Persons Unknown

On the afternoon of March 5th 1970, 13-year-old David McCaig went to a dental appointment with his mother. After returning to the family home on Dovedale Road, Wallasey, David left on a bike for a French lesson at school. The journey should have taken minutes, but David never arrived and did not return home. He has now been missing for 56 years.

David's missing person case is one of England's most baffling and underreported mysteries. 

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Sometime after 12:15 am on August 5, 1976, 44-year-old psychiatric nurse Susan Donoghue was bludgeoned to death and sexually assaulted inside her flat. The apartment was in the basement of a large Victorian house in Stoke Bishop, Bristol, and the assailant entered through an open window on the ground floor. The murder weapon and a pair of bloodied gloves were found at the scene.

Police sought several individuals, including the rider of a red motorcycle and a mysterious man wearing dark glasses, but they never traced them. Avon and Somerset Police now have a full DNA profile of Susan's killer, but as of yet, he has eluded justice.

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At 10.20 pm, Glenis Carruthers left her friend's 21st birthday party for reasons that have never been fully explained. It was Saturday, January 19th 1974, and the 20-year-old P.E. student had travelled from Bedford to Clifton, a leafy area in Bristol, the previous day.  Forty minutes after leaving the party, Glenis's body was found just yards from the entrance of Bristol Zoo. She had been strangled, and a man, yet to be identified, was seen walking away from the scene.  

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Lottie Snead was much loved and well respected in her small town of Chincoteague, on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. In 1964, the 54-year-old mother of three was found murdered in her own home. There were no signs of a break-in, and the motive for the crime was unclear. Local investigators made two swift arrests, hoping to solve the case in record time, but the optimism was short-lived. The killer or killers have yet to be identified, and the reason for the murder has never been explained. 

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Jerzy Strzadala was a quiet and reserved man who first came to the UK as a prisoner of war.  Originally from Poland, Jerzy trained as a miner and found employment at the Tir Herbert colliery near Aberdare, South Wales. Around lunchtime on Tuesday, April 20th 1948, his dead and bloodied body was discovered by three schoolboys playing in a local park. Jerzy, who was known as "George" by his Welsh colleagues, had been stabbed over forty times. 

The brutal attack had occurred the previous evening, which was the day after his 33rd birthday. Scotland Yard were called, and acclaimed detective Chief Inspector R H Fabian arrived to lead the investigation. A description was given of a mystery man seen meeting with Jerzy in the park, and the hunt for the killer was on.

Rumours and whispers circulated in the community concerning the motive for the attack, and indeed, some have never completely gone away. Theories were rife, connecting the murder to the Second World War, the world of espionage, and even the suicide of a fellow Polish miner. Many questions were never answered by the investigation, including the reason why Jerzy was in the park that evening.

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John Dobson was a bright young man studying for an MA at Lancaster University. Late one morning in December 1986, John met his course director to discuss an upcoming seminar he was preparing to lead. John left the office and vanished, seemingly without a clue or hint as to where he went or what had happened. 

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Peggy Goodman was 81-years-old when she vanished without trace from the Welsh-speaking town of Corwen, North Wales. The widow was last seen at a local shop shortly before Christmas 1982. Despite extensive searches in the local area and inquiries that stretched across the UK and abroad, Peggy has never been found. 

Almost exactly two years later, another woman from Corwen disappeared. 49-year-old Myfanwy Jones never arrived home after leaving her friend's house on January 4th 1985. Five months later, her decomposed body was found buried on a remote farm near Lake Bala, 15 miles from Corwen. An inquest followed, which found that Myfanwy had been murdered by person or persons unknown. 

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Back in August 2024, I released an episode covering the unsolved murder of Mabel Harper. Mabel was murdered in my hometown, Cardiff, in August 1943. The 53-year-old widow was attacked late at night after missing her bus home. She was found naked, bound and gagged with strips of cloth ripped from her own clothing. In that episode, I mentioned another murder, that of 30-year-old Alice Daisy Pittman. Alice was murdered a few months later in November 1943, also in Cardiff. At the time, police did not connect the two murders, but some recent work by a prominent criminologist suggests both Mabel and Alice could be victims of the same killer.

This is Alice's story. 

Here is a link to the episode on Mabel Harper

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Lori Pinkus was a troubled young woman struggling with addiction issues and working as a sex worker in Ottawa, Canada. In August 1990, Lori suffered chest wounds in an alleged stabbing incident at her apartment. Two men were charged with attempted murder, but Lori failed to appear in court and fled to Toronto to start a new life. Months later, in September 1991, Lori was murdered the day before her 22nd birthday, leaving her family bereft and heartbroken.  For decades, it seemed her case had been forgotten, but in 2018 a forensic breakthrough gave hope the case will one day be solved. 

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At age 13, Velma Murray began to struggle at school, and her mother, Clarissa, decided to send the teen to lodge with a family friend in Coventry. Velma settled in and over the next two years got on well in her new school. Then in April 1973, just as the now 15-year-old Velma was about to sit CSE exams, her life was tragically taken in the most horrific and cowardly manner. At one point, 150 police officers were working the case, but within a few months the investigation stagnated, and Velma's name soon disappeared from the pages of local newspapers. Five decades on, the motive for Velma's murder is still a mystery. 

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