Beheaded & wrapped in plastic while wearing her M&S nighty – how murder of mystery woman remains unsolved 50 years on

A MYSTERY surrounding a woman who was beheaded and wrapped in plastic while wearing her M&S nighty remains unsolved 50 years on.

The unidentified victim was discovered on farmland near Cockley Cley, Norfolk on 27 August 1974, but her killers have never been caught.

She was found decapitated, wrapped in plastic, and wearing only a Marks & Spencer nighty.

The woman’s hands and legs were bound to her body when it was found in the undergrowth at a lover’s lane opposite RAF Marham’s shooting range.

She was wrapped in a sheet embossed with “National Cash Registers”, a brand of till.

The severely decomposed woman was discovered by a 19-year-old tractor driver named Andrew Head, who recalled: “I lifted one corner of the cover over the body and that was enough – I could see what it was.

“I went home and phoned the police.”

Her body had been decomposing in the middle of an area of dense bracken and willow herb for around three weeks.

It was impossible to determine if her body and abdomen had sustained slashing injuries.

Whether or not her decapitation was the cause of death also remains a mystery.

An expert told police the composition of the rare four-strand rope she was bound with “suggests it was made for use with agricultural machinery”.

Police managed to trace manufacture of the rope to Dundee in Scotland but the firms that made that particular type were no longer in existence.

Chris Clark, a retired Norfolk police officer and now a true crime author, accused Peter Sutcliffe of the murder.

He believes Sutcliffe, better known as the Yorkshire Ripper, could have beheaded the woman as he was driving through East Anglia on his way to his honeymoon in Paris in August 1974.

Andy Guy, who investigates cold cases for Norfolk Constabulary, confirmed his team investigated links to Peter Sutcliffe, Peter Tobin and other active serial killers throughout the 1970s.

However, because they never had a name for the victim, a solid link has never been established.

Investigators were given some hope after a truck driver called Crimewatch claiming to know the victim.

The driver believed she was a Danish sex worker who had suddenly vanished from the docks in Great Yarmouth that she frequented.

Nicknamed “The Duchess”, the worker was well known for being at the docks and even cleaning the boats.

She regularly got lifts with her lorry driver clients who would then normally drop her back at the dockyard.

Although The Duchess had spent time in custody before, her name vanished when police records were destroyed.

Andy and his team have tracked down and interviewed convicts who shared a cell with The Duchess, but they didn’t know her real name and it appears she was let off with a caution and doesn’t appear in any court documents.

The investigation continues

A murder probe was launched and police spoke to 15,000 people in the hope of identifying the woman but the case went cold.

In 2008, Norfolk Police exhumed her body and officers found she was aged between 23 and 35, around 5ft 2in tall, and appeared to have given birth at some point.

Despite this, they were unable to find a DNA match.

Andy told The Independent: “I think we are as far along the road as we can be with the case.

“Unless someone rings in and says I think that it could be my mother or something as striking as that.”

The detective said he met with the original 1974 investigators but with the passage of time various things had been “misremembered”.

His small team of around four officers can only work around four cold cases at one time.

Andy is also asking for anyone with information, especially people who know any US Air Force members who were based near where she was found, to come forward.

He said: “In the 10 years I worked on Operation Monton, including exhumation, anatomical study and at the time the use of cutting edge science, I feel I know the victim to some degree.

“She had a family – possibly children – who must have wondered what happened to her, and to be deposited in the manner she was is particularly inhuman.”

Andy believes the offender would likely be aged at least 75 by now, and could well be dead.

But, he said, the “savagery” displayed by the decapitation concerns him as to what else the offender may have done.

He added it would be “unusual” for someone who did this to come forward to police.

However, there may be people close to the killer, either friends or family, who may have information.

Until such a time comes however, the case remains unsolved, and her killer could still be alive and on the run.