Sunday 10 November 2013

The Murder of Anne Dunwell

This is a cold case going back to 1964 but looked as if it was going to be solved in 2005 due to advances in forensic technology, but ran into an official problem with patient privilege.  Anne Dunwell was a 13 year old girl who had left her grandparents home on 6th May 1964, in Maltby, near Rotherham, to catch a bus. She never caught it.  The following morning, her nude body was found by a labourer at 7.30am, dumped by a dung heap in Slade Hooton Lane.  She had been raped and then strangled with her own stockings.

    Police launched a manhunt and made an appeal for information about a rusty brown coloured van that had been converted into a mobile store, seen near the Ball Inn on the day of the murder, but the case ran cold for four decades.  It was in November 2002 that a review of unsolved murders, led to a re-examination of items found at the murder scene.  The stockings used to strangle the poor girl, fibres, and her underwear, which had traces on them.  Tests revealed that the assailant had probably had Gonorrhoea.  However, patient confidentiality on sexually transmitted diseases stopped Police learning which local men had treatment for the disease.

    Another appeal brought forward another suspect, a Scotsman named Pete, who was in the Ball Inn drinking Brandy alone.  He was well groomed and smoked Craven cigarettes.  He was a stranger in the village.   Enquiries by Police narrowed the suspects down to two men.  Both were sex offenders, and one had been convicted of murder, but the rules of privilege have prevented Police bringing a possible end to this case.

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