The stabbing of an off-duty Met police officer, a banker shot dead on his doorstep in Scotland and a woman found beaten to death in Doncaster are among the shocking unsolved cases.
The victims’ ages range from missing 14-year-old Sarah Benford, who is believed to have been murdered, to 69-year-old Nora Tait.
Unsolved murders include that of Alistair Wilson, who was shot dead on his doorstep in Nairn in 2004
Meanwhile, DC’s killer Jim Morrison is still at large. The off-duty police officer was stabbed to death in 1991 in Covent Garden, London while trying to apprehend a suspected thief.
Police continue to search for those responsible for the killings in order to seek justice for the victims and their families.
Here are some of the most shocking unsolved murders of the past four decades.
Met Police officer Jim Morrison, 26, was off-duty when he was stabbed to death in Montreal Place, Covent Garden, on December 13, 1991 after fighting with a man he was about to arrest for alleged pickpocketing. On the night of the incident, he had gone to the Nell Gwynne pub at Bull Inn Court for about an hour, starting at 8pm, before deciding to head home. However, a group of at least three pickpockets had recently been working in the area to steal women’s purses and purses – and that night a handbag had been stolen from the Maple Leaf pub in Maiden Lane. Jim was seen engaged in a fight with a man outside the London Transport Museum just after 10pm. At the time of the attack, the suspect was described as Algerian or North African, 5 feet 10 inches tall and around 27 to 30 years old. He was of medium height, clean-shaven, and had dark, collar-length hair with distinctive tight curls in the front. He was wearing a waist length tan/brown leather jacket.
Barry Rubery, 68, was killed after returning to his home in Iron Acton at around 10:45pm on Wednesday 28 April 2010, shortly after returning from a night out. He was found on his porch by a friend at 8am the next day. His wrists were bound together with large white cable ties and then tied at his ankles. There was clear evidence of a fight in his back garden. An autopsy later confirmed that he had suffered fatal head injuries in a violent attack. Although the drawers had been emptied and the attic tidied, very little was taken from the house apart from Barry’s Nokia 3310 and a bunch of keys. Valuables were left behind, including cash, jewelry, and the safe. Barry’s case was featured in a BBC documentary earlier this year.
Michelle Bettles was 22 when she was murdered. She worked as a street prostitute and was last seen in Norwich’s red light district in the early hours of the Easter weekend of Thursday 28 March and Friday 29 March 2002. Unusually, she had missed a previously arranged appointment with one of her regular customers. They had arranged to meet near their home address. CCTV footage shows Michelle walking down St Benedict’s Street towards the town center at 8.20pm that evening. Obviously for some reason she had never intended to keep the appointment with the regular as she was traveling in the opposite direction to her meeting. There have been a number of sightings of Michelle at various locations in Norwich’s red light district by people who knew her, most recently around midnight. On the morning of March 31, 2002, Michelle’s body was found in a wooded area next to a dirt track called Rush Meadow Road in Scarning, near Dereham, some 20 miles from Norwich’s red light district. She had been strangled.
Scottish banker Alistair Wilson was gunned down on his own doorstep in 2004. At around 7pm on Sunday November 28, a man called the family home in Nairn and spoke to Alistair’s wife Veronica, who answered the door and asked for “Alistair Wilson”. Mr Wilson, 30, went downstairs to speak to the man and was given a blue envelope with the word ‘Paul’ on it. He went in briefly and then returned to the door a second time when he was fatally shot. No one has been arrested in the murder of Mr Wilson. The gun was recovered days later from a nearby drain. In March of this year, police traveled to Canada to conduct witness interviews in Nova Scotia. They recently said they believe the answer to his murder lies in his personal life rather than his professional life. They wanted information about a planning application for a terrace in front of a hotel opposite his home, to which he had objected shortly before his death. Police have also called for everyone who was at the Havelock Hotel two days before the shooting. Officials believe the appeal was discussed in the hotel bar on Friday November 26, 2004 and over the weekend leading up to Mr Wilson’s killing on Sunday evening.