According to recent research, there are more than 1,100 unsolved murder cases in the UK
Many of the unsolved murders in the UK are quite old, with some dating back several generations whilst others are much more recent. Police forces claim to never truly close cases, they leave them on file and review them from time to time. Is that truly good enough? In my opinion "no it is not", but funding is simply not made available by the government to keep officers active on cases and that combined with the factor of evidence drying up forces a case to become cold.
Sadly many people, even the dedicated true crime fans that I am proud to be associated with will have cases that they have never heard of, cases such as Emile L'Angelier from Glasgow, poisoned in 1857 or Emma Jackson of St.Giles, London, she was a sex worker who was stabbed to death in a room at a brothel in 1863. Both of these cases remain on file with the police but are cold and unsolved.
Of course, there are also the more famous cases of murder that still send a chill down the spine of many to this day, cases such as Jack The Ripper. Those cases have had so much input from members of the public, detectives, armchair detectives, writers and more that the chances of the true killer ever being identified are extremely unlikely.
According to research figures provided by the BBC London's Metropolitan Police have the largest number of unsolved cases per individual force with 341 cases being unsolved and on the cold case list. It is worth pointing out that this figure only covers the dates from 1996 to the present day, so the actual number of unsolved murders within the Metropolitan force is considerably larger.
So why are so many cases unsolved? Well in murder investigation there are some important points that make a huge difference to the outcome of a case.
Firstly it is very important to remember that "Time is of the essence" at the outset of any criminal investigation, even more so in the case of murder. It is very important that a crime scene is secured as quickly as possible these days to allow an in-depth investigation by forensic scientists. The first few hours truly can 'make or break' the outcome of a murder enquiry.
The first 24 hours, can sometimes be pushed to as much as 48 hours but as soon as the crime scene is freed up so that anyone can access it then the game is over and things deteriorate. Of course in older times there was either very limited or no forensic science of any sort so a crime scene inspection would have relied on the eyes of the police and detectives to spot particular aspects of a crime,
Victimology says that in many cases of murder, the killer will be known to the victim so if an investigator can establish what put an assailant and a victim in the same place at the same time then a case will begin to build. Establish a reason for the killing and the case is well underway, sadly this is one of the key elements that lets an investigation down as there is seems to be no reason at all for the killing.
The victimology of a murder enquiry combined with the piecing together of the final days, hours and minutes of a victim's life are the major part of modern investigation. This combined with the forensic investigation is the reason that many more cases are solved in modern times, but still, there are cases that for one reason or another are unsolved.
Unfortunately, there are many cases of corruption, whereby a person will be "fitted-up", made a scapegoat of and the murder will seem as if it is solved, sadly the true assailant will be out free and roaming the streets. There is wrongly a line of belief in some police officers and other officials minds that "As long as there is a name in the frame, that's all that matters".
There is a case that I recently reviewed; The murder of Judith Roberts saw a young man with various mental health disabilities (Andrew Evans) sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering the teenager. Despite his confession during a delusion episode, there was absolutely no other evidence to convict Andrew the police still took the case to trial, They obviously knew that Andrew was not guilty of murder but "they had their man they could close the file". Of course, now that Andrew Evans is free and his conviction overturned the case remains unsolved.
There is a theory that the murder was committed by Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, but it is just that, a theory without foundation.
There is another issue with unsolved cases, one that often leads to cases going cold, that is the group of people that either investigate a case so much that they become desperate to name an assailant or really do not do their research properly and just name a particularly well-known killer for many crimes. This then causes the pubic to "take their eye off the ball" because a case appears solved when it is not.
There is a writer out there selling his books in which he claims two or three serial killers to be responsible for a number of crimes, his theories are unfounded and lack evidence but "hey he's selling his books", and that is so wrong.
Moving on. . .
When a case has gone cold with no new evidence coming to light and enquiries pretty much exhausted, senior police officers, meet to decide whether the case should be "shelved" and the desks cleared to make room for more active cases. Of course, that is not the end of a case by no means, current police policy is to review cases every two years to see if there is anything new or to see if the ever-progressing world of forensic science can offer anything new.
Cases are often reviewed by private organisations, independent investigators and the like, sometimes that route can prove fruitful as an independent investigator may just pick up on that little thread of evidence that was either missed by the police or presumed not to be relevant to the enquiry. Once again with the advancement of various forms of science and the ever-growing power of the internet, particularly social media new things come up and cases are solved.
There are also times when certain things change, a member of a criminal gang leaves or is shunned by his group so he feels it is time to open up and give information about a murder that he previously would have stayed quiet about, loyalties change with time.
A recent post by a journalist from the BBC said: "For many of the cases that are unsolved, it is too late to ever get to the bottom of what happened". I absolutely disagree with that writer, in my professional opinion it is never too late, a case is always worth reviewing, always worth looking over again even old ones.
Unsolved UK crime, particularly murders are a passion of mine and I will always be more than happy to review a case, just in case, there is one person out there or one scrap of evidence hidden somewhere that can be uncovered and a case turned around.
Cold cases should never be allowed to go completely cold and more funding should be made available to ensure that they are not forgotten, that's my opinion.
On that point, I will close this one but don't forget; If you have a British unsolved/cold case that you would like me to review for a documentary, film, podcast, report or blog then please get in touch via the contact form below or e-mail me: jaradcoldcases@protonmail.com
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