More than 100 of these cases happened in Merseyside including some that date back to the pre-war era
A new interactive map has revealed 1,000 unsolved murders across every part of Britain, 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. This 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.
The oldest case in the timeline is from 1938. Farmer Jim Dawson had spent the evening drinking in his local pub in Bashall Eaves, near Clitheroe. As he walked home, the 46-year-old was shot in the back of his shoulder by an unknown assailant. Dulled by the ale he consumed, he initially thought he had been hit by someone throwing stones. But the next morning, he awoke to find his sheets covered in blood.
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Although he initially refused surgery, he was persuaded to seek treatment at Blackburn Royal Infirmary, where medics removed a crude homemade bullet from his shoulder.
Four days later, he took a turn for the worse and died in a nursing home in Blackburn. The cause of his death was recorded as gangrene and septicemia from an infected wound.
Detectives investigating his murder were met with a wall of silence – so much so that Bashall Eaves was later tagged “The Village That Wouldn’t Speak” following a 1979 TV documentary of that name.
Many of the cases included in the map are so famous that they remain locked in the national psyche, such as the assassination of TV presenter Jill Dando in 1999.
Other mysteries – however shocking at the time – have been consigned to history, such as Jack the Ripper’s reign of terror in 1960s London, as well as a host of lesser-known crimes that are still unsolved.
Each remains an enigma, with families still seeking justice and answers – and in many cases, the murderer may still walk the streets.
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There are a total of 107 unsolved murders across Merseyside, according to the interactive map. The oldest case in Merseyside is from 1955. On September 24, 1955, Alice Barton, 49, was found strangled, her body mutilated and then dumped in a wartime pillbox.
Just before noon on Saturday, September 24, 1955, 11-year-old Peter Williams, a pupil at Grange secondary school, left his parents home at Walby Close on the Woodchurch estate, Birkenhead, and set off to pick blackberries. Peter and his friends headed for a railway embankment on the north side of the estate, where an old concrete pillbox lay.
He looked inside and saw what he thought was a shop-window dummy, however on closer inspection, he was horrified to find it was the body of a woman, with clothes piled on top of her face and three obscene words scrawled on her torso.
However it emerged that Alice had drifted into the dangerous world of sex work after leaving her husband John Barton. It was Mr Barton, who had not seen his wife since 1943, who came forward to identify her body.
Enquiries found Alice would often take her regular customers, believed to have been mostly truck drivers, to the pillbox. Police began a massive manhunt for Alice’s killer, scouring the area for clues and making door-to-door inquiries.
Over 40,000 people were also quizzed regarding the murder, however the line of inquiry went cold until 2010, when a woman came forward and claimed the killer was her grandfather. She describes the suspicion her grandfather – her dad’s father – who frequented a pub just minutes away from the murder scene, was involved in the killing.
The map below shows all unsolved murders across Britain, including those in Merseyside.
In a post on social media, Aimee, 23, from Wirral, wrote: “One night, he came home wearing blood soaked clothes demanding my nan to burn them. My nan was so horrified and in shock that she went to throw them in the wash immediately, but he ordered her to burn them there and then.”
She goes on to say that a couple of days later the murder of Alice Barton was reported in the newspaper. She adds: “The killer has never been found and from my grandad no words have ever been said about it.”
The ECHO understands the “grandfather” referred to in the message is no longer alive. The new information was reviewed by Merseyside Police’s Serious Crime Review Unit. However, 69 years on, the identity and motive behind the killing of Alice Barton remains a mystery.
Other mysteries – however shocking at the time – have been consigned to history, as well as a host of lesser-known crimes that are still unsolved. Each remains an enigma, with families still seeking justice and answers – and in many cases, the murderer may still walk the streets.
