Speaker 1: Hi, and welcome back to The Unseen Podcast, a podcast
Speaker 1: dedicated to missing people, on resolved cases and UK true crime. Today,
Speaker 1: we're going to be covering the nineteen seventy three murder
Speaker 1: of Jacqueline John's in London. Jacqueline was just a child,
Speaker 1: just sixteen years old when she was killed, and her
Speaker 1: murder has remained unsolved for all these years. Who committed
Speaker 1: this crime and why? This episode contains descriptions that some
Speaker 1: listeners may find distressing, so listener discretion is advised. On
Speaker 1: the morning of Monday, the first of October nineteen seventy three,
Speaker 1: workmen were working in the area of Spicer's Wharf, close
Speaker 1: to Battersea Power Station. They were loading papers onto lorries
Speaker 1: from ships that had been docked at the River at Thames.
Speaker 1: While they were working, they noticed something in a railway
Speaker 1: siding and were drawn to investigate. They were soon alerted
Speaker 1: to the fact that what they'd noticed was the body
Speaker 1: of a woman. This woman was naked and it was
Speaker 1: clear that whatever had happened to her was not natural.
Speaker 1: When police arrived at the scene, there were many worrying aspects.
Speaker 1: There were few belongings to give an indications to what
Speaker 1: may have happened or point to the events prior to
Speaker 1: her death. A pair of yellow and blue striped platform
Speaker 1: shoes were tossed nearby. However, the woman was nude and
Speaker 1: she had no coat despite the relatively cold temperatures. The
Speaker 1: post mortem would establish that the victim had been strangled. However,
Speaker 1: contemporary reports state that she had been suffocated. The victim
Speaker 1: had also been sexually assaulted prior to her death. This
Speaker 1: was clearly a attack and the person who'd committed this
Speaker 1: was both violent and dangerous. Police were fairly quickly able
Speaker 1: to identify the victim, and this made the story all
Speaker 1: the more of a tragedy. She was sixteen year old
Speaker 1: Jacqueline John's Jacqueline had been seen on September twenty ninth,
Speaker 1: just two days before her body was found close to
Speaker 1: Battersea Power Station. She lived with her parents in Thornton
Speaker 1: Heath in South London, and despite her young age, she
Speaker 1: worked as an insurance clerk in the life assurance department
Speaker 1: at Commercial Union. Jacqueline had grown up in a loving
Speaker 1: and large family with seven other siblings. She was known
Speaker 1: as a responsible and relatively shy person who was a
Speaker 1: devout Christian faith was very important to Jacqueline, and she
Speaker 1: much preferred staying at home than going out and attending
Speaker 1: parties in her spare time. In fact, her family later
Speaker 1: said that they often encouraged Jacqueline to go out with
Speaker 1: her friends and have a good time. Her sister said,
Speaker 1: I used to have to force Jackie to go out
Speaker 1: to parties and things. She was much happier staying in
Speaker 1: her bedroom listening to records and the new record player
Speaker 1: we bought between us. She added that Jacqueline loved clothes
Speaker 1: and she would spend a lot of her money on jumpers,
Speaker 1: shirts and trousers. On the evening of the twenty ninth
Speaker 1: of September, Jacqueline had been invited to the wedding of
Speaker 1: her friend and colleague, Susan, who was getting married in
Speaker 1: South End in Essex. Jacqueline's mother said at the time
Speaker 1: Jackie had second thoughts about going to the wedding. She
Speaker 1: much preferred staying at home to going out, but we
Speaker 1: persuaded her to go. We thought she'd have a good time.
Speaker 1: She phoned on Saturday morning to say that she'd arrived safely.
Speaker 1: She always let us know where she was. That was
Speaker 1: the last time we spoke to her. Jacqueline had arrived
Speaker 1: in South End earlier that day and attended the wedding.
Speaker 1: Her family and her friend Susan, who was the bride,
Speaker 1: have confirmed that she'd been wearing a lemon colored dress
Speaker 1: for the occasion, as well as a sheepskin coat that
Speaker 1: she'd borrowed from her sister. The bride's mother explained that
Speaker 1: it was this lemon colored dress that stood out in
Speaker 1: her mind from that day and that was how she
Speaker 1: remembered that Jacqueline was there. She said, at the reception,
Speaker 1: Jacqueline was very happy. She sticks in my mind as
Speaker 1: the laughing girl in the yellow dress. After the wedding
Speaker 1: had taken place, there was a meal with around one
Speaker 1: hundred guests in attendance at the Arlington Ballroom, and they
Speaker 1: had then split into two groups, one group from the
Speaker 1: bride's family and one for the groom, and they'd returned
Speaker 1: to Westcliff On Sea to their homes for a reception party.
Speaker 1: It's known that Jacqueline left the party at around ten
Speaker 1: thirty pm, and she left with two other colleagues as
Speaker 1: they were giving her a lift to Upminster station. She
Speaker 1: was planning on getting the train back to her home
Speaker 1: in Thornton Heath that night. It is believed that her
Speaker 1: plan was to use the District Line to travel back
Speaker 1: to Victoria Station and then get a train which would
Speaker 1: take her to Thornton Heath. Her train was due at
Speaker 1: eleven twenty six at Victoria Station and it's believed that
Speaker 1: she was sighted on the concourse speaking to a woman
Speaker 1: After this. However, it's unclear what happened are the events
Speaker 1: that unfolded. Police have theorized that perhaps Jacqueline missed the
Speaker 1: train that would take her back home and instead decided
Speaker 1: to head to stay with relatives who lived in Battersea.
Speaker 1: If Jacqueline had headed out in the direction of Battersea,
Speaker 1: then this may have been where she met her killer
Speaker 1: that night. This certainly appeared to be a murder of opportunity,
Speaker 1: and one that relied on the fact that Jacqueline had
Speaker 1: missed her train and was unable to get home. How
Speaker 1: had this occurred, though, the theory that Jacqueline had simply
Speaker 1: been in the wrong place at the wrong time was explored,
Speaker 1: including the fact that she may have been hitchhiking that
Speaker 1: night after missing her train. Had she got into someone's
Speaker 1: car for a lift, had someone offered to help her
Speaker 1: at Victorias station. This was the police's biggest line of
Speaker 1: inquiry and they stopped drivers on Chelsea Bridge in the
Speaker 1: days after her body was recovered to ask if they
Speaker 1: recognized Jacqueline from that evening and gave a description of
Speaker 1: the distinctive lemon colored dress. Someone did come forward to
Speaker 1: give a description of the woman that had been seen
Speaker 1: speaking to Jacqueline at Victoria Station at around two twenty
Speaker 1: five am. She was around sixteen to seventeen years old,
Speaker 1: with a thin billed, straight dark hair which was parted
Speaker 1: in the middle. She was wearing a knee length black
Speaker 1: dress with full sleeves, a maroon balo top, blue calf
Speaker 1: length boots and platform shoes. This woman was noted by
Speaker 1: a porter and a Welsh guardsman. Police did follow up
Speaker 1: with a number of lines of inquiry and in the
Speaker 1: two weeks that followed, officers interviewed more than ten thousand people.
Speaker 1: They also put out an appeal on TV to ask
Speaker 1: for help from the public. Despite these appeals, the police
Speaker 1: said that they came upon a wall of silence from
Speaker 1: the public and that only a handful of people came
Speaker 1: forward to state that they saw her at any point
Speaker 1: that night. Detective Chief Superintendent David Frew, who was leading
Speaker 1: the investigation at the time, said the only definitive sighting
Speaker 1: is on the late night underground train from Upminster to
Speaker 1: Victoria on September twenty ninth. From there she seen her
Speaker 1: vanished into thin air. Someone must have seen this girl.
Speaker 1: With clothing she wore must have made her stand out
Speaker 1: like a sore thumb. I cannot stress enough the important
Speaker 1: role the public can play in helping us find her murderer.
Speaker 1: We can never be sure if he will strike again.
Speaker 1: A confusing part of the contemporary articles is that they
Speaker 1: state that Jacqueline was not sexually assaulted, and therefore this
Speaker 1: was not a motive for the crime. More recent reports
Speaker 1: state that she was sexually assaulted. One thing that police
Speaker 1: appeared to be sure of, though, was that Jacqueline was
Speaker 1: afraid of being out in the dark, and therefore was
Speaker 1: unlikely to accept a lift from just anyone who was
Speaker 1: also stated that Jacqueline had a limited sense of direction,
Speaker 1: so would have also struggled to find her way around alone.
Speaker 1: Jacqueline's sister, Susan, said something similar about who she might
Speaker 1: have accepted help from that night, saying that she might
Speaker 1: have got into a car thinking it was a taxi
Speaker 1: and would be unlikely to just get into a stranger's car.
Speaker 1: Police wanted to interview everyone that knew Jacqueline in case
Speaker 1: they knew anything about her movements that night, or if
Speaker 1: she had contacted them, perhaps in the early hours of
Speaker 1: that morning or that weekend. This was hampered by the
Speaker 1: fact that her diary was in her handbag that was
Speaker 1: absent from the scene, along with her clothing and her coat,
Speaker 1: which had not been recovered. This was another line of
Speaker 1: inquiry because whoever did take these things either wanted to
Speaker 1: remove evidence from the scene as it could identify Jacqueline,
Speaker 1: or wanted to take these items as some way of
Speaker 1: remembering the act. The lead of the missing Yellow Dress
Speaker 1: was a strong one, and this was one of the
Speaker 1: reasons why it's been dubbed by some in the press
Speaker 1: as the Girl in the Yellow Dress murder. Jacqueline's family
Speaker 1: were obviously extremely devastated by what had happened to her,
Speaker 1: and those close to her were shocked and horrified by
Speaker 1: the fact that the person responsible had not yet been found.
Speaker 1: Her sister, Susan said, I was very close to Jacqueline
Speaker 1: as we were just fourteen months apart, and we did
Speaker 1: everything together. The family was devastated and heartbroken by her death.
Speaker 1: I just wish she stayed in South End after the
Speaker 1: wedding and not tried to come home. This was something
Speaker 1: echoed by her friend Susan, whose wedding she had attended
Speaker 1: that day. It was a long time ago. We were
Speaker 1: the youngest in the department and used to go to
Speaker 1: lunch together. Jackie was just a normal teenager, but she
Speaker 1: wasn't a party girl. I think that's why we got
Speaker 1: on so well. Neither of us really went out on
Speaker 1: the town. She didn't have a boyfriend, and I can't
Speaker 1: imagine that she would have ever voluntarily got into a
Speaker 1: car with a stranger. She was living in London and
Speaker 1: I was in South End, so we didn't really see
Speaker 1: much of each other outside work, but I remember but
Speaker 1: we were involved in a Christian group which had a
Speaker 1: sailing barge, and she came away with us for a
Speaker 1: weekend on a fishing smack. Thinking back to our wedding,
Speaker 1: I can't remember speaking to her or anyone else from
Speaker 1: work because there were so many people there. When we
Speaker 1: got the bank on our door. On our honeymoon, we
Speaker 1: didn't know what to think. It was terrible to hear
Speaker 1: that she'd be murdered, but our families wanted us to
Speaker 1: know as soon as possible in case we read about
Speaker 1: it in the papers first. When I went back to work,
Speaker 1: it was a strange atmosphere not having her there. I
Speaker 1: even expected her to suddenly appear. For a few months,
Speaker 1: I was too scared to go anywhere by myself, but
Speaker 1: luckily David worked in London so we could commute together.
Speaker 1: I remember Jaqueline's mother sent me a letter. I also
Speaker 1: went to her funeral with other work colleagues. It was
Speaker 1: the first time I'd been to a burial. I spoke
Speaker 1: to her mother at the funeral. It was very upsetting.
Speaker 1: The thing that appears to have bothered many people close
Speaker 1: to Jacqueline is that her case disappeared from the headlines
Speaker 1: so soon after her murder occurred. In February nineteen seventy four,
Speaker 1: an inquest was adjourned, which confirmed that Jacqueline had indeed
Speaker 1: been murdered by person or persons unknown. In September nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy four, Detective Chief Superintendent David Frew launched a fresh appeal.
Speaker 1: A year after her murder, asking anyone to cast their
Speaker 1: minds back to the year previous and to come forward
Speaker 1: with any information they might have. He said he would
Speaker 1: never forget about Jacqueline's case and was bothered himself that
Speaker 1: it had not been solved in the year that had
Speaker 1: gone by. Unfortunately, this is the way that Jacqueline's case
Speaker 1: has stayed since nineteen seventy three. It remains unsolved fifty
Speaker 1: two years later. Since that time, her family says as
Speaker 1: though Jacqueline's murder has been completely forgotten about and contact
Speaker 1: with the police has been pretty much nonexistent. Her sister
Speaker 1: Susan said in twenty twenty four, it's almost as if
Speaker 1: her case has been wiped from the face of the earth.
Speaker 1: There's no mention of it as a cold case or anything.
Speaker 1: My mum's last wish before she died was that they
Speaker 1: would solve it as a cold case. We don't know
Speaker 1: if there's any DNA or anything. We just don't know
Speaker 1: what the police have, but I'm shocks if it's actually
Speaker 1: still open. There was some contact made with the family
Speaker 1: in the nineties and this did give some insight into
Speaker 1: their possible lines of inquiry. The family have confirmed that
Speaker 1: they were told about Robert Black. Robert Black has been
Speaker 1: discussed as a possible perpetrator on the podcast before and
Speaker 1: He is a convicted serial killer and pedophile who was
Speaker 1: convicted in nineteen ninety four of the murder and rape
Speaker 1: of three girls between the ages of five and eleven
Speaker 1: between nineteen eighty one and nineteen eighty six, as well
Speaker 1: as the kidnapping of a fourth and sexual assault of
Speaker 1: a fifth. His victims were Caroline Hogg, Susan Maxwell, and
Speaker 1: Sarah Harper. In twenty eleven, he was also convicted of
Speaker 1: the murder of Jennifer Cardy, based on similarity to the
Speaker 1: other crimes that he'd committed and proof that he'd been
Speaker 1: in the area of Northern Ireland at the time that
Speaker 1: she was abducted and killed. Robert Black was a very
Speaker 1: dangerous and prolific criminal, and one of the things that
Speaker 1: made him more of a potential threat was his job
Speaker 1: as a delivery driver, transporting posters and billboards across the
Speaker 1: UK and Island and even some parts of Europe. He
Speaker 1: was a good employee, according to those he worked for,
Speaker 1: as he would take on long distance driving jobs and
Speaker 1: was willing to travel to many different places for work.
Speaker 1: It would emerge that his job enabled him to scope
Speaker 1: out many different places and abduct children from the street.
Speaker 1: He had black curtains installed in the back of his
Speaker 1: van and would carry around different pairs of glasses and
Speaker 1: outfits with him in order to disguise what he was doing.
Speaker 1: Police were very concerned that he was involved in many
Speaker 1: unsolved crimes across the country involving child victims. In nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety four, a meeting between six different police forces was
Speaker 1: convened to try and establish if any of them could
Speaker 1: be attributed to Black. This could have been why Jacqueline's
Speaker 1: family were contacted about her cases possible linked to him.
Speaker 1: Jacqueline's sister, Susan said, the police contacted us about Robert
Speaker 1: Black after they found some friendship bracelets, but I don't
Speaker 1: think my mother knew if they were hers or not.
Speaker 1: Robert Black was the only name mentioned to us, but
Speaker 1: we don't know if it was him. Jacqueline's younger sister, Annette, said,
Speaker 1: they showed me a bracelet which they found with black stuff,
Speaker 1: and they thought it might be Jacqueline. It had different
Speaker 1: colored beads. She had a similar one, but I'm more
Speaker 1: sure it was hers. The police showed it to me,
Speaker 1: but they didn't say it was Black. I only know
Speaker 1: as they left a file on the table with Robert
Speaker 1: Black's name on it. However, they mentioned Black's name to
Speaker 1: my mum and Susan. I don't know whether she was
Speaker 1: killed by Black. He did like younger girls, and Jacqueline
Speaker 1: looked older than her age, but we just don't know
Speaker 1: what happened. It could have been Black. This link to
Speaker 1: Robert Black is reportedly the only name that has ever
Speaker 1: been mentioned to the family as a possible suspect in
Speaker 1: Jacqueline's murder. She would certainly have been older than many
Speaker 1: of Black's other victims. However, it's clear that the full
Speaker 1: scope of Black's crimes have not been established, and therefore
Speaker 1: it cannot be said if this is a potential line
Speaker 1: of inquiry or not. Black has been linked to the
Speaker 1: murders of Jeannette Te and April fab which I've covered
Speaker 1: on the podcast before. I may give you some insight
Speaker 1: into the investigation that was carried out on him. Robert
Speaker 1: Black died in prison in twenty sixteen. Jacqueline's family have
Speaker 1: been looking for answers since nineteen seventy three, and it's
Speaker 1: clear that although it is officially part of the coal
Speaker 1: case team, not much have been done since the nineteen
Speaker 1: seventies to try and find out who Jacqueline's murder was.
Speaker 1: There has also been little communication with Jacqueline's family to
Speaker 1: discuss any progress or anything at all that's been done
Speaker 1: in the case. This is always so sad to hear,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure causes them even more devastation and trauma.
Speaker 1: Jacqueline's family deserves answers and her killer deserves to be caught.
Speaker 1: Whether the perpetrator was Robert Black and he has since
Speaker 1: been convicted and passed away, or it was someone completely
Speaker 1: unknown to police. They have escaped justice for over half
Speaker 1: a century and Jacqueline's family deserved to know. If you
Speaker 1: know anything about the murder of Jacqueline John's in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy three, then please contact the police on one oh one.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to today's episode. If you'd like
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Speaker 1: As always, I'm Caprice and this has been unseen b