Speaker 1: Hi, and welcome back to The Unseen Podcast, a podcast
Speaker 1: dedicated to missing people, unresolved cases, and UK true crime.
Speaker 1: Today's day four of twelve days of missing person cases
Speaker 1: throughout December. We're going to be exploring the nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: seven disappearance of nineteen year old Valerie Haycock. Her disappearance
Speaker 1: on the way to starting a new job has remained
Speaker 1: a mystery for her family for over fifty years. Listener
Speaker 1: discretion is always advised. Piddington is a village in south Northamptonshire,
Speaker 1: around six miles from Northampton town center. It's a small
Speaker 1: village with many facilities being located in nearby village of Hackleton.
Speaker 1: Forrest Road runs through the center of the village and
Speaker 1: today is made up of terrace and semi detached houses
Speaker 1: surrounded by fields and greenery. In nineteen sixty seven, Valerie
Speaker 1: Haycock lived on Forest Road with her parents. Valerie was
Speaker 1: a friendly and happy person who was popular and was
Speaker 1: well loved by her family and friends. Her stepsister Jeanne
Speaker 1: would later say Valerie was friendly, she was a bubbly
Speaker 1: start of girl. She has been described as the baby
Speaker 1: of the family and very much loved and looked after.
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty seven, Valerie was nineteen years old and
Speaker 1: had been working at a tie factory close to her home.
Speaker 1: Like many people of her age, Valerie was trying to
Speaker 1: navigate her way through her teenage years and figure out
Speaker 1: what she wanted to do with her life. By July
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty seven, Valerie believed that she may have found
Speaker 1: a job that she would find rewarding and may kickstart
Speaker 1: her career. She told her family that she'd been offered
Speaker 1: a job as a nanny on a farm near Luton.
Speaker 1: Luton is around thirty six miles from Northampton, and Valerie
Speaker 1: was excited about the opportunity of getting a new job
Speaker 1: and also to live somewhere other than her hometown. On
Speaker 1: July fourteenth, Valerie left her home in Forrest Road and
Speaker 1: traveled to nearby Hackleton. Here, her plan was to board
Speaker 1: a bus to Newton Pagnell, which is located just outside
Speaker 1: of Milton Keynes. Her plan then was to get another
Speaker 1: bus which would take her to Luton. Her stepsister, Jeane,
Speaker 1: later explained that she was the one who put Valerie
Speaker 1: on the bus to Newton Pagnell that day, and that
Speaker 1: Valerie had promised to contact them by ringing the phone
Speaker 1: box in Piddington the next day to let them know
Speaker 1: that she'd got there safely. She left home wearing a
Speaker 1: t two piece miniskirt suit and carrying a suitcase with
Speaker 1: her belongings in. There was nothing to suggest that there
Speaker 1: was anything unusual or strange about Valerie's decision to take
Speaker 1: up a job outside of Piddington, as during the nineteen
Speaker 1: sixties many people moved around for work and for new careers.
Speaker 1: Valerie's parents and family members waited eagerly for her phone
Speaker 1: call the next day so that they could hear all
Speaker 1: about her journey and what she thought about her new job.
Speaker 1: The phone call to the village phone box didn't arrive.
Speaker 1: Her parents waited for several hours, perhaps thinking that Valerie
Speaker 1: had been delayed or was busy. When Valerie had still
Speaker 1: not phoned after hours had passed, her parents were worried
Speaker 1: about her and decided to contact police to report her missing.
Speaker 1: Northamptonshire Police were now involved with Valerie being reported as
Speaker 1: a missing person an investigation and began to try and
Speaker 1: locate her, and they did have some leads, given that
Speaker 1: they knew whereabouts she'd headed when she left Hackleton on
Speaker 1: the bus. It reported that Valerie's family and friends traveled
Speaker 1: down to Luton to try and locate the farm where
Speaker 1: she'd been offered the job, but they were unable to
Speaker 1: find it. It would later be confirmed that police tracked
Speaker 1: down the family in Luton. They explained that they had
Speaker 1: indeed offered Valerie a job as a nanny, but that
Speaker 1: she had not turned up as she planned to do.
Speaker 1: This was confusing for her family, who couldn't understand what
Speaker 1: had happened to her after she left Hackleton. Valerie's brother
Speaker 1: in law, Clive, later said that he'd been away for
Speaker 1: two weeks during the time that Valerie had been missing,
Speaker 1: and that when he got back he also tried to
Speaker 1: help search for her. He said, I had been on
Speaker 1: a fortnight's holiday, so Valerie had been missing quite some
Speaker 1: time by the time I heard what happened. I tried
Speaker 1: to muster things up, but things seemed to have died down.
Speaker 1: Her parents thought she would come back, and the police
Speaker 1: didn't think anything had happened to her. This statement indicates
Speaker 1: that police perhaps assumed that Valerie may have gone somewhere
Speaker 1: of her own accord and had not vanished as a
Speaker 1: result of foul play. Valerie's family tried their best to
Speaker 1: try and locate any information. However, this proved to be
Speaker 1: quite difficult. The Salvation Army became involved in the search,
Speaker 1: as at the time they did try to track down
Speaker 1: missing people. However, they also couldn't find any trace of Valerie.
Speaker 1: Like many missing person cases that we cover, it was
Speaker 1: as though she had just vanished. Chief Inspector Dennis Abraham said,
Speaker 1: she just seemed to have vanished off the face of
Speaker 1: the earth. Her name is still on the police missing
Speaker 1: person's list, but there's no information and nothing definite. Since
Speaker 1: she first went missing, her family knew her disappearance was
Speaker 1: very unlike Valerie. Her sister pat later said there are
Speaker 1: an awful lot of people who remember her and would
Speaker 1: like to hear from her. Valerie was nineteen. She had boyfriends,
Speaker 1: but there was no reason for her to leave. She
Speaker 1: was not the sort of girl who would just go off,
Speaker 1: which makes it harder. Over the following years, Valerie's missing
Speaker 1: person case, while not closed, started to go cold, with
Speaker 1: less and less tips coming in. In nineteen ninety four,
Speaker 1: almost thirty years after Valerie's disappearance, her name was finally
Speaker 1: once again in the headlines, but unfortunately as part of
Speaker 1: a tragic story. In nineteen ninety four, the news of
Speaker 1: the House of Horrors in Cromwell Street in Gloucester broke
Speaker 1: and made headlines around the world world. Fred and Rose
Speaker 1: West were arrested and their back garden was excavated. They
Speaker 1: would later be convicted of the murders of twelve women
Speaker 1: before burying their bodies in the cellar and the back garden.
Speaker 1: Valerie's case was brought up in relation to the case
Speaker 1: because it was believed that she may fit the profile
Speaker 1: of one of their victims. This was due to her
Speaker 1: age and the fact that she was traveling from one
Speaker 1: place to another. Fred West was known to pick up
Speaker 1: young women who were waiting at bus stops or hitchhiking,
Speaker 1: and at least one of their victims had been working
Speaker 1: as a nanny at the time that she was murdered,
Speaker 1: which of course, was the job that Valerie was going
Speaker 1: to do. Articles at the time discussed the fact that
Speaker 1: Valerie had been missing from Northampton and that Fred West
Speaker 1: was known to travel around the country. Valerie's sister Pat stated,
Speaker 1: if Rose West had any conscience at all, she would
Speaker 1: tell me if Fred had anything to do with my
Speaker 1: sister's disappearance. There was no reason for val to get
Speaker 1: up and leave. No one has heard a word from
Speaker 1: her in twenty eight years. That wouldn't be like her.
Speaker 1: We've tried to trace her and found nothing. Over the years,
Speaker 1: not hearing from her, we've begun to fear the worst.
Speaker 1: VAL's disappearance hit my mother and father very badly. They
Speaker 1: were devastated. Val was the baby of the family and
Speaker 1: they never really got over it. They went to their
Speaker 1: graves without ever knowing what happened. I don't want that
Speaker 1: to be the case with me. When I read about
Speaker 1: the murders and how some of the girls were picked
Speaker 1: up at bus stops, I thought straight away about VAL's disappearance.
Speaker 1: If you're still alive, just let us know. Set our
Speaker 1: minds at rest. Gorcestershire Police were sent many profiles of
Speaker 1: missing people to examine. However, there doesn't seem to be
Speaker 1: any evidence that Valerie was a victim of the wests.
Speaker 1: During the time that elapsed, Valerie's parents had passed away
Speaker 1: without finding out what happened to her or where she went,
Speaker 1: and so this must have been devastating for them. In
Speaker 1: two thousand and two, the case would finally be given
Speaker 1: a lead. A tip off came in from a witness
Speaker 1: from Northampton who claimed to have seen Valerie around a
Speaker 1: week after she disappeared. He explained that he saw her
Speaker 1: in the Britannia Pub on Barrack Road in Northampton, and
Speaker 1: she was with two men. Police would later state that
Speaker 1: the two men that she had possibly been with were
Speaker 1: Irish and that they were employed by the council to
Speaker 1: paint road markings. The men lived in a caravan that
Speaker 1: they traveled the country with, and Valerie had possibly met
Speaker 1: them while frequenting local pubs. It was known that she'd
Speaker 1: recently befriended them before she disappeared. It would turn out
Speaker 1: that there had been around seven sightings since Valerie disappeared,
Speaker 1: and six of these had been an Island. The police
Speaker 1: had previously had a working theory that Valerie may have
Speaker 1: left to live in southern Ireland, and so this witness
Speaker 1: putting her with two Irish men a week after she
Speaker 1: disappeared certainly was of interest to them. The Irish branch
Speaker 1: of Interpol took over investigations in Ireland looking into Valeriees
Speaker 1: possible whereabouts. In two thousand and three, photographs of Valerie
Speaker 1: once again distributed to the public in the hope that
Speaker 1: they would jog someone's memory or they would recognize her
Speaker 1: as someone that they knew. A black and white photograph
Speaker 1: of Valerie as a teenager was posted in seven London
Speaker 1: train stations to further get her image and information out
Speaker 1: to more people. Another theory that has been put forward
Speaker 1: for why Valerie may have disappeared was that perhaps she
Speaker 1: was pregnant before she vanished. At the time in the
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties, this would have been very difficult for a
Speaker 1: young single woman, and the stigma that was attached to
Speaker 1: it may have meant that she thought it was easier
Speaker 1: to leave her life behind. Her family have considered this
Speaker 1: as a theory. Her stepsister Jeanne said, I said to
Speaker 1: my stepdad after Valerie had gone that she could have
Speaker 1: been pregnant. He said she could have brought the baby home.
Speaker 1: That wouldn't have been a problem. While this was a possibility,
Speaker 1: of course, there's little evidence to confirm it. In Valerie's case,
Speaker 1: there is very little evidence to go on aside from
Speaker 1: possible sightings in Ireland. She left with belongings which have
Speaker 1: never been found. Records indicate that She's never registered for
Speaker 1: tax or insurance, never claimed Social Security, and never applied
Speaker 1: for a driving license in her own name. Since she disappeared,
Speaker 1: there have never been any official records of Valerie using
Speaker 1: her own identity. Has been extremely difficult to track down
Speaker 1: information given the time that has passed since nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: seven and the fact that the original case file has
Speaker 1: been lost, meaning that crucial information may now have been missed.
Speaker 1: There is the possibility that Valerie is out there somewhere,
Speaker 1: living a new life with a new identity, and that
Speaker 1: someone does know where she is. They may not even
Speaker 1: know that she was ever missing. We don't know a
Speaker 1: lot about her whereabouts. However, by getting her information out there,
Speaker 1: we never know what may be uncovered. If you know
Speaker 1: anything about the disappearance of Valerie Haycock, please contact Missing
Speaker 1: People through her missing person profile in the show notes,
Speaker 1: or contact police on one oh one. Thank you for
Speaker 1: listening to day four of twelve Days of Missing Person
Speaker 1: episodes in December. Stay tuned for Day five in a
Speaker 1: couple of days. If you'd like to support the podcast further,
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Speaker 1: also just share the episodes. As always, I'm Caprice and
Speaker 1: this has been unseen