Patricia Simpson (Closed Investigation)

Patricia Simpson moved to Cardiff, South Wales in 1961 looking for a fresh start. Originally from Cheshire in the north west of England, the teenager had experienced a difficult start to life. On the evening of Friday November 1st 1963 Patricia was seen leaving her home in the Adamsdown area of the city with her flatmate Mary.  Twenty four hours later her strangled  body was found ten miles away at the bottom of an abandoned mine. Despite several leads the case went cold. Then in the late 1990s South Wales police received a tip off which saw the investigation kick back into life and detectives travel halfway across the world chasing a new lead.

Sources for this episode can be found here

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• 19:20 (Cont.) Patricia Simpson (Closed Investigation)

Transcript

Patricia Simpson

On the evening of November 2nd 1963 six teenage boys from the Llandaff North area of Cardiff, South Wales, headed out on what they thought would be an exciting adventure. 15.At 16 years old, Tommy and Ian were the eldest of the group, then came David aged 15, followed by Glyn, Wayne and John who were all 14. Four of the boys lived on the same street while the other two lived very close by. The friends decided to go to the Garth Woods, an isolated area between the villages of Taffs Well and Pentyrch which lay about 4 miles from their homes. They went there with the express purpose of exploring an old iron ore mine which lay underneath the wooded hillside. The place had been abandoned in the 1930s and over the decades since the rough track that led from the main road to the entrance of the old mine had become somewhat of a lovers' lane. Couples wanting some private time would drive up from Cardiff and surrounding villages of what was then called Glamorganshire, to visit this spot. It lay 1.2 miles or a couple of kilometres from the main road to Cardiff.Though, this aspect of the location did not interest the intrepid explorers. Rather the boys wanted to venture inside the extensive network of tunnels and caverns that constituted the old mine, in the hope of finding fossils. 

With their handheld torches the six boys made their way from the entrance into the darkness of the mine. Parts of the route they had to crawl to get through, while in other places they were forced to wade through water. Eventually, after about 1/2 mile or just over a kilometre, of traversing through the cold damp tunnel they came to a small cavern. It was at the bottom of one of the old mine shafts, the entrance to which was 90 m above their heads. As the boys torch beams bounced around the cave, one of them suddenly fixed on something huddled on a pile of rubble. It was the body of a young woman.

I cannot imagine how shocked and frightened the six boys must have been. Somehow they managed to compose themselves and two of the group, Tommy and Ian, presumably chosen because they were the fastest, sprinted 2 miles to the village of Taffs Well to raise the alarm.


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Reports at the time stated that the body was fully clothed, wearing a blue skirt,a jumper and black mesh stockings. In 2003 a  BBC report mentions that the body was found half naked. It may be that this information was initially kept back. What is certain is that a black chiffon scarf, later proved to have belonged to the woman, was tied tightly around the neck. It was determined that it had been used to strangle her. 

The deceased woman had no identification on her but within a day or so investigators were confident they knew her name. I presume this is because someone had reported her missing . though I am not exactly sure who did this. The body was that of 20 year old Patricia Simpson, and police were able to contact her family who lived in the north of England. Patricia’s adoptive father James, a 56 year old electric truck driver, came down by train on Monday November 4th to formally identify the body. The identification took place at Church Village Hospital near Pontypridd, a half hour’s drive from Cardiff. 

Patricia Ann Simpson was born and raised in Latchford, a suburb of Warrington in Cheshire, in the north west of England. Patrica’s birth mother Lilian had allowed her sister Ivy and brother in law James to adopt Patricia, or Pat as it was often shortened to, when she was 3 years old. It was reported this was done because Ivy had no children and desperately wanted them. 

As a young teen Patricia attended Richard Fairclough girls secondary modern school in Warrington. She left the school at age16. At this point her birth mother Lilian tried to get her daughter back but social services insisted this could not happen. Shortly after finishing school Patrica left Warrington and for a time lived in Birmingham. She eventually made her way to Cardiff in South Wales. She had been living in the Welsh capital for almost two years and just four weeks before her death had moved house into a property on South Luton Place in the Adamsdown area of the city. She shared a small two bedroom ground floor flat in a multiple occupancy house with her friend Mary. Since leaving Warrington, Patricia rarely went back to visit.

All the occupants of the residence where Pat lived were interviewed to try and piece together a picture of her last week. One resident, a 26 year old man named Patrick, spoke to local press and gave some details about Patricia and the last time he had seen her. Patrick lived with his wife and 12 week old baby in one of the apartments in the property. He said Patricia had told him that the woman who she shared the flat with was her sister Mary Simpson. This was not true, however, and Mary’s surname was not Simpson. Patricia was always out of the flat and Mary more often than not stayed in and looked after their rooms. Patricia sometimes went by the alias June White and, according to Patrick, Patricia had told him she did not have a job. Newspapers reports also mentioned that she had not held a job in Warrington before leaving  home, although I believe at some point in her life Patricia had worked as a shop assistant. Despite the fact Patricia did not work, Patrick added that the young woman never seemed to be short of money and was always well dressed. 

The truth is Patricia did work; she was a sex worker. The newspapers, in the coded language of the time, called Patricia a “good time girl”. Patricia was well known to frequent the night spots of Tiger Bay in the dockland area of the city looking for business. Patricia’s nickname was the “Silver Queen'' because of the silver hair rinse she often favoured. Patricia would visit the hairdresser almost every day and spent a weekly average £5 at the salon; the equivalent of over £130 today. She had dyed her hair many different colours over the last couple of years, and most recently had sported a pink rinse. However silver was her favourite as it made her blonde hair shimmer under the street lighting.

Patricia had told her neighbour Patrick that she was married to a seaman who was often away. The man was originally from the Caribbean and Patricia sometimes specified that he was in the British navy. Patrick last saw Patricia on Friday evening when she left the house at approximately 8pm. About 24 hours before her body was discovered. She was with her friend Mary and the pair were chatting. They seemed happy. 

Patrick went on to say that at 8.35 the next morning (Saturday November 2nd) a man with a pointed beard turned up at the house looking for Patricia. Newspaper reports at the time used racist language to describe this person. Patrick was under the assumption that this man was Patricia's husband. He came into the property and went to wait for Patricia in her room. Patrick and his wife heard the man playing tom tom drums, which the man owned and kept stored in Patricia's bedroom. At around 10am Mary came into the house and went and joined the man. Throughout the day this man came and went several times from the house.

On Saturday evening the man with the pointed beard, together with another man, called at the house in a car. Mary went out to speak with them. The men seemed agitated and moments later  Mary came back inside the house and told Patrick that Pat's mother had been taken ill. The man with the pointed beard was going to take Patricia to visit her sick mother at her home in Lancashire in the north of England.

Police soon ascertained that the man with the pointed beard was not Patricia’s husband but her boyfriend. It was discovered that on the previous Thursday, October 31st, Patricia had gone to Exeter in Devon to meet her boyfriend. He was from Cardiff but had been working down south for a little while. The couple returned to Cardiff together for the weekend. Then somehow Patricia had ended up at the bottom of a mineshaft miles from anywhere. They began looking for clues to piece together what had happened and why.

The area where the body was found was thoroughly searched. The woodland surrounding it was cordoned off and the “Lovers lane” track was closed to the public. Local cave expert David Monger and his wife 10.08 provided their expertise to aid the investigation. A sign of the times that  Mrs Monger was not afforded her own first name. Forensic experts also visited the scene inside the mine shaft and Patricia's clothes were meticulously gone over in the lab for any fibres or other such evidence. 

An RAF rescue team from the air base at St Athan came to lend a hand. Their dedication and skill paid off, as they found a woman's wrist watch believed to have belonged to Patricia. Some reports say it was found in woodland near the mine shaft opening while others that it was found on a ledge in the mine shaft itself. An article in the Daily Post (Merseyside edition) on November 6th 1963 suggests that the RAF team discovered a number of articles during their search. Further details were not given but it was confirmed that Patricia's handbag, shoes and the rain coat that she had been wearing on Friday evening were not with her body. To this day those items have not been recovered.

The investigators’ working theory was that Patricia had been killed elsewhere and then driven to that spot and thrown into the mine shaft. Numerous early reports suggested that experts believed the body had been there for two to three days. This was not the case as she had been seen alive on Friday night, just 24 hours before the teenage boys found the body. 

It appeared whoever had killed Patricia had good local knowledge of the area. The site was a remote spot with thick woods, not a location a person would stumble upon. The killer had deliberately chosen the mine to dispose of the body. Presumably they believed it would be some time before it would be found. They had not banked upon the six young boys being out on their potholing expedition. It seems a complete fluke that the body was discovered so soon after Patricia was killed.

Two days after the body was found Scotland Yard detectives arrived from London to assist the investigation. Their help was requested by Glamorgan police on the morning of Monday November 4th and late that night Detective Superintendent Harry Pugh and his colleague Detective Sergeant John Fyall arrived in the Welsh capital. Detective Chief Superintendent Tom Williams of Glamorgan CID led the local contingent of police officers.

Inquiries centred on Tiger Bay and the dockland area of the city. In particular on Bute Street, a renowned hangout for sex workers and their clients. Dozens of statements were taken from people who came forward to say they had seen Patricia on Friday evening in the vicinity. Numerous witnesses saw and spoke to Patricia during the evening on Bute Street. 

It was first calculated that Patricia was last seen standing alongside a man in a dark green or dark blue mini-car parked outside a cafe in Bute Street. Patricia was speaking with the driver.  It was first thought, no one had seen her alive after that. Investigators were very keen to trace this man to talk with him and an identikit was released.

Through their hard work investigators were able to trace this man. Detective Superintendent Tom Williams told a packed press conference that he had been spoken with and was able to provide a satisfactory account of his movements and whereabouts on Friday evening. He was ruled out of having been involved in Patricia’s murder. 

As that door closed another one opened. Police gave details of another person they were looking to track down. This man was said to be driving a black car, possibly a 1958 Morris Oxford. He had been seen in the docklands area on Friday night. Some reports say Patricia was witnessed getting into the man's car. The man was said to be Jewish, though I am uncertain what made witnesses so confident of this claim. An identikit was issued of this man, although I have not seen it published in any of the contemporary newspapers I have read. The police also released a picture of the handbag Patrcia was carrying when she left the house on Friday evening.

Just under a fortnight after the murder Patricia was laid to rest. Plain clothes police officers mingled with the mourners. They studied the faces of those present in the hope someone would give something away. I’m not sure how many of Patricia's family from the north of England attended the service. Only her father is mentioned to have been there. 

The search for clues soon finished at the abandoned mine and the investigation centred on Cardiff as police were sure the culprit lived in the Welsh capital. No arrests followed and the man driving the black Morris Oxford remained elusive. Twelve months later the case was marked unsolved and the file lay dormant for decades.

In late 1998 and early 1999 South Wales detectives dusted down the case notes and began delving into the investigation once again. Their renewed interest followed a tip from a member of the public; the name of a potential suspect was given to police. The source of this tip and the precise details remain unknown. 

In November 1999 the BBC reported that Detective Superintendent Geoff Cooper of South Wales major crime support unit and Detective Sergeant Dave Goddard from Cardiff Central CID had travelled to the country of Israel to interview a man in his 60’s in connection with the murder of Patricia Simpson. South Wales police confirmed that the man was currently serving a prison sentence for an unrelated crime in Israel but originally he was from the South Wales area. At that time the police said very little more about the matter other than they were looking closely at the circumstances in which they had received this new information. Rather cryptically the following year, in 2000, the police publicly said they were no longer looking for anyone else in connection with Patraica’s murder, though they did not elaborate on this. It would be another three years before additional details would come to light.

The BBC reported in October 2003 that a now 73 year old man serving eleven years for manslaughter in a prison in Israel, had confessed to the murder of Pataricia Simpson. The man had admitted his culpability when detectives from Wales had interviewed him over a period of two days four years before. The man gave details to the detectives that only the killer would have known. Police were confident he was telling the truth.  Detective Chief superintendent Wayne Phillips, head of South Wales CID, told the media he could not believe that after all these years the case had been solved.

The man was due to be released from prison in Israel in 2004 and investigators were hoping that he could then be extradited to the UK to face trial for Patricia’s murder. In reality they suspected that there was little chance that this would ever happen because of the man’s age. The fact that he was already in prison prevented the extradition process from starting. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said they would review the matter in 2004 when the man was due for release. Under Israeli law in 1999 the man was interviewed by South Wales detectives without a lawyer present. If he was ever to be charged he would first need to be extradited and then undergo a recorded interview conducted by South Wales police and with a solicitor in attendance. This would ensure all the legal prerequisites were met.

So who is this mysterious man? The man's name has never been released. What is known is that after Patricia's murder he travelled to Israel to work on a kibbutz. He then met a local woman, married and had a family and settled in his new homeland.

After killing Patricia and fleeing to Israel the man went on to be responsible for two more deaths. He first shot dead his wife with a machine gun, but persuaded a jury that it had been an accident. Then in the early 1990’s he killed a male business associate. For that crime the man was given 11 years in prison for manslaughter. 

When this information was announced in 2003 police added that despite their efforts they had not been able to trace any living relatives of Pataricia. However, only a week later two cousins of Patricia contacted the Warrington Guardian to tell of their surprise and relief that the truth of what happened to Patricia had finally come out. Over the next half a decade more members of Patricia's family were traced.

The South Wales Echo newspaper managed to find a younger sister of Patricia named Lynn. Lynn had only been 7 when her older sister had been murdered. She had never known anything about what had happened to Patricia when she was growing up. Her parents had never talked of the matter. Lynn had heard lots of conflicting stories but had only discovered the truth in 2008. In 2009 Lyn, together with nine other surviving siblings of Patricia, voiced their wish to see justice done on her behalf. The prime suspect had not been released from prison in 2004 as expected. He remained behind bars in an Israeli prison cell. 

The family longed to visit the grave of Patricia, but unfortunately the records detailing its location had been lost. Her siblings wanted to pay their respects and leave something from them at her graveside and, if it was unmarked as they feared, pay for a headstone. 

The South Wales Echo contacted South Wales police informing them of the family's wish for the man to be brought to the UK to face justice. In response the police said they were reviewing the position of the inquiry but they were not able to confirm their intentions about extraditing the man.

A few months later in July 2009 police confirmed that the man would not face extradition. Although he had made admissions in relation to the crime, due to legal hurdles the CPS were unable to apply for extradition. They believed there was insufficient evidence for a prosecution to be successfully made.

Some solace for the family came thanks to the work of Police Family Liaison Officer David Roberts. Together with a journalist at the South Wales Echo and cemetery staff he had found Patricia's grave. The unmarked grave lay in Pantmawr Cemetery in North Cardiff. On July 3rd Patricia’s sister Lynn and her eldest brother Brian together with their partners visited the grave to lay flowers. It was an emotional occasion for all who were there. The grave is now marked with a wooden cross and plaque. 

Officially Patricia’s case has been closed. Though no one was ever brought to justice for her murder.

Sources

https://tinyurl.com/4yrvb6w2