Patricia "Lee" Parsons (Unsolved Murder)

Patricia "Lee" Parsons worked as a masseuse at a sauna in Camden town London. Lee also obtained a significant income as a high end escort. The 42 year old reportedly had hundreds of clients, many of whom were high status individuals from the worlds of politics and show business. On the evening of Saturday June 23rd 1990 Lee failed to show up at a private event being held at the restaurant she owned jointly with her boyfriend. The following day Lee's body was found inside her car in a farmer's field 45 minutes from her home. Lee had been shot three times with a crossbow and the killing had all the hallmarks of a professional hit. Thus transpired an investigation that delved into the criminal underworld of London, as police searched for a motive for this most callous execution.

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Patricia “Lee” Parsons

Patrica Parsons was known as “Lee” by her friends and those closest to her. It seems this is the name she went by most often. The BBC Crimewatch feature from September 1990 refers to the 42 year old as Lee and doesn't even mention her name as Patricia. I have gone back and forth about whether to refer to her as Patricia or Lee. I have decided on Lee as it seems that this was her preferred name. As a note Lee’s age is variably given as 42 or 43.

Lee had previously been married, though at the time of these events reports state she was divorced. I’ve come across one source, an article in the Bucks Free Press from 2007, that states Lee was married but separated. 

In the summer of 1990 Lee was living in a house on Firs Avenue in Friern Barnet, North London. She had lived at the £500,000 pound property for four years and was known by neighbours as a friendly woman who took great pride in her garden. Lee was doing very well financially and owned two other properties in different parts of London.

For the previous 12 years Lee had worked as a masseuse at “New Experience Sauna” in Camden Town. Lee did three shifts a week there and was known by staff and clients as Debbie.  The Sunday Mirror (Feb 11th 2007) states that Lee actually ran the establishment which was situated on Eversholt Street. Lee also had another source of income. She had worked for many years as a high-end escort. An article in the Guardian from February 2007 states that Lee provided discreet sexual services to a range of VIPs. This fact is significant and may have a bearing on what happened to Lee on the evening of Saturday June 23rd 1990.

Earlier that day at around lunchtime Lee had gone out with her boyfriend Ozzie. The pair had been in a relationship for about two years, though from what I can see they did not live together. Lee had recently loaned Ozzie the money to buy a seventy seater Turkish restaurant which had opened at the beginning of 1990. Later that evening the restaurant was due to host an important private function, so Lee and Ozzie travelled to the venue at around midday to prepare for the showpiece event.

The restaurant called Leo’z (an amalgamation of both their names) was situated in the Stow shopping centre in Harlow, Essex. It was approximately a half hour’s drive from Lee's house in Firs Avenue, North London. At 3.30pm, after spending several hours preparing the restaurant, Lee left to visit a garden centre to pick up some flowers. I believe these were to be displayed later at the restaurant. After completing this errand Lee returned to her house on Firs Avenue to get ready for the evening. Lee took great pride in her appearance and set about her normal routine of listening to music whilst choosing her outfit, styling her just-off-the-shoulder blonde hair and applying make-up. The Western Daily Press (26th June 1990) described Lee as having a striking appearance. Lee was diminutive in stature and was slightly built, standing at 5ft 1 or 155 cm and weighing 98 lbs, 44kg.

At 6pm her boyfriend Ozzie called Lee on her house telephone. Lee picked up and  confirmed that she had collected the flowers from the garden centre. Ozzie wanted to know what time she would be arriving at the restaurant as the event was due to start at 7.30pm. Lee questioned the start time and thought it might be a little later, 8-8.30pm. Ozzie confirmed it was definitely 7.30pm and said she should just get there as soon as she could. Lee replied she was still getting ready but would be there at 7.30pm. 

An hour and a half passed and at 7.30pm a neighbour saw Lee exit her front door and get into her white C-registration (that’s 1985) VW Golf GTi Cabriolet, and drive off. Thirty minutes later Lee returned to the house in the car. To this day where Lee went and what she did within that half an hour window remains unknown. 

Concerned that Lee had still not arrived at the restaurant, Ozzie called Lee’s house at 8pm. Lee answered and Ozzie queried what was holding her up and asked if she was ok. Ozzie later said it sounded like Lee had been asleep.

Lee told Ozzie that she had something to tell him but she didn't want to have the conversation over the phone. Understandably this worried Ozzie and he asked her if she could at least let him know if it was good or bad news. She said it was good news, which allayed Ozzies fears a little, though he was intrigued as to what Lee wanted to share with him.

That evening Lee’s neighbour was watching the World Cup last 16 football match between Czechoslovakia and Costa Rica on television. At 8.30pm he suddenly heard a yell from next door. The neighbour turned down the volume on the TV set and heard an argument between a man and a woman coming from Lee’s house. It sounded like a man was shouting at Lee. The neighbour was so concerned he got up out of his chair and went outside. He stood by his car which was parked on his drive and from this vantage point he could see into Lee's kitchen. The light was on but he saw no one. By then the argument had stopped and silence had fallen in the house. The neighbour returned inside his property and resumed watching the football match.  

Shortly after this the neighbour heard the door of Lee's car slam shut. He quickly got up and peered out of his kitchen window. He was just in time to see Lee and a man, who he did not recognise, get into the white VW Golf. Lee was in the passenger seat. The unknown man was in the driver seat. The man was white with fair or fairish hair. The car then exited the driveway and drove off. This incident is reported to have occurred at approximately 9pm or possibly a little before.

Fifteen minutes later Ozzie phoned Lee's house for a third time that evening. On this occasion he got no reply and was eventually connected to the answer phone. I’m guessing Ozzie assumed this meant Lee was in the car on her way to the restaurant. 

Lee never arrived at the restaurant and Ozzy was left wondering what on earth had happened. It was at lunchtime the following day that the awful truth was realised. 

At 12.45pm on Sunday June 24th, over 15 hours after Lee was witnessed by her neighbour being driven away from her house, a group of ramblers were walking across a farmer’s field in Upshire near Epping forest. This location is about a 20 minute drive south of Harlow where Leo’z restaurant was situated and a 45 minute drive north east of Lee’s house. The field itself was off Long Street and very near to a pub called the Good Intent.

Parked in the field was a C registration white VW Golf cabriolet. The walkers went over to take a look at this odd spectacle. One of the group peered through the window and caught a glimpse of a woman with heavily made up eyes and wearing a mauve party dress, slumped over the driver's seat. It was evident that the woman was deceased. 

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Hardly believing what they had seen, one of the ramblers rushed to a nearby farm to raise the alarm and an emergency 999 call was made. It was Edmonton police based in Enfield, north London who arrived swiftly to take control of the investigation. The body was soon identified to be that of 42 year old Patrica “Lee” Parsons.

Lee had been badly beaten but the cause of death was three deep puncture wounds to the base of the skull. The holes resembled gunshot wounds but they were deemed not to have been caused by a firearm. Forensic tests were carried out to determine the type of murder weapon. It took some time but around a month after the murder police announced they were 90% sure the killer had used a crossbow as the murder weapon. 

Under the 1987 Crossbow Act, it is legal for over 18s to buy or own a crossbow in the UK. There are strict rules surrounding their ownership, for example they cannot be employed in hunting animals and can only be used for inanimate target shooting. 

Crossbow related deaths are relatively low in the UK. On average there are ten related deaths per decade although there have already been 8 between 2018 and 2024. When they do occur they are relatively high profile, as was the case in this instance. For the detectives investigating Lee's murder it certainly proved a detail that made the case in equal parts intriguing and perplexing.

It was revealed by medical examiners that there was no evidence of sexual assault. Police believed Lee had been killed at or near the location her body was found. The theory was that she had arrived at the field in her car along with the killer.  

Local inquiries found that a white Golf had been seen in the car park of the Good Intent pub at 10pm on Saturday evening. That's around an hour after Lee was last seen by her neighbour. Police could not be one hundred percent certain it was Lee's car so they made an appeal to ask if anyone with a similar vehicle had been at the pub around that time. What is known is that Lee's car was spotted at 7.30 on Sunday morning in the same place where the ramblers would later find it.

The hunt for potential witnesses was on. Saturday evening had seen a wedding reception taking place in a village hall opposite the Good Intent pub. Police asked for those in attendance to come forward as they may have seen something of vital importance.

Edmonton police investigators were also keen on speaking with an older couple seen parked in a V-registration brown mini on Sunday morning, close to where Lee’s car was found. The couple were seen there when the body was first discovered, but by the time the police arrived they had left the area. Police did not suspect this elderly couple were involved with the murder but thought they may have some information that could prove important. 

As far as I can see this older couple were never found. It also appears that scant information was forthcoming from guests at the wedding reception.

Three men of interest were sought by police in connection with Lee’s murder. The three individuals had been seen at various locations throughout the afternoon and early evening of Saturday June 23rd. 

At 1.30pm two men were witnessed in Upshire at the junction of Fernhill Lane and Crownhill. This is just a 2 minute drive from the field where Lee’s body was discovered inside her car. The witness was a woman who was driving down the road on the way to do some shopping. Both men had parked their cars on different sides of the road opposite each other. The men were standing next to their respective cars.

One man had a large metallic green car. He was black with light skin, in his mid 30s, and was 6ft, 183cm, with a slim build. He had short, neatly cut, slicked back hair. It looked like gel had been used to style it. The man had a moustache and wore a yellow long sleeved shirt or possibly sweatshirt.

The other man had a large red car. He was white and wore a tracksuit with a red stripe down the side. The area where they were seen was popular with dog walkers and families out for a picnic but the witness said she saw no evidence of these activities or other pointers that might explain why the men were parked there.

The witness drove back from her shopping trip along the same route. She passed the spot at 6pm and the men were still there. This seemed odd to the witness, though it cannot be confirmed that both men had remained in the same spot all afternoon.

The third man sought by police was seen by one of Lee’s neighbours. This man was spotted at 5pm on Saturday June 23rd driving a large black car slowly down Firs Avenue where Lee lived. The car was said to be a limousine in one local newspaper and “definitely not a minicab” in another. The man was described as black, smartly dressed and clean shaven. He was reckoned to be in his 30s. This man drove the black car onto Lee’s drive where Lee’s white Golf was already parked, indicating she was inside the house. The driver then turned around and was seen giving a little nod before driving off down the road. An odd identifying feature about the large black car was that it sported a distinctive V shaped aerial.

In early September a reconstruction of the events surrounding Lee's murder was broadcast on BBCs Crimewatch TV programme. 60 phone calls came in response but they revealed no information that was new to the investigating team. 

Detectives were ploughing a lot of time and energy into the case and had formulated some broad working theories. From early in the investigation there was speculation that Lee's murder could have links to the criminal underworld, and that it may have been carried out by hired killers. There are several reasons for this supposition, the first being that police were sure that the murder had been well planned. Lee had not been murdered by an opportunistic killer on a whim. This was illustrated by the location of the crime scene and unusual type of weapon used in the attack.

The second reason was to do with the line of work  Lee was engaged with. Although the fact that Lee worked as a high-end escort was not initially reported by newspapers, the police were very aware of this detail. I will come back to this point shortly and go through some of the key theories that have been floated as to why Lee’s role as a sex worker may have caused her to fall foul of organised criminals.

The third reason that pointed to Lee's murder being a professional hit was because it came in the middle of a spate of similar killings all over London. They all bore the hallmarks of being carried out by a hired hitman.

One particularly callous double murder was touted in media reports right from the off as possibly  being connected to Lee's case.   

On December 22nd 1989, 39 year old accountant and pub stocktaker Terry Gooderham and his 31 year old girlfriend, insurance executive Maxine Arnold, were shot dead in Terry's Mercedes E190 saloon car in a secluded Lover’s lane beauty spot in Epping forest. This was a 20 minute drive from Maxine’s flat on Shernhall Street, Walthamstow, north-east London. Earlier that evening the pair, who had been dating for 7 years, had been at the flat enjoying a meal together. The couple were due to go out with friends later but never showed up. Terry and Maxine had not shared with anyone plans to go to Epping forest that night and it was thought they were not familiar with that area.

From evidence given by Maxine’s mother, who called around to the flat later that evening, the couple had obviously left in a big hurry. The meal of sausages and mash they had been enjoying was left half eaten. The gas fire and Christmas tree lights had also been left on. Maxine’s handbag and Terry's wallet were also found at the flat. 

A colleague of Maxine’s had phoned the flat at 6.45pm and Maxine had answered. She sounded in a rush and said she had to take Terry somewhere. It was estimated the couple left shortly after this. Police first thought the couple had left to meet someone at the spot in Epping forest or close nearby but later decided it was more likely the couple were kidnapped and driven to the location under duress.

Eyewitnesses came forward to say they had seen a Mercedes being driven erratically along Epping Road, flashing its lights as if it was trying to catch the attention of other drivers. It appears someone was attempting desperately to signal for help. Witnesses said they saw a man in the back seat of the car.  Another witness reported seeing a Mercedes being driven in a similar fixed fashion between Montrose Motors at Buckhurst Hill and the Wake Arms roundabout around 7.15 to 7.45pm. This is about a 15 minute drive from the spot where their bodies were found.

They were discovered dead at 3.50am the following morning by a police patrol who just happened to be in the area. The engine of Terry's Mercedes was still running. Both victims had gunshot wounds to the back of the head, execution style. The weapon used was a 12 bore double barreled shot-gun. It had  been fired in the car by a person sitting in the back seat. Maxine had defensive wounds on her hands indicating she had tried to protect herself. From this it was determined that Terry had been shot first, followed by Maxine.

Rumours circulated that the murder may be linked to drugs and money laundering but police were quick to dispel these stories. They could find no evidence that Terry or Maxine were involved in drug dealing or any kind of criminal activity. Even so, their murder did appear to be a professional hit.

It was discovered that unbeknownst to Maxine, Terry had been seeing another woman. Regardless, this was deemed to have no relevance to the murders. 

Detectives investigating Lee's murder talked with those working Terry and Maxine’s case, but said there was no direct evidence linking the crimes, though they stressed they were keeping an open mind considering the location and nature of both crimes. Afterall, Lee’s body was found only about a ten minute or so drive from where Terry and Maxine had been killed.

After 18 months of detective work, in January 1992 The Cheshunt and Waltham Mercury reported that inquiries by police now led them to publicly say that the murders of Terry Gooderham, Mazine Arnold and Lee Parsons were carried out by professional hitmen, though not necessarily the same hitman. It was not known if one criminal group or several different gangs were involved.

The aforementioned article from the Cheshunt and Waltham Mercury stated there had been 20 murders in and around London between 1990 and 1992 that were believed to show clear signs of being professional hits. The crucial details of the cases including the identity of the killer or killers remained elusive due to the wall of silence that detectives had come up against. The killers themselves were clearly aware of forensic science and other investigative techniques, leaving few clues and were destroying any incriminating evidence. An anonymous individual benefactor donated a reward fund of £30,000 to help catch those responsible but the reward remained unclaimed. 

Another murder happened in 1993 which investigators believed could be connected to Lee’s and indeed Terry and Maxine’s cases.

55 year old property developer and self made millionaire Donald Urquhart was shot dead on Saturday January 2nd 1993 as he walked down Marylebone Road with his girlfriend, Pat. The assassin was riding a motorcycle and pulled up alongside his unsuspecting victim. He then dismounted and approached Urquhart from behind, before shooting him twice in the back of the head with a revolver. 

Urquhart’s girlfriend Pat tried to fight off the killer but he was able to shoot Urquhart a third time as he lay bleeding on the pavement. The assassin then jumped on the motorcycle and sped off. Pat was left unharmed.

The killer was described by police as cold and calculating. He had been on a mission and carried it out, seemingly without hesiation. The suspect was a bespectacled white man, 5ft 7-10, 170-178 cm, with fair or ginger hair. He was riding a Yamaha motorcycle. The registration plate was noted by witnesses but inquiries found the bike had been sold the previous November to an unknown buyer.

This brazen killing was straight away linked to organised criminal gangs. According to an article in the Evening Standard written shortly after the murder it was alleged Donald Urquhart had been linked to the supply of illegal gaming machines. It was believed a foray into this illegal industry may have angered a well-established operation being run by a well known south London criminal gang. Many years later, in 2002, an article from south London based news publication News Shopper suggests Urquhart was killed after he fell out with a business partner and threatened to go to authorities to expose him over a big tax scam.

The aforementioned Evening Standard article published on January 7th 1993 stated police had little doubt that the person who had killed Donald Urquhart was also responsible for five other murders. These were 46 year old off licence owner Roger Wilson who was shot dead on his doorstep in Southwark, in March 1992, armed robber Brendan Carey, who was gunned down in an Islington pub in September 1990, and the murders of Terry Gooderham, Maxine Arnold and Lee Parsons. What's more, the police said they had already been given the name of the killer by an informant.

Nine months later police arrested a 31 year old man in Falkirk, Scotland, in connection with the murder of Donald Urquhart. This followed several raids on houses in South Yorkshire and London which saw three men and a woman aged 28, 33, 35 and 37 arrested in connection  with the 1992 murder of  off licence owner Roger Wilson. These four individuals were eventually released. As an aside, over the years several people have been charged with Roger Wilson's murder but his case remains unsolved.

The following year, in 1994, Graeme West, a 33 year old former builder from Thornton Heath was convicted and sentenced to life for the murder Donald Urquart. It was found he was paid £18-20,000 to carry out the killing. West was described as a bankrupt builder who had risen in organised crime circles from club bouncer to debt collector and eventually to hitman for hire. West was caught because a friend, turned informant, had given his name to the police.

In 1995 a 36 year old man initials GH stood accused of being paid £2000 to help plan the murder of Donald Urquhart. This man was described as a reluctant accomplice and pleaded guilty to the offence. He was given 5 years in prison.

As I alluded to, police believe Donald Urquhart’s murder was sanctioned by a businessman who had a falling out with him. Over the years the police have said they think three businessmen were involved in the planning of the murder but they have never been taken to court. One, a lawyer who was a business partner and client of Urquhart’s went AWOL after being granted bail. I can't see that he was ever tracked down.

I detailed earlier that press reports from 1993 suggested detectives were convinced that Donald Urquhart’s killer was also responsible for the murder of Lee Parsons and several other murders. This theory appears to have been abandoned by investigators and it's important to note that Graeme West was never charged in connection with Lee’s case or any other murders. West served his sentence in full and was released some time ago.

The general consensus does seem to be that Lee’s murder was a professional hit, but there is much speculation over the motive behind the act. One prominent detail often focused on is a  missing notebook that belonged to Lee. This has been confirmed by investigating officers such as DI Bob Mahoney speaking in the Guardian on February 13th 2007. Lee was known to own a blue or black notebook that contained the names of around 200 clients. The long list allegedly contained the names of many celebrities, accountants, barristers, a judge and a famous tv presenter. The notebook was not found at the crime scene and subsequent searches of Lee’s house and her other properties did not recover it.

There is a train of thought that this notebook could hold the key to the questions of who killed Lee and why. There has been speculation that Lee was about to do a deal with a Sunday newspaper in which she was going to publicly identify some of her well known clients. I should say here there is no concrete evidence of this and one could legitimately ask why she would want to do so, Lee was already a wealthy woman and doing something like this would surely spell the end of  her working as an escort. Unless of course this was her motivation and she was planning to quit that line of work, though that's pure speculation on my part.

Another possibility is Lee had come into the possession of some information through her line of work that put her in danger. Perhaps she had overheard something or witnessed an incident that meant someone was willing to kill her to ensure it did not get out. It is worth remembering that Lee had been beaten before being shot, which could indicate the attacker was trying to obtain information for her.

I have read some speculation from bloggers writing about the case that the notebook may have been taken for the purposes of blackmailing those people contained in its pages.

For well over a decade Lee’s case remained at a standstill. Then In 2003 a cold case review team took up the challenge of re-examining the murder and the events surrounding it. The team utilised new forensic tests including the latest DNA technology but at that time were unable to crack the case. The team of 6 officers did however interview around 50 people as part of the process and obtained some crucial information which gave rise to several lines of inquiry. 

After the cold case review, police put all their efforts into trying to discover the details of Lee's clients, who were said to be individuals from high levels of politics and show business. This proved a very difficult task without the aid of Lee’s missing notebook.

In 2005 police began taking DNA samples from family and friends of Lee, which suggested that some sort of DNA evidence was in existence, even if it had not yet led to a breakthrough. At this juncture police reinterviewed people who had seen Lee on the day she died.

Nothing happened for a couple of years until the early part of 2007 when it was delineated across media sources that police were on the verge of making an arrest in connection with Lee's murder. It was reported in some newspapers such as The Bucks Examiner on January 14th 2007 that new leads had arisen in the case due to a DNA breakthrough, though a month later senior police detectives were quoted in the Guardian as saying a suspect had been developed through quote “traditional inquiry methods” and they were expecting to place this person in custody within a fortnight. 

The Sunday Mirror reported on February 11th 2007 that a 58 year old man had been arrested on February 1st at his local health centre in Streatham, south London. The man, initials CR (his name was publicly released at the time) was questioned for five hours and asked whether he had committed the murder with another man. (This second man's identity was not given.) The arrested man refused to answer any of the questions put to him by detectives and he was released on bail until the following month. After he left the police station he told reporters “I have done absolutely nothing wrong. I am completely innocent and told the police that”.

For reasons that were never made public the case against the 58 year old was not pursued and the charges against him were dropped.

I am now going to come back to the case of Terry Gooderham and Maxine Arnold. I feel the need to do this as the double murder was so often connected to Lee’s in the early 1990s. I will let you decide the relevance of what I'm about to share.

A review into Terry and Maxine’s murders was carried out in 2012 by retired detective chief superintendent Albert Patrick. He was able to find out that there were three suspects whose names were given to police in 1990. The name of a fourth individual was also given. This person had allegedly driven the getaway car. All these individuals were connected to London based organised crime.

In 2019 an investigation spearheaded by the Daily Mirror newspaper found that through his work as an accountant in the pub trade Terry Gooderham may have had knowledge of illegal activity involving a pub protection racket. It is theorised that Terry was about to go to the police with this information when he was murdered. Terry was the intended target and Maxine was in the wrong place at the wrong time. She was innocent of any wrongdoing and killed out of necessity.

The Mirror found that four individuals who were linked to organised crime (the same unearthed in the 2012 review) had been connected to the murder within days. A key source in the Mirror investigation,  an anonymous former detective turned whistleblower, said he had been given these names by an informant in January 1990. The informant (himself a gangster and robber) said Terry had been killed because he knew too much about the scam involving pubs. The informant was motivated to share this information with the police because he thought it was wrong that an innocent woman had been killed. The informant named an associate of the Kray twins as being behind the scam.

The Kray twins, Reginald and Ronald, were notorious British gangsters who terrorized London's East End during the 1950s and 1960s. They ran a criminal empire that included racketeering, armed robbery, arson, and murder. In 1969, the Kray twins were sentenced to life in prison, where they both died in the 1990s. The man allegedly behind Terry and Maxine's double murder had been in the Krays’ gang until the brothers went to prison, after which he branched off into the pub trade. 

Based on the information he received, the whistleblower detective believed this associate of the Krays was working with a notorious London crime gang in the late 1980s and was responsible for sanctioning the execution of Terry and Maxine. This man did not kill Terry and Maxine himself, it was one of the other suspects who actually pulled the trigger.

The informant himself was scared for his life as he claimed one of the men responsible for the double murder had a connection to a corrupt police official. The whistleblower knew this police officer by reputation and had heard similar rumours concerning him. The whistleblower detective passed on this information through a safe channel hoping it would reach those investigating the double murder. Not long after this a senior detective approached the whistleblower detective and told him that the informant had retracted his statement. The whistleblower thought this odd but couldn't do a lot more about it at the time.

In 2019 the Mirror was able to get hold of a police report from May 1990 which corroborated the story given by the informant.

At the time of the initial investigation the murder squad never got the log with the names of the suspects on it and thus they were not properly investigated. 

When the findings of the 2012 review came out and after the subsequent Mirror investigation the three murder suspects were still alive. One admitted committing shootings and torture in the past but said they had never killed anyone. Another had previously served time for their role in a murder committed in the late 1960s. All three denied involvement in the murders of Terry and Maxine.

The whistleblower detective is now known to be Mick Randall, who continues to fight for justice on behalf of Terry and Maxine. In January 2024 he was interviewed by journalists Michael Gillard and Jon Austin for the Sunday Express. In the article published on the 7th of that month the Kray associate, whom the informant told Randall was behind Terry and Maxine's murder, is named as Connie Whitehead. Whitehead passed away in 2023, up until which he denied involvement in the killings.  In the article Randall goes on to name his informant, who also passed away in 2023. Randall is applying pressure on the authorities to keep working the case in order to see it finally solved and for any corrupt former police officers to be brought to justice. 

The police say the case was last reviewed in 2015 but it could not be taken any further. The Met police Anti-corruption and Cold Case teams continue to periodically examine it.

As I said I am unsure what bearing, if any, this information has on Lee's case but I felt I had to share it for context. 

One name that has come up in the press in conjunction with Terry and Maxine’s murders in the past and by default with the murder of Lee Parsons is that of James Moody. (As a note he is not one of the three suspects uncovered in the aforementioned 2012 and 2019 Mirror investigations).

James "Jimmy" Moody was a notorious British criminal who gained infamy as a hitman during the latter half of the 20th century. Born in Cornwall in 1941 while his mother was an evacuee, he was raised in Camberwell, London. Moody's early life was marked by a descent into the world of crime, starting with petty theft and gradually escalating to more serious offences. By the 1960s, he was involved with some of the most feared criminal figures in London, including the Kray twins, and the Richardsons, who dominated the city's underworld.

In 1967 Moody went to prison for his part in the manslaughter of merchant seaman William Day. After his release in 1972 he joined a gang called the chainsaw gang. During robberies Moody gained a reputation for cutting through the chassis of armoured trucks with a chainsaw. A stocky 6 footer with a thick neck, Moody was viewed as a ruthless enforcer and contract killer making him a central figure in the violent turf wars that plagued London's criminal scene. He eventually went to prison again in 1979 where he became acquainted with members of the provisional IRA. He ended up escaping prison with an IRA member and fled to Northern Ireland, where he worked alongside the IRA before returning to England in the late 1980s.

His meticulous approach and ability to evade law enforcement for many years made him one of the most sought-after and feared hitmen in the country. Moody was shot and killed on June 1st 1993 by an assailant dressed in a leather jacket. His murder is unsolved.

Since his death Moody has been linked to numerous murders from the late 1980s and early 1990s. An article from the Independent on August 8th 1993 says it had been reported (in other newspapers) that Moody had killed Terry Gooderham and Maxine Arnold. In turn there is online speculation in various blogs that he could be responsible for Lee Parsons’ death. There is no hard evidence for this, though it's fair to say the killer of Lee Parsons may well have been someone of Moody’s ilk.

This has proved another very difficult case to research simply because of its complexity. In Lee’s case, as in so many unsolved crimes, the solution to who committed the murder is totally wound up in discovering the motive. It seems highly likely that the answer does lie in her lost notebook and that one of the names written inside is responsible, even if they did not pull the trigger themselves. Some kind of organised criminal involvement seems probable but it's hard to be specific. Online sleuths have thrown just about every London gang and crime family into the mix but with nothing solid to back up their claims. The fact that Lee was beaten before being murdered may indicate another possibility: that the killing had more personal motives, though there is no indication as to what they could be.

Patricia “Lee” Parsons' last moments on earth must have been terrifying. Like so many women who are involved in sex work and are murdered her story has been somewhat neglected. After over three decades she deserves justice.

If you have any information about the murder of Patrica “Lee” Parsons you can call Crime stoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.

Sources

https://tinyurl.com/2zhmttzm