Gruesome murder of ‘Girl in Yellow Dress’ dumped near power station could finally be solved thanks to vital clue
THE gruesome murder of a teenage girl over 50 years ago could finally be solved thanks to a clue overlooked by cops.
Jacqueline Johns’ naked body was discovered close to Battersea Power Station in southwest London in 1973 – but her killer has never been caught.
The 16-year-old’s shoes were left behind at the scene and criminologist David Wilson believes modern forensics could provide “opportunities that weren’t available at the time”.
He told The Sun: “It would be interesting to know if the family actually identified that they were her shoes or not.”
He said the fact the footwear was left but the rest of Jacqueline’s clothes were taken “could be significant”.
“It could be instrumental, which means they didn’t have time to take off her shoes, or it could be psychological in that the shoes were something that turned them on.
“They enjoyed viewing the body after the girl had been murdered with her shoes on.
He added: “It’s an era before CCTV and DNA but have her shoes been retained, there could be soil samples and so forth?
“I would have thought there are lines of enquiry that could be pursued that would help this poor family get justice for Jacqueline.
“She was found within 48 hours – this strikes me as something much more opportunistic and spontaneous, not planned – is there any forensic evidence on the body that was of use to the police?”
Jacqueline’s sister Susan Church previously said her and her siblings have had no contact with cops for more than 30 years.
The last public police appeal for information was made just months after her death – and the killer remains a mystery.
Mr Wilson said it is baffling that the Met Police haven’t reviewed the case more regularly.
“There didn’t seem to be that concerted effort,” he continued.
“Were there no posters of the woman who was seen talking to her? Was there no appeal done?
“Were her shoes kept and may they offer forensic opportunities that weren’t available at the time?”
He continued: “How was she strangled? From behind or from the front? Manually or with a ligature?
“These are the questions we need to ask. They are important details.
“An unsolved murder case is supposed to be reviewed regularly every two years. I would be encouraging her family to ask the Met Police when they are going to review the case.”
The Met confirmed to fellow criminologist Robert Giles last year that the case “remains unsolved” after he submitted a Freedom of Information request.
DISAPPEARANCE
Insurance clerk Jacqueline had attended her work colleague Susan Baynes’ wedding party on the Essex Riviera on September 29 1973 – and after thanking the bride for a “lovely time” she headed for home in Thornton Heath, south London.
But the teen – later dubbed the Girl in the Yellow Dress – never made it.
Her body was stripped of the bright lemon-coloured dress and sheepskin coat she’d been wearing and was dumped in a railway siding.
The grim discovery at Spicers Wharf – on October 1 – was made by workmen just across the Thames from Victoria Station, where she was last seen alive by witnesses.
Jacqueline was raped and strangled. Apart from her yellow and blue shoes, her clothes were never recovered.
She’d missed the last train home from Victoria just before midnight, and a woman she was seen talking to on the platform has never been traced.
At the time, police suggested she walked across Chelsea Bridge, possibly trying to hitchhike home.
Her loved ones fear she may have been a victim of notorious serial killer Robert Black.
Susan, who lives in Heysham, Lancashire, previously said police did tell the family in the early 1990s that Black may have been involved – but have not been in touch since.
She said: “The police contacted us about Robert Black after they found some friendship bracelets.
“But I don’t think my mother knew if they were hers or not.”
Susan added that Black’s was the only name cops ever gave to them.
Black kept a bracelet in his flat which may have been a souvenir, a police source previously told the Daily Mail.
Jacqueline’s other sister Annette Belcher said detectives had previously shown her a bracelet with coloured beads but she couldn’t be sure it was her late sibling’s.
Mr Giles – the co-author of The Face of Evil: The True Story of Serial Killer Robert Black – said Black had discussed his desire to rape women with a fellow sex offender while in borstal in the late 1960s.
Who was Robert Black?
Robert Black, from Falkirk in Scotland, was in 1994 given 12 life sentences for murdering four girls aged between five and 11 in the 1980s.
He died aged 68 at Maghaberry prison in County Antrim in January 2016.
During the 1970s and 1980s he worked as a delivery driver, during which time he abducted and killed his victims.
He was eventually caught by police in 1990 with a barely alive six-year-old girl in the back of his van in Stow, Scotland.
Remarkably, she was found by her policeman dad.
Black was convicted of the murders of 11-year-old Susan Maxwell, from the Scottish Borders, five-year-old Caroline Hogg, from Edinburgh, and Sarah Harper, 10, from Morley, near Leeds, as well as a failed abduction bid in Nottingham in 1988.
In 2011, he was found guilty of the 1981 murder of nine-year-old Jennifer Cardy, from Ballinderry, County Antrim.
He died in prison, aged 68, in Northern Ireland in 2016.
However, Mr Wilson said he’s not so sure.
He explained: “In my opinion it definitely was not Robert Black. It just shows that probably lots of people tried to abduct young girls in our culture, but not all by Robert Balck.
“16 was too old for him. He tended to go for pre-pubescent girls. He would go for eight, nine, 10, even younger.
“Occasionally, there was an older one who was 13 or 14 but that was unusual for his pattern of offending.”
Mr Wilson went on to say: “He did live in London at the time but he was a delivery driver and he tended to abduct and kill girls outside of London.
“My sense is that Robert Black is a bogey man figure in our culture and people want to say it could have been him.
“From everything this does not strike me as the MO Robert Black would go on.”
TWO KILLERS?
In 1974, police said due to the location of Jacqueline’s body she may have been abducted by two men.
Speaking about the possibility two people were involved, Mr Wilson said: “It’s not uncommon.”
He continued: “The Railway Rapists, who went on to murder, worked as a pair, there’s often something called a folieadeux, which means ‘a madness shared by two’.
“There have been killer couples, it is something that’s not unheard of.
“It might very well have been two people but back in the 1970s what we’re really talking about is the generalised vulnerability of young women of that age.
“At 16 a lot of young women were already going to pubs, our culture was different, and indeed there are a number of unsolved cases from the 1970s.”
In terms of solving the cold case, he added: “There is hope here, this didn’t happen a century ago, in terms of the family trying to draw attention to the case.”
Do you know more? Email summer.raemason@the-sun.co.uk