On August 19th 1978 a 13-year-old girl simply vanished whilst she was doing her regular paper round delivering the Exeter Express & Echo. It is now 42 years since Genette Tate disappeared and her father has recently passed away without knowing what truly happened to his little girl. As a parent, I can only begin to imagine how dreadful that must have felt.
So let's look at the story then draw some thoughts as we go along. . .
Genette lived in the historic village of Aylesbeare, approximately 8 miles east of the city of Exeter in Devon UK. The village dates back to at least the 13th century and is by all accounts a very peaceful and pleasant area to live in. The village has a somewhat mixed population of farmers, retired and commuter families within it, it is very small and even today if you drive in one end you will be out the other end in less than 2 minutes. Once the M5 Motorway was opened in 1975 the village was just a field or two away from national road links, so a possible way for the killer to enter Aylesbeare, abduct Genette and leave just as fast.
Genette had been born in the Somerset town of Taunton but she had moved with her family into Cornwall, then on to Aylesbeare. Her mother and father had divorced and Genette was living with her dad, his partner Violet and her daughter Tania.
The teenager's family had nicknamed her 'Ginny' and she had an amazing ability with mathematics and had a great curiosity about the world, all in all, a pretty smart girl it seems. She was a keen little worker and was doing holiday relief paper rounds on the day that she disappeared. She had left home at around 2pm, cycled through the village and met the newspaper van on the A3052 (the main Exeter to Sidmouth road) outside The White Horse Pub at around 2.50pm, something which she had done each day for the past week, as she was the relief paper girl. 19th August 1978 was to have been Genette's last day doing the round as the regular paper girl was due back.
Okay so let me pause there for just a minute and explore the last couple of sentences. . . Genette was doing a temporary job so, does this suggest that this was very much a random abduction or was it planned? I would say that I feel something like that is more likely to have been planned as opposed to just a random kidnapping. why do I say this? Well, let's think about the setting, a very rural, quiet village where I imagine pretty much everybody knew one another so abducting a young girl that could well make an awful lot of noise, struggle and may even get away and raise the alarm could be extremely risky. The only consideration here is that there is no telling what goes on in an evil monster's mind, would someone just take pot luck, a random chance abduction? Could the real target have been the regular paper girl that was away on summer holiday?
Moving on. . .
Okay so Genette collected her papers and began her round delivering some fourteen papers before she met up with two local friends, Margaret Heavey and Tracey Pratt around 3.15pm, they chatted and walked slowly with Genette up a slight incline in the road heading back into the village. Once they reached the peak of the incline Genette took to her bike once more and rode ahead to continue her deliveries, she remained in the girl's sight for around 50 metres then took a curve in the road. Just about five or so minutes later the Tracey and Margaret came across Genette's bike, on the road with the newspapers all tipped out of the cycle's basket, there was no sign of Genette at all.
Now once again I draw your thoughts to the abduction, Margaret and Tracey were only a matter of minutes behind Genette yet she had vanished, suggesting that the abductor must have acted very, very fast. He or she must have really taken a massive risk as the girls or indeed anyone else from the village could have come along at any moment, was the kidnapper working alone? Was there any force, was Genette maybe gagged or in someway stunned to silence her? It was suggested by one writer that a large van was used, considering the noise and the way such a vehicle would have stood out in such a surrounding that seems extremely unlikely, So what did happen to Genette Tate? We may never know.
The two girls began to call Genette's name out and looked over hedges and into gateways but there was no sign of the teenager. They walked on, pushing Genette's bike until they reached John Tate, he said: "Genette's friends came up the road to tell me that they couldn't find her, so I joined them and we headed back along the road to the lane where they had last seen her". "We were all looking for her by then jumping over hedges, shouting her name but to no avail, quite soon after that Violet said 'John I think we should call the police' ".
This was to be the start of one of the longest and biggest missing person searches ever launched by Devon and Cornwall police. The response by the police was prompt and well operated, within two hours of the report being made they had a helicopter from the RAF search and rescue team in the air and there were uniformed police all over the village. I can only imagine the dreadful fears held by John and Violet as they watched things unfold before their eyes. The couple spent the evening and many evenings after that searching the lanes and fields for Genette, but with no luck, Genette had literally 'vanished into thin air'.
The police officer in charge of the investigation was Detective superintendent Eric Rundle, he had no clues, no leads to go on. he was a highly experienced police officer and the second most senior detective on the Devon and Cornwall police force at that time. He had a team of officers working under him, which he divided into teams to search in particular areas. His job must have been extremely difficult as he had no witnesses, no sightings or reports of anything suspicious. There were so many questions; had Genette had some kind of accident? Had she been the victim of a robbery? Had she been abducted, if so why? The possibilities were endless but all just had no starting point, the most obvious hypothesis was that she had been abducted and taken away somewhere and based on that Eric Rundle would have been extremely aware of just how crucial time is in such cases if there is a chance of finding a victim alive.
It was said by a police officer working on the case that one disappointing thing was Margaret and Tracey had moved Genette's bike which could have given some clue or guidance to a trained eye, "the scene had been tampered with before the job got going".
The police commandeered the village hall as a form of operational centre and issued a description of Genette as 'boyish, 5ft tall with close style brown hair, suntanned wearing a white t-shirt with her name embroidered on its left shoulder. Her dad recalled her as very young-looking still very much a child but, interestingly some others from the village described her as maturing fast and very much a developing young woman. This, of course, has no obvious relevance to the case as far as I am able to ascertain but the description difference could bear importance as well as the way in which the missing girl was thought of and in how investigators understand the girl that apparently just vanished.
Very early in the investigation police realised that they needed help from the full force of the media to get Genette's face on the pages of papers and Television screens all over the UK. They called a press conference and staged photographs of the teenager's bicycle abandoned in the road and for a whole month after the disappearance, the publication which Genette had been delivering ran stories with a photograph of her on their front page every day.
On Monday 21st August just two days after the disappearance the headline on the Express and Echo ran 'Echo newsgirl vanishes'. They encouraged more than 8,000 people to gather just a week after Genette went missing to search the local common just on the outskirts of Aylesbeare known as Woodbury Common. The media dubbed the searchers 'Genette's army' as they set themselves into groups and tramped across the vast common searching for any clue that might lead to the missing girl being found. Worryingly it has since been admitted that there was actually no operational reason to scour the common but nonetheless it was done.
The family were becoming increasingly desperate with every day that passed and this lead to many theories being put forward from all walks of life including paranormal investigators and mystics of all kinds including some conspiracy theorists (a pet hate of mine) but unfortunately, it seems Devon and Cornwall police were keen to listen to almost every theory suggested, maybe not the best practice but things were pretty desperate in so many ways, so every bit of publicity in a difficult case such as this really could have made a difference.
Sadly as time wore on with no new leads and literally nothing at all to suggest what had truly happened to Genette eventually things began to wind down, The police gave the village hall back and the press headed off to find their next story. No sign of Genette, no one coming forward with credible information finally lead to the case becoming somewhat cold and enquiries being scaled back.
In 1990 a killer was arrested for child abduction in the Scottish Highlands, he was Robert Black. He had a very shady past and had all the stereotypical identities of a predatory paedophile. He had a very bad childhood and moved down into England in 1968. He passed his driving test in 1976 and took a job as a poster delivery driver which gave him a reason to travel the highways and motorways with his work and could by all accounts literally turn up 'anywhere in the UK'.
According to records Black's method of abducting children was to leave the major roads and head into rural settings such as Aylesbeare, abduct a child and vanish again without anyone even noticing him, so a theory was suggested that Genette Tate was a victim of Black but I don't feel that to be the case.
In 1994 Roger Black was tried and convicted of the abduction, rape and murder of three girls during the 1980s and he was sentenced to life in prison. His victims were Susan Maxwell, aged 11 whom he sexually abused and murdered on July 30th 1982, he drove her body some 264 miles to dump her. Caroline Hogg aged just 5 was abducted on July 8th 1983 and her body found 310 miles away from her home and Sarah Harper aged 10 was abducted on March 26th 1986 from Leeds with her body found some 71 miles away.
Devon and Cornwall Police interviewed Roger Black at length but he did not give anything away and was never charged but still remained a firm suspect in the Genette Tate disappearance. I personally am not convinced that he had any connection and neither was John Tate, Genette's father. Just remember this; all the other bodies were found, Genette's was not and whilst this may be just unfortunate I think it changes the hypothesis surrounding Black as an abductor.
In 2007 the police submitted a file to the Crown Prosecution Service with a view to charging Black in connection with Genette Tate's disappearance but the CPS were unable to find sufficient evidence to proceed. There was a little more hope in Black being further pursued after he was charged and convicted of yet another abduction and murder in 2011, that of Jennifer Cardy aged 9 abducted on 12th August 1981, Black had grabbed her whilst she was cycling to a friend's house.
There is some evidence relating to Genette Tate's case in that a witness saw Black at Exeter Airport "acting suspiciously" on 19th August 1978 and the existence of a fuel receipt puts Black in the South West of England around the date of Genette's disappearance but it is not known how close to Aylesbeare he actually was.
Whilst I accept these small pieces of evidence may be suggestive of Black taking Genette it is very much assumed based purely on other crimes he had committed and I am not at all convinced, I firmly believe that the person responsible for Genette's disappearance was from much closer to home but this is very much my own opinion.
Black has been suggested as a relevant name / possible suspect in over a dozen child abduction cases in both the UK and into Europe but to be fair most "serial killers" will always be put forward for many crimes because they have been responsible for something similar. After all look at Christopher Halliwell, I have recently been made aware of a person writing on Facebook suggesting that he was responsible for 27 or more abductions and murders, but many can easily be debunked as nothing to do with him either.
Nobody knows for certain what happened on the afternoon of 19th August 1978 in Withen Lane Aylesbeare. Some are convinced that Robert Black was responsible for the vanishing of Genette Tate but many others are equally not convinced at all. Due to the passage of time and many theories combined with misinformation the stories and amateur sleuths, it seems unlikely we will ever get to the truth now, but we must never give up hope.
There have been many suggestions of paedophilic activity in and around the village, occult crimes and more but I personally don't feel these "suggestions" are that far from the truth after all, but I don't want to be seen as too suggestive. I will, however, add just one point taken from a news article published by Devon Live which reads "The only lane leading off the main road is called Withen Lane, about 100 metres from the centre of Aylesbeare and within sight of the ancient church turret" think carefully about that.
The village itself dates back to The Domesday Book and is itself very rural with lots of farmland. I won't dwell on these points but I feel that this information is important when studying the case in any depth, I could, of course, be 'barking up the wrong tree' so to speak.
I will just close by saying that Genette Tate's father John went to his grave not knowing what happened to his precious daughter but he was absolutely adamant that Robert Black was not the man responsible for the disappearance. John Tate said that Devon and Cornwall Police had Black's name in the frame but purely based on his past not even any circumstantial evidence exists, that is made clear by the fact that as I mentioned previously the CPS would not prosecute as there was insufficient evidence.
The disappearance of Genette Tate is a tragic and confusing case whist being of huge interest to true crime researchers such as myself. I do hope that one day there will be some answers and we may get to know what happened to Genette as she and her family still left behind deserve justice.
Here below are some useful links with regard to this case. . .
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-52697413
https://youtu.be/mat8SCRyb1I
https://janmeecham.wordpress.com/2019/05/13/into-thin-air/
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