships with other
men during the time that she and Bernard were still living together. The nature
of these relationships are mostly unknown. However, police were interested in several different
people who had been seen with Gloria are people who had associated with her over
the years. One person they were particularly interested in tracking down was a man
that neighbors had identified as visiting the house several times during lunchtime hours, and
they had actually seen him. On Friday, the second of February, neighbors
reported seeing a smartly dressed man that they had come to nickname Dapper Dan pull
up around mid morning on that Friday that Gloria disappeared. He pulled up in
a red Ford Escort outside Gloria's home. Gloria then came out with a suitcase
and he helped her put it into the car. The pair then drove off.
This seemed like an important piece of information, however, it did conflict
with Bernard's account of that morning. He stated that Gloria left at six am.
Whether Bernard then left for work and Gloria returned home for more of her
belongings is unclear. However, there are no reports that state that neighbors also
saw her leaving at six am, or that they saw her returning before finally
leaving for good. The fact that this man had been seen at the house
on several occasions led credence to the fact that he could have been there that
day. However, it also could suggest that these neighbors were remembering the wrong
day and simply believed it to be February the second. Police were looking into
this three months after Gloria disappeared, and therefore people's memories may not have been
as fresh as they could have been. Regardless, this man had known Gloria
and so it was important to try and track him down. He was described
as about forty years old, five ft nine inches tall, of a slim
build, and had graying hair. He apparently looked like an executive type.
It's reported in the Whole Daily Mail that this man may have matched the description
of a man who worked as a newspaper seller and lived less than a mile
from Bernard's butcher shop. He also sometimes carried out errands for Bernard. This,
however, seems to be speculative information and may have had nothing to do
with that man at all. There was another man that police were interested in
tracing, and this man had been seen visiting Gloria at work. This man
had picked her up at Ricketts and Coleman during July and August of nineteen seventy
eight. He was seen picking her up at lunchtimes in a red Morris eleven
hundred car. This man was described as well built, with dark hair,
and he usually wore an open necked shirt and didn't wear a tie or a
jacket. Whether either of these men were important to the investigation was unknown.
However, they may have been able to paint a picture of what was going
on with Gloria at the time that she did disappear. Gloria's disappearance captured the
attention of the local area, and people were concerned about where she had gone.
Bernard also began to be the center of attention from local people, and
despite being well liked at his butcher's shop, the community began to wonder if
he could have had anything to do with Gloria's disappearance. In their mind,
he had been the last one to see Glory Warrior, and he hadn't reported
her missing for three months. Gloria had also been reportedly seeing other men,
and to some people in the local community, this was a motive regardless of
their understanding of Gloria and Bernard's relationship. It's reported in the Whole Daily Mail
that members of the community didn't hesitate to comment on the fact that they thought
Bernard had something to do with Gloria's disappearance, with one person spray painting a
message on the wall of his home. They disrespectfully wrote, Gloria sausages sold
here. Bernard denied any involvement in the disappearance of his wife, but it
was a line of inquiry that police had to check on. Bernard was interviewed
several times in relation to it, but police couldn't and haven't, by the
looks of it, since, found anything to link him to her disappearance.
They did follow up and reportedly checked the meat grinder that he used his shop,
but nothing was found that was unusual or out of the ordinary. For
his part, Bernard offered a five hundred pound reward for anyone that knew anything
about Gloria's disappearance and did appeal for information about her whereabouts. One of the
lines of inquiry that police were hoping to follow upon was the news that before
she disappeared, Gloria had told friends and family that she was worried because she
had been receiving nuisance calls to her home. She even mentioned it on the
evening before she went missing at her sister's home, saying that she didn't really
want to return home because she didn't want to receive any more phone calls.
This seemed to be something that had disturbed and possibly scared Gloria. However,
it would seem that she never divulged any suspicions of who this person could be
that was making them. We also don't know the content of these calls.
The general feeling that police seemed to have at the time was that some one
must have information that they had just not divulged yet. During the next several
months and years, police continued to try and find out if Gloria had left,
then where had she gone to. This was proving extremely difficult, as
despite Gloria having many friends and knowing many people, no one seemed to be
offering up the crucial information about where she went. Christmas of nineteen seventy nine
came and went without Gloria contacting anyone in her family and sadly, without sending
her son a Christmas card or present. This was certainly out of character for
Gloria, who everyone described as a devoted mother. Detective Superintendent Carmichael, who
was leading the investigation at the time, spoke in nineteen eighty about Gloria's disappearance,
and he explained that they had checked as many different official channels as they
could to track her down, including through the passport office and Interpol. Gloria
had had a passport issued, as Bernard had suggested, but it was a
yearly passport and had expired in October nineteen seventy nine. It had not been
renewed. Eight sightings had come in from places around the world like Sweden,
Germany and Meaca in Spain. Detective Superintendent Carmichael described all of these as well
intentioned mistakes and had nothing to do with Gloria's disappearance. Other official places such
as Department of Employment were checked and there was no sign of Gloria in any
records or something that looked like it could be an alternate identity. He explained.
The investigation is based on the ninety percent possibility that serious harm has befallen
her. In spite of all the publicity it has received, there has not
been one iota of concrete information as to her current whereabouts. He added,
we have looked into all motives for her disappearance, but the case remains a
complete mystery. I do not accept that a woman as attractive and respectable as
this lady could just disappear off the face of the earth without trace. Neither
do I accept that she could be so callous and hard hearted that she would
neglect to contact her family if she were able. Detective Superintendent Carmichael renewed his
appeal for information and hoped at that time someone would come forward with information.
He also appealed to Gloria herself, stating that he would accept a phone call
from her, saying she's safe and well, and that he did not want
to pry into her life further if she had just walked away from her life.
This, however, did not appear to be what the police believe to
be the most likely outcome in the case. That year, Gloria's family felt
that they could get their hopes up when one of her relatives was watching an
episode of the TV show The Professionals. They spotted someone in the background who
looked very much like Gloria, and rang Humberside Police with the tip officers traveled
down to London to speak to the agencies that dealt with the extras in the
program and managed to track down the woman in question. They were able to
ascertain that this was not Gloria. Detectives stated that they were back at square
one. During the next several years, many tips were called in to police
and all of them were followed upon. In nineteen eighty one, police were
investigating Tramby Lodge, a Grade two listed building in Hull, after a man
called in a tip saying he saw a woman who looked like Gloria entering there
with a man in the spring of nineteen seventy nine. They got out of
a red car of a similar description to the man saw driving her away on
the day she disappeared. Nothing, however, was found there. In nineteen
eighty one, police were also trying to ascertain whether the body of a woman
found near Scoton More, close to Sutton Bank in North Yorkshire could be Glorias.
This unidentified woman came to be known as the Nude in the Nettles due
to how she was recovered. The body was ruled out as belonging to Gloria,
and the Nude in the Nettles is still unidentified and is a case we
reported early on in the podcast. In nineteen eighty two, it was reported
that Bernard Bilby had divorced Gloria. This became quite big news given that Glory
was still missing and CID officers were involved with the case. He was granted
a decree absolute to end the marriage, and when asked about it, Bernard
stated, there's nothing I wished to say. I don't want to go into
details. That same year, officers searched the area of Market Waiton in the
East Riding of Yorkshire. The search came about due to a tip off from
a clairvoyant who stated that they had a vision that Gloria's body was in that
area. With a lack of other evidence, Humberside Police did take it seriously
and members of the Underwater Search Unit and the four Support Group searched the stream
and the area around there extensively, but found nothing of interest. In nineteen
eighty three, police received an anonymous letter stating that Gloria may have been buried
in the back garden of a home in Coltman Street in Hull. The back
garden was dug up by hand by officers and sniffer dogs were brought in.
However, again like other searches, nothing of interest was found. Police were
very interested in finding out who had authored the anonymous letter and published a picture
of it in the Whole Daily Mail. It was reported that the letter had
no stamp and therefore police were unsure where it was posted, but they believed
it had come from someone who was probably local to Hull. Police stated that
they wanted to discuss the implications of the letter with the person who wrote it.
Nothing, however, seemed to have come from this appeal, and in
the years that followed articles were published discussing Bernard Bilby's private life and explaining that
he had gotten remarried and moved out of the home that he and Gloria shared
in Darnay Road. While it was reported that Bernard may have moved on in
that respect, it's clear that Gloria's family hadn't, and of course neither had
her son. At the disappearance of his mother in nineteen eighty seven, Gloria's
case was reinvigorated when it began to be linked to an awful crime that had
been committed in Bristol on the eighth of October nineteen eighty seven, twenty nine
year old Shirley Banks went shopping at the Broadmead shopping area in Bristol. It
was around seven forty pm and she was going to meet her husband Richard for
a drink afterwards, but she never turned up. When she hadn't returned the
next morning, Richard rang up her work, only to be told she rang
up six fifteen minutes earlier. Richard was concerned and rang police after she hadn't
returned that night. To begin with, police were unsure of what had happened
to Shirley. However, more investigation into the suspect and another crime led them
to John Canan. Canan was wanted after an assault on a shop assistant in
Leamington, SPA. Passer bys had chased him and police eventually arrested him.
And his arrest they found a knife with blood on it, rope, some
of which was concealed in a toilet system, and an imitation hang gun.
Canan was known to police and had been arrested for several different crimes in this
past, including rape and robbery. He had previously held up shop assistance at
knife point and attacked his own wife. Police knew he was a violent man
and that he should be looked into closely. The day before Shirley's disappearance,
a woman named Julia Holman had been attacked in Bristol and the man had tried
to abduct her at gunpoint, but Julia had bravely fought the man off and
managed to get away. This near abduction and then disappearance of another woman was
certainly worrying, and the attacked by John Canan in the same month led police
to look more closely into him as a suspect. Three weeks after Shirley dis
pared, police searched Canan's car and found a tax disc inside a briefcase in
his glove compartment. This tax disc belonged to Shirley Banks's car. When police
searched a lock up garage at his flock of flats, inside they found Shirley's
orange Mini Clubman, which had been painted blue clearly in an effort to disguise
its identity. Police later recovered Shirley's body six months after she went missing in
the Quantock Hills in Somerset. It was clear that she had been hit over
the head many times with what was thought to be a rock. Police were
able to link Canan to Shirley's murder through fingerprints found in his home and also
blood that was found on a raincoat which could not be discounted as belonging to
Shirley's blood group. Canan was charged and convicted on her murder in nineteen eighty
nine. He was also convicted of the attack of Julia Holman after she positively
identified him as the perpetrator. This was not the last that was heard of
John Canan, however, as he has long been one of the only suspects
in the infamous disappearance of Susie Lamplew in nineteen eighty six in Fulham. Susie
was an estate agent who had gone to show a possible client around a home
in Charrold's Road in Fulham on the twenty eighth of July nineteen eighty six.
The client had given a name of mister Kipper, and Susie attended the viewing
of the home. She never returned to work and she has been missing ever
since. Susie's case is a huge one with lots of investigation and twists and
turns, which I won't go into in this episode, but I have covered
it on the podcast previously. So feel free to listen to that more in
depth. Mister Kipper was of huge interest to police and they knew it was
a false name. Police now believed that John Canan could have been this man.
Canan was known to frequent pubs in Fulham and was suspected earlier on in
his life to possibly be the house for sale rapist. During the nineteen seventies
and early eighties, a man was attacking and raping women in the West Midlands.
These attacks were taking place in homes that were for sale in the area,
and he was then attacking women who were alone there. This, of
course, was strikingly similar to what police believe had happened to Susie that day
when she visited the house. It was also known that Canan had visited Sharold's
Road itself a few days before Susie disappeared, but when he discovered that the
woman in the home wasn't alone and her husband was there, he left.
There were many circumstantial pieces of evidence to link Canan to Susie Lamplew, and
he was arrested several times during two thousand and two thousand and one about her
possible murder. Canan reportedly denied any involvement and provided the police with little information.
He continues to deny any involvement in many of the crimes that he has
committed. Humberside Police were interested in John Canan as a possible suspect in Gloria's
disappearance. It's unclear exactly why they believe that Canan may have been responsible.
However, the one thing that may have been an important fact was that she
had last been seen getting into a car with a smartly dressed man who looked
like an executive type. Canan was known to dress smartly and be relatively charming.
He could come across as someone who was successful, and this may have
been a draw for Gloria. Canan was also known to join dating agencies to
meet women. It would appear, however, that Humberside Police made no links
to Canan in the end, and may well have just been covering all of
their bases with investigation. Gloria's case seems to go cold after this, and
despite the huge amount of investigation that happened during the nineteen eighties, little evidence
our new information was forthcoming. This is the way that Gloria's case remained and
still remains today in two thousand and thirteen, humber Side Police reopened the investigation
and hope to uncover new information or evidence that could finally help to solve the
mystery. At the time, Detective Chief Inspector Matt Hutchinson said, this is
a review of a long term missing person. We are exploring the possibility she
came to some harm. She may well have had an accident or committed suicide.
We need to review all of the case papers and explore all of the
possibility. We will be going right back to the beginning, looking at the
circumstances surrounding her disappearance and all of the work that was done at the time
around her lifestyle, her home life and the people she associated with. We
will be concentrating on the last time she was seen and what the inquiry found
after that. We have spoken to her family and a number of other witnesses.
The feelings of the detectives at the time was that there were a lot
of people who knew Gloria and socialized with her, and they may have had
more information than was originally passed on to police. It's never too late to
come forward with any information. We would like to know who she was seeing
at the time, what her movements were, and the places she frequented,
because it might give us a clue as to who she might have gone missing
with or where she might have ended up. People will remember this case.
Gloria was beautiful and was well known in the local area. It was a
very high profile case at the time. There were lots of rumors and speculation
as to what might have happened to her. We will be exploring every one
of these rumors to establish if there is any truth to them. The reopening
of the investigation was a significant step. However, despite the hope that something
would be uncovered, Gloria's case remained unsolved and a mystery. In two thousand
and nineteen, another development was made when an inquest was finally scheduled in Gloria's
case. The inquest looked at all of the information available, and assistant coroner
David Rosenberg concluded that the only reasonable thing that he could conclude was that she
was dead. He said, over forty years have elapsed and no evidence has
been produced about missus Bilbeer trying to contact her son or other members of her
family. There was no proof of life on any data record. She was
officially declared dead forty years after going missing, and this must have been a
huge moment for Gloria's family and I'm sure a distressing one. Detective Superintendent Matt
Baldwin from Humberside Police also spoke to the inquest, saying we have a number
of unsolved cases which are never closed. Gloria Bilbie's disappearance is one such case
which will continue to be reviewed by the Major Crime Unit. Not knowing is
bad enough losing a loved one, but not knowing what happened or having a
place to go to pay respects must be unbearable. Certainly, this case has
been high profile and having to live through this must have been very difficult.
In the intervening forty years, Gloria Bilbie's case has been fraught with speculation and
insinuation from the beginning of the investigation and has been high profile case within the
local community what happened to Gloria. Much has been made of the fact that
Gloria was seeing other men at the time that she disappeared, and this must
somehow mean that she did just walk away from her life. But we also
have to remember that she was a loving mother of an eleven year old son,
and she has not once tried to contact him after she left. Would
she really have done this voluntarily? This is the point that makes me think
twice, along with the fact that there has been no proof of life found
for her after all these years. If she was killed, who did it?
And why? Was it someone that she knew or was it a stranger?
Were those nuisance calls relevant to her disappearance, and if they were,
who was doing it. There are so many unknowns in this case, like
many missing people, but Gloria's family deserve answers to all of these questions and
her case is no less relevant to them despite the time that has passed by.
Humberside Police have stated this was an extensive investigation during which many lines of
inquiry were exhausted. We regularly conduct reviews of long term missing people. Unsolved
cases are never closed, however, they often remain inactive for periods of time.
On Beside Police will continue to take any tips or evidence, and so
if you do know anything about Gloria Bilby's disappearance, then please do contact them
either on one oh one or at crime Stoppers at oh eight hundred five five
one one one. Thank you for listening to today's episode. If you'd like
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you listen and in the show notes. As always, I'm Caprice and this
has been unseen