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Cannock Chase murders

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The Cannock Chase murders (also known as the A34 murders) were the murders of three young school girls that occurred in Staffordshire, England, during the late 1960s. In a trial reported to have received "unprecedented public interest," Raymond Leslie Morris of Walsall was convicted at Staffordshire Assizes of the murder of Christine Ann Darby after one of the largest manhunts in British history.[1][2][3][4] Morris is also considered the chief suspect in the deaths of Margaret Reynolds and Diana Joy Tift.[1][5][6]

Raymond Leslie Morris

Raymond Leslie Morris was born 13 August 1929 in Walsall, Staffordshire.[7] He lived in Walsall his entire life and was reported to have an IQ of 120.[6][7] Morris went through a variety of jobs before landing a position as a foreman engineer at a precision instruments factory in Oldbury, West Midlands, in 1967.[1][7][8] In 1951, he married 'the girl next door", who was two years younger than him, and fathered two boys.[6][9] He kicked her out of the house after eight years of marriage, then divorced her on the grounds of adultery when she had another man's child.[6] Morris's first wife would later describe him as a man with a need to express violent sexual dominance.[6] At the age of 35, Morris was married again, this time to a 21-year-old woman named Carol.[7] At the time the A34 murders were committed, Morris and his wife lived at Flat 20, Regent House, Green Lane, Walsall – a council-owned flat in Birchills, directly opposite the police station.[7][8]

The murders

On 12 January 1966, the bodies of Margaret Reynolds, age 6, and Diana Joy Tift, age 5, were found together in a ditch at Mansty Gully on Cannock Chase in Staffordshire.[10][11] Reynolds went missing on her way to school in Aston, Birmingham, on 8 September 1965 and Tift went missing on a short walk to her grandmother's house in Bloxwich on 30 December that year.[8][9] Two thousand people searched for Reynolds in the hours following her disappearance.[5]

On 22 August 1967, a soldier who was a member of a search party found the sprawled, naked body of seven-year-old Christine Darby beneath brushwood only a mile away from where Reynolds and Tift were discovered.[4][10] Christine had been enticed into a car by a strange man near her home in Camden Street, Caldmore, Walsall, on 19 August 1967.[12] Witnesses in Walsall explained that they saw a man in a grey car who spoke in a local accent, while two others who had been on Cannock Chase remembered seeing a grey Austin A55 or A60.[13]

The investigation

The three murders were similar in that each victim was determined to have been coaxed into a car while near her home, then murdered after being sexually assaulted.[10] Darby, Reynolds, and Tift lived within a seventeen mile radius of each other and near the A34 road that passes through Cannock Chase. The murders were collectively known as the "A34 murders"[1] or "Cannock Chase murders".[3] The Cannock Chase/A34 murders sparked one of the biggest murder investigations in British criminal history.[2][4][11][14][15] The manhunt was larger than that of the infamous Moors murders.[7] Prior to making an arrest, 150 detectives would visit 39,000 homes, interview 80,000 people and check over a million car forms.[4][10] Culling 25,000 vehicles from 1,375,000 files, investigators checked every Austin A55 and A60 in the Midlands.[7] The hunt for the Cannock Chase murderer was led by Sir Stanley Bailey, Staffordshire’s Assistant Chief Constable at the time.[16][17]

The breakthrough and arrest

On 4 November 1968, 10-year-old Margaret Aulton in Walsall managed to escape from a man who attempted to force her into his green and white Ford Corsair.[7][8] An 18-year-old housewife made a mental note of the vehicle registration plate, the car was traced back to Morris, and he was arrested in connection with the attempted abduction.[8][13] The police were aware that Morris, who had been interviewed four times in four years, had owned a grey Austin A55 similar to the one used in the abduction of Darby.[7][8] He had been considered a suspect in Darby's death, but his wife provided him with an alibi by stating that the couple were shopping together the day she went missing.[7][9][13] A police search of the Morris flat uncovered pornographic photographs of a young girl who was later determined to be Carol Morris's five-year-old niece.[7] Scotland Yard detectives arrested Raymond Morris for Darby's murder on 16 November 1968.[2] Two charges of indecent assault on the niece and one for the attempted abduction of Aulton would also be filed against Morris.[7]

The trial and conviction

Carol Morris would eventually become the chief witness for the prosecution and retract what she had initially told investigators about shopping on the day of Darby's murder.[7][9][13] On 16 November 1968, Raymond Leslie Morris was found guilty of the rape and murder of seven-year-old Christine Darby. His sentencing was delayed until the new year, when he was sentenced to life imprisonment.[5] As of August 2001, he was incarcerated at Wymott Prison and was planning to appeal against his conviction.[3]

Although convicted only of murdering Darby, Morris is considered the chief suspect in the deaths of Reynolds and Tift.[1][5][6] Reynolds's relatives consider Morris to be her killer.[5] In addition, 10-year-old Jane Taylor disappeared from the Cannock area on 14 August 1966 and has not been seen since. Morris has also been named as a possible suspect in connection with Taylor's disappearance. Some 40 years on, he has yet to challenge his conviction in court and is still in prison as one of the longest serving prisoners in England and Wales.[18]

In the media

Morris has been dubbed the Cannock Chase murderer.[5][6][19] A 1971 book compared and analyzed various English newspapers' handling of the widely reported discovery of Reynolds's and Tift's remains.[20] Morris was featured in a 1995 report in Central Independent Television's crime magazine series Crime Stalker[21] and a 2004 documentary of the Cannock Chase murders was televised on the ITV series To Catch A Killer.[22][23] Morris and the Cannock Chase murders are referred to in David Peace's novel Nineteen Seventy-Four.[19]

Further reading

  • Hawkes, Harry (1971). Murder on the A34. London: John Long. (ISBN 0-09102-960-0)
  • Molloy, Pat (1988). Not the Moors Murders: A Detective's Story of the Biggest Child-Killer Hunt in History. Gomer Press. (ISBN 0-86383-473-6)

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e "Chase killer jailed for life". expressandstar.com. Retrieved September 3, 2009.
  2. ^ a b c "Yard Nabs Suspect in Child's Murder". The Hartford Courant (1923-1984) - Hartford, Conn. Nov 17, 1968. pp. 19A. Retrieved September 9, 2009.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  3. ^ a b c "Child killer to appeal after 32 years". BBC News. Retrieved September 9, 2009.
  4. ^ a b c d "Murders left area asking: Whose child will be next?". expressandstar.com. Retrieved September 8, 2009.
  5. ^ a b c d e f "Child killer 'should rot in prison'". BirminghamMail.net. Retrieved September 9, 2009.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g Wilson, Colin (2000). The Mammoth Book of the History of Murder. Carroll & Graf Publishers. pp. ix, 129–132. ISBN 9780786707140. Retrieved September 9, 2009. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthor= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Frasier, David K. (1996). Murder cases of the twentieth century: biographies and bibliographies of 280 convicted or accused killers. University of Michigan: McFarland & Co. pp. 325–329. ISBN 9780786401840. Retrieved September 9, 2009.
  8. ^ a b c d e f Butler, Ivan (1973). Murderers' England. University of Michigan: Hale. p. 71. ISBN 9780709140542. Retrieved September 9, 2009.
  9. ^ a b c d "Raymond Leslie Morris". Serial Killer Central. Retrieved 3 September 2009.
  10. ^ a b c d Borrell, Clive (1975). Crime in Britain today. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. pp. 50–52. ISBN 0710082320. Retrieved September 3, 2009. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  11. ^ a b "All over - and we've won!". expressandstar.com. Retrieved September 4, 2009.
  12. ^ The new murderers' who's who. Retrieved 3rd September 2009. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help); Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  13. ^ a b c d "Morris, Raymond Leslie". http://real-crime.co.uk/. Retrieved September 9, 2009. {{cite web}}: External link in |publisher= (help)
  14. ^ "Taking Ten With...Bob Warman". Staffordshire County Council. Retrieved September 4, 2009.
  15. ^ "Mistakes that prolonged a nightmare". expressandstar.com. Retrieved September 8, 2009.
  16. ^ "Black Panther police chief dies at 81". expressandstar.com. Retrieved September 9, 2009.
  17. ^ "Sir Stanley Bailey". Telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved September 9, 2009.
  18. ^ http://www.crimezzz.net/serialkillers/M/MORRIS_raymond_leslie.php
  19. ^ a b Peace, David (1999). Nineteen Seventy-four. London: Profile Books Ltd. pp. 17, 24, 99. ISBN 978-0-307-45508-6. Retrieved September 9, 2009.
  20. ^ Jackson, Ian (1971). The Provincial Press and the Community. Manchester: Manchester University Press ND. pp. 61–73. ISBN 9780719004605. Retrieved September 9, 2009.
  21. ^ "CRIME STALKER: CRIME STALKER[01/02/95]". British Film Institute. Retrieved September 8, 2009.
  22. ^ "TO CATCH A KILLER". British Film Institute. Retrieved September 8, 2009.
  23. ^ "TO CATCH A KILLER: CANNOCK CHASE MURDERS". British Film Institute. Retrieved September 8, 2009.
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