Hi, and welcome back to The Unseen Podcast, a podcast dedicated to missing
people, unresolved cases, and UK true crime. Today we are exploring a
case which drew me in due to the strangeness of the situation and the odd
reporting on it, as well as how mysterious it appeared to be. It's
no secret that I enjoy covering historical cases, and with the murder of Nancy
Patterson in nineteen thirty two, the odd and vague details, as well as
the large amount of speculation in the small town in Cumbria, makes it just
a different kind of case. The sad fact is since nineteen thirty two there
has been little to no reporting on her unsolved murder, and sadly it looks
to have been forgotten by many people, but I'm sure not by her family.
This episode contains descriptions that may distress some listeners, including the brief mention
of suicide, so listener discretion is always advised. Workington is a coastal town
which is located on the west coast of England in the area of Cumberland in
the County of Cumbria. Cumbria is perhaps best known for the Lake District National
Park, are just the Lakes, as many people call it. In the
Northwest. The Lake District is known for its beautiful lakes and scenery and mountain
landscapes, and is inspired many people, including artists William Wordsworth and Arthur Beatrix
Potter, who wrote the Peter Rabbit series of books. It's a UNESCO World
Heritage Site and is today and was in the past a very popular destination for
visitors and for people who love hiking and doing sports on the water. Workington
is located around forty five miles away from the Lake District National Park at the
mouth of the River a Durwan. It's an area that has been associated with
the production of coal and steel, and many people historically worked in these industries.
When these industries began to decline in the UK, Workington, like many
other areas, struggled with high unemployment and dissatisfaction. Since then, Workington has
had a revamp of its high street and in two thousand and six a new
shopping center was built to replace an area which had been built in the nineteen
seventies. Today, Workington is a mostly residential area with under thirty thousand people.
During the nineteen thirties, Workington was still very much a working town,
with many of the people employed in either the coal or the steel sector.
It was certainly a place where local people were known well to one another.
During the week following the third of January nineteen thirty two, local man Thomas
bailey Hill was increasingly cons earned about his sister in law, Nancy Patterson.
He and his wife, Nancy's sister, had last seen her on Sunday,
January the third, and she headed out from their home on Vulcan's Lane to
the Congressional Church in Workington around five to six that evening. Nancy usually visited
the church on a Sunday night, and so this didn't seem out of the
ordinary. She usually returned to the home that they shared when the service had
finished, and was normally back before eight pm. Nancy was her usual self
that evening, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Thomas had gone out
himself that night to the Hippodrome and had got back at around nine thirty pm.
It was then that he was alerted by his wife to the fact that
Nancy hadn't yet come home. This was certainly out of character for her,
as she never stayed out that late after she'd been to church. Thomas decided
that he would go out to try and look for her, and he searched
around the town. However, he couldn't find her by eleven twenty five.
That night, he and his wife were so worried that they reported this to
the police. Thomas Hill and his wife told the police that twenty eight year
old Nancy lived with them as she had no parents since her mother had passed
away a while back. They explained that Nancy was very reserved and usually kept
herself to herself. She didn't have any male friends as far as they were
aware, and usually had a very similar routine, and so they believed that
something could have happened to her. They also added that Nancy had her own
private means and had around eighteen to twenty shillings a week for herself. It
would later be reported that after her mother's death, Nancy was given around fifteen
hundred pounds in inheritance to live on. This was the equivalent of around eighty
six thousand pounds in today's money. According to Nancy's sister and brother in law,
Nancy was relatively happy and contented, and there didn't seem to be any
reasons why she would have just disappeared on a whim. Workington police were initially
unsure what could have happened to her, and did ask around. They discovered
that she was well known in the area due to the fact that she usually
wore black clothing. Some people in Workington took to calling her the Black Shadow
for this reason. Despite finding out this, there was very little evidence as
to where she could have gone after heading out at around six pm on that
Sunday evening. That was until the eighth of January, five days after she
disappeared. Gilbert William Jones, who worked as a farm servant, stated that
he was walking along the beach around thirty miles away from Workington when he noticed
something on the sand. He said that he thought at first it was just
a heap of clothes. However, when he got closer, he saw that
it was in fact the body of a woman who was laid face first in
the sand. The woman was clearly deceased, and Gilbert Jones quickly went to
Willer authorities. They removed the body to the morgue to analyze it, and
they began looking into who this woman could be. It didn't take long for
them to establish that this was in fact missing Nancy Patterson from Workington. Her
body was taken away for analysis and a post martin was done to establish what
had happened. In the meantime, Nancy's family were faced with the awful realization
that she had died at just twenty eight years old. This must have been
a horrific realization, particularly for her sister, who it appears had no other
family than Nancy. Nancy had been described as an orphan and so the two
sisters seemingly only had each other. They couldn't understand why this had happened to
her, or even the circumtan dances that led to her disappearance. How had
she got thirty miles away and how had she ended up in the water.
Police now had to try and establish a timeline for Nancy and figure out if
there were any witnesses that evening. They were able to track down several people
who saw Nancy after she left the home on Vulcan's Lane. Joseph Hawthorne was
one of the key witnesses who saw Nancy twice that evening. He told police
that he knew Nancy by sight and that at around seven ten pm he saw
her at Grosser's shop on Power Street. He noticed her, particularly because she
wasn't alone. He stated that she was with a man who he didn't know,
and the man had his arm around her neck. He explained that the
way they were walking was odd and stood out so much that he said people
were laughing at them. While he didn't know the man, he said that
he would recognize him if he saw him again. Joseph Hawthorne also provided them
with another sighting of Nancy. He said that he was coming out of the
Bessemert Arms Pub and that he saw Nancy. This time, she was alone
and she was holding a handkerchief up to her face. She appeared to look
distressed and kept looking behind her, as though she was checking if someone was
following her. She was going up Church Street in the direction of Durwent Street,
and this was after nine pm. This struck Joseph, who thought she'd
looked quite cheerful earlier on with the man, and now she looked worried and
concerned. This was of interest to police, given that they needed to know
anything about her on the evening On that Sunday. Joseph Hawthorne was not the
only person to have seen Nancy that evening with a man and then alone.
Thomas Boardman also said he saw her close to the church. This was about
seven thirty pm, and it looked as though she was waiting for someone to
come out. Between seven thirty and eight pm, he then saw Nancy talking
to a man at the post office. The man had his arm around her
waist. Between nine thirty and ten pm, he saw her again, this
time alone. She was walking along Brow Top in the direction of Church Street.
It would appear that both of these witness statements lined up. Nancy was
seen with a man who had his arm around her waist, and she appeared
cheerful and relatively happy at this point. By nine pm to ten pm,
Nancy was alone, and Joseph's statements said she now looked worried or even scared.
Nancy being out at this time at all was unusual, and so why
was she even out? What could have happened and what happened afterwards. It's
also crucial to say that Nancy did not go to church that night as planned,
and this was also out of character and so portant to the investigation.
While police were trying to establish Nancy's movements and who she could have been with.
They were also trying to find out whether her death was the result of
any sort of foul play. On the fifteenth of January, around a week
after Nancy's body was recovered, the Mill and Gazette stated that police were not
of the opinion that Nancy had been murdered. It was stated that her death
must have been due to some sort of accident or by her own means.
The idea that Nancy could have done anything to herself didn't seem likely to her
family. Her brother in law explained that Nancy had never shown any indication that
she would do this, saying Nancy was too happy and contented a girl to
do away with herself, especially by drowning. She was terrified of water and
would not even cross a bridge over water. They believed that Nancy would never
have done something like that. Police had uncovered some witnesses who apparently had heard
Nancy talk about suicide in the past, including a member of the extended family
who said she'd once heard her say she would take herself off or else throw
herself in the water. Another man also stated that she had once brought up
the idea of suicide to him. This, however, would not be the
last that was said on the matter, as the results of the post mortem
suggested something very different to this initial assumption. Doctor mac fall, who worked
as a pathologist in Liverpool, gave his opinion about his own analysis of the
body. He explained that Nancy's body had many abrasions on it when it was
recovered. He explained where these marks were on her body, saying that she
had abrasions on her forehead and her cheek. She also had a small puncture
wound on the point of her chin and a bruise on the jaw on the
left side which was half an inch long. On the right hand side of
her nose, she had a bruise around a three quarters of an inch long
below the right side of her jaw. On her neck, she also had
a small circular bruise. There were no bruises on her body, and she
had superficial abrasions to both of her hands. There was no damage to her
whimpipe and her tongue was swollen. Doctor McFall concluded that the bruises and marks
on her nose had been recently done. He also stated that she had died
within five hours of eating food. This was significant as Thomas Bailey Hill stated
that she had last eaten some bread and butter around four or fifteen the afternoon.
Of course, it's unknown if she'd eaten after this. The most important
finding was cause of death. Doctor McFall concluded that this was due to asphyxia,
but there was nothing to show that this was caused by drowning. He
actually ruled out drowning in the usual way as the cause of her death.
This conclusion clears some things up, but actually confuses others. It establishes that
Nancy had died as a result of asphyxia, perhaps prior to going into the
water, and a later expert, doctor James Queerer, later said that the
bruises were caused before her death and they were sufficient enough to cause her harm.
The conclusion did seem to rule out that Nancy had done this to herself,
despite the medical professionals unable to completely rule it out without further evidence.
However, a later inquest would establish that she had died as a result of
murder by person or persons unknown. The mystery was who was this person or
persons and why did they want to kill Nancy Patterson. The man seemed with
his arm around Nancy was of course a major person of interest in this case,
as he had seem to be with her by multiple witnesses on the evening
that she disappeared. It would turn out that they were in luck with this,
as the man in question voluntarily turned up to speak to police. The
man named Charles Robson said he came forward to police, as quoted in the
Sunderland Daily Echo, I thought it was best to give myself up and say
I was in her company. He said he'd met her by appointment and that
they had spent around three hours together, from around five to six until around
five to nine. He said that she seemed cheerful in his company and there
didn't seem to be anything wrong. He also said she gave him a ring
as a keepsake when they were parting. This did clear up one aspect of
the case, as they knew that a ring was missing, but they assumed
that it had been lost when she was in the water. Charles Robson stated
that there had been no rough handling and that nothing of that s had happened
while they were together. This assertion appears to be corroborated by the fact that
several witnesses did see Nancy with a man, and none of them said that
there seemed to be anything odd or suspicious happening. This seemed to rule out
this man as being the person they were looking for. However, there were
still some odd sightings on that same night that raised questions. There were several
strange sightings by residents in Workington after this time period and closer to the ten
PM time, However, not all of them seemed the most credible. One
of them came from a man named Richard mckeatin. He said that he'd seen
Nancy that evening and that she had been alone, but he couldn't account for
the rest of his movements that night. At the inquest, a very odd
interaction occurred between the coroner and mckeatin, implying that he may have been up
to no good that night. The coroner asked him if he was a peeping
tom, to which mckeatin stated not that night. The farmer of the jury
then asked him if he'd ever been on the peeping tom game in the mill
fields, to which mckeatin replied yes, offten. He was then asked if
he was out on that expedition for that purpose that night, to which McKeating
said no, we'd all been chased by the police. There was then a
final question of are there others that do that, to which he said yes.
The implication in this conversation was that there were people out there that were
possibly watching or even starking women, and it was some sort of game.
The implication also was that he may have been out that night and perhaps that
was why he had noticed Nancy and perhaps didn't want to say what he had
been doing while he noticed her. Another man called Matthew Taylor, who was
near the River Derwent that night, said he saw her leaning over one of
the bridges at the stream, and that she was twisting her gloves in her
hands while leaning over it. A couple also remembered seeing her that night.
They were near the Navvy's bridge over the River Derwin around ten p m.
When they saw Nancy talking to a man. After they'd been talking for a
few moments, they both went up the steps. After about ten minutes,
they heard the sound of a man's footsteps running across a nearby bridge. These
times seemed to imply that Nancy was close to the River Derwin at close to
the time when the medical experts believed she had died around five hours after she'd
eaten, which was around four fifteen to four thirty pm. Were any of
these sightings credible? Nancy was apparently well known to many of the residents in
Workington, and so it would be plausible that these witnesses were correcting their recognition
of her. However, their contradictory was she with a man or was she
alone? All of the other witness statements put her as alone during this time,
and so if she was alone, who had then killed her? And
why? There are so many things unknown about Nancy Patterson's death, and the
accounts of her evening and what she was doing are contradictory and vague. The
official ruling of murder by person or persons unknown is conclusive, and it's clear
that Nancy was murdered that evening. Was this someone who randomly chose her and
attacked her? Were any of the people who had been chased away by police
for being peeping Tom's involved? This case is so strange in its entirety and
very sad that we know so little about Nancy herself. The fact that people
in the local area called her of the black Shadow paints the picture of a
young woman who was clearly still in mourning for her mother but trying in some
way to move on with her life. Whatever happened to Nancy and whoever did
it, she deserved better than what she got, and unfortunately, the person
or people who did this have got away with it for over ninety years,
and most likely they took this secret to their grave. My aim in this
episode is that Nancy was remembered and what happened to her was documented, as
there have been very few mentions of her since nineteen thirty two and she deserves
to be remembered. Thank you for listening to today's episode. If you'd like
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You can also subscribe and listen to my other podcast, Her Minute True
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you listen, and in the show notes, as always, I'm Caprice and
this has been unseen