Possible Link Between
Tamworth and Bakewell Murders
A GIRL murdered
in 1972 may have been killed by the same man who battered a typist to death
in a Bakewell cemetery.
The claim comes
from crime writer Scott Lomax who has researched 13 unsolved murders for his
latest book Unsolved Murders in and Around Derbyshire.
Fourteen
year old Judith Roberts was killed in the early evening of 7 June 1972. She
had decided to ride her bicycle around the country lanes near her home in Tamworth. Three days later her body was found,
under a pile of hedge clippings and plastic fertiliser bags close to a hedge
in a field known as Robinson’s field. The bicycle was found within the
hedge just a few feet away.
A local man,
Andrew Evans, was eventually convicted of the murder before he was freed
after the Court of Appeal ruled that a confession he had made was unreliable.
The following year
Wendy Sewell was found dying in Bakewell cemetery after she had sustained a
number of head injuries. She died days later and Stephen Downing was
convicted of her murder, serving 27 years imprisonment before the Court of
Appeal overturned his conviction.
Scott has asked
the police to consider as potential link between the murders and carry out
tests for any DNA to aid comparison between the crimes.
Scott says:
“I believe that the police should be looking at a link between the murders
of Wendy Sewell and Judith Roberts who were both killed within a period of
approximately one year. Both women were struck repeatedly around the head and
both women were partially stripped but no evidence f sexual assault was
present in either case.”
Scott added:
“A link was not considered at the time because in 1973 both Andrew
Evans and Stephen Downing were in prison accused of the crimes. Now that both
men are free, with their convictions having been overturned, the police
should now look at both cases and ask themselves whether they are looking for
two murderers or only one.”
Available from Amazon by clicking below:
Unsolved Murders in and Around Derbyshire
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