ITVX sequence calls 1975 Playboy bunny homicide to be re-opened

A former colleague of a Playboy Bunny who was brutally murdered in her own residence in 1975 has made a plea for the case to be re-examined, saying there are only some folks left now to ‘defend her’.

The killing of German-born Eve Stratford, 22, has by no means been solved and – together with two comparable killings her dying has been linked to – is the topic of a brand new ITVX true crime sequence. 

Filmmaker Marcel Theroux interviews Barbara Haigh for the two-part sequence, who labored as a Playboy Cocktail Bunny on the Playboy Club in London‘s Mayfair with Eve and posed for a photograph together with her within the model’s trademark bunny outfit only a few weeks earlier than she was murdered. 

The Playboy Bunny Murder, which airs on Monday and Tuesday at 9pm subsequent week, examines her dying in east London in 1975.

The Playboy Cocktail Bunny was present in her bed room; her throat had been slashed between eight and 12 instances.

Stratford, who additionally glided by the identify Eve Van Bock and Bunny Ava, was discovered tied up with a shawl with a stocking tied around her leg – she is believed to have been raped.

Haigh tells Theroux that she felt sick when she heard the information of her good friend’s homicide. She mentioned: ‘ [I felt] Rather sick. Really fairly sick, that any individual might be so merciless as to homicide a child like that for no purpose. 

She added: ‘She would by no means have achieved something to impress that form of homicide. She’s solely a child, and there’s no one left to defend her. 

Eve Stratford, 22, far left, a Playboy Bunny, was stabbed between eight and 12 instances when she was murdered on the night of March 18, 1975. A brand new ITVX sequence re-examines her unsolved homicide

A former colleague of Eve Stratford, Barbara Haigh, seems in ITVX’s The Playboy Bunny Murder; she says there’s now no relations left of Stratford’s ‘to guard her’

Filmmaker Theroux mentioned: ‘This is a narrative that has obsessed me for years. How may a serial killer kill a number of victims in Seventies London and stay unknown? What proof was missed?’

The two-parter, offered by filmmaker Marcel Theroux, re-examines the case. Pictured: A photograph of mannequin Stratford, left, taken only a few weeks earlier than her homicide

Haigh who additionally labored as Playboy Cocktail Bunny within the Seventies, says she felt ‘actually sick’ when she came upon what had occurred to her former colleague 

The Playboy Cocktail Bunny, pictured with Eric Morcambe in 1974, was present in her bed room; her throat had been slashed between eight and 12 instances

‘Her dad and mom are useless, her complete bloody household’s useless. There’s nobody however us previous boilers who have been round in 1975 who can defend her.’

Detectives on the time mentioned there was no signal of compelled entry to the flat, main them to imagine the mannequin had invited the killer in and will have recognized them.

Six months after Eve’s dying, Lynne Weedon, 16, was brutally attacked and raped in an alleyway close to her house in Hounslow at 11pm on September 3. She died after being discovered barely alive at an electrical energy sub station the subsequent day.

Eve and Lynne’s murders have been linked in 2007 after matching DNA was found on the victims, who didn’t know one another.

In 2015, Lynne’s mom Margaret Weedon made an impassioned plea for info. She mentioned: ‘It has been 40 years since our lovely younger daughter Lynne was violently taken from us.

‘We are properly conscious that whoever murdered Lynne additionally murdered Eve Stratford. That younger woman additionally had her life snubbed out. Her household have died now. Another true life sentence.’

Theroux has spent 4 years wanting into Stratford’s homicide, which has been linked to 2 different murders: Lynne Weedon, was 16 when she was killed in September 1975 and croupier Lynda Farrow, who was murdered in 1979

The case has been linked to the dying of Lynne Weedon, simply 4 months after Eve Stratford was killed. The 16-year-old was crushed and raped 30 yards from her house in Lampton Avenue, Hounslow

The sequence additionally examines the homicide of Lynda Farrow, a croupier with years of expertise working in nighttime London. Many imagine Farrow, who was knifed to dying in her house in 1979, was additionally a sufferer of the identical killer.

Theroux has spent 4 years looking for police information on the case and searching for potential breakthrough info. 

The filmmaker mentioned: ‘This is a narrative that has obsessed me for years. How may a serial killer kill a number of victims in Seventies London and stay unknown? What proof was missed?

‘What clues have been the police of the time unable to utilize? As witnesses attain the ends of lives and reminiscences fail, this may be the final probability to get justice for the three victims.’

The Playboy Bunny Murder is on ITV1 & ITVX at 9pm on Monday and Tuesday