Inside chilling chilly case homicide of 16-year-old woman Jacqueline Johns

Pretty as a picture in a bright yellow dress, 16-year-old Jacqueline Johns grinned cheekily and waved to the bride as she rushed from the reception to get her last train home.

The shy insurance clerk had thanked Susan Baynes for the ‘lovely time’ she had at the wedding on the Essex Riviera and happily bustled from the door tottering on her platform shoes.

Jacqueline’s destination was home in Thornton Heath, South London, but she never made it and hours after she said a cheery farewell to the bride, her life was cruelly snuffed out.

The teenager’s body had been stripped of clothing and dumped in a railway siding in the shadow of Battersea Power Station, across the Thames from where she was last seen at Victoria Station.

Jackie was raped and strangled. The bright lemon-coloured dress she wore was missing, as was the sheepskin coat borrowed from her sister. Only her yellow and blue shoes were found tossed away nearby.

The date of that horrifying discovery was October 1, 1973 – and almost 51 years on her murder has never been solved.

In fact, the last public police appeal for information was only a few months after she was found dead at Spicers Wharf by workers arriving on Monday morning to load paper on to lorries from ships docked on the river. 

The family of the tragic teenager told MailOnline today that Jacqueline may have been a victim of notorious serial killer Robert Black – but her siblings have not had any contact with the police for more than 30 years.

Jacqueline’s sister Susan said today: ‘It is almost as if her case has been wiped from the face of the earth’.

Her sister was a quiet City of London worker and devout Christian who preferred staying at home to a night out on the town.

She died on the night of September 29, 1973, after leaving her colleague’s wedding and missing the last train home from Victoria just before midnight.

Jackie was seen speaking to a woman on the concourse – but that witness wasn’t traced. 

Police suggested at the time she was seen walking on Chelsea Bridge trying to get back to South London, perhaps hitchhiking.

But the so-called girl in the yellow dress was found dead on the south side of the Thames.

The Metropolitan Police revealed recently in a Freedom of Information request to Northern Irish criminologist Robert Giles that her unsolved murder case remains open with its cold case unit and is unsolved.

And if Robert Black was not her killer, which some experts believe is likely due to his lust for much younger victims, Jacqueline’s murder is one of the oldest in London where it is possible that the killer is still alive and living free. 

Black died in prison in Northern Ireland in 2016 aged 68, where he was serving 35 years for the kidnap, rape and murder of four girls aged between five and 11 in a series of crimes committed between 1981 and 1986. 

However, he was living in London in the early 1970s.

Police said in 1974 that the riverside location of her body suggested that she may have been abducted by two men.

Robert Giles says that when Black was in borstal in the late 1960s he shared a cell with a fellow sex offender. The men discussed raping women together after getting released.

Jacqueline’s sister Susan Church has revealed that the family were contacted by police in the early 1990s over Black’s potential involvement but otherwise officers have not told them of any other suspects. In fact they haven’t been in touch since.

She said: ‘The police contacted us about Robert Black after they found some friendship bracelets.

‘But I don’t think my mother knew if they were hers or not.

‘Robert Black was the only name mentioned to us but we don’t know if it was him.

‘I don’t think she would have got in a van which I think was what he was driving at the time in London.

‘But she might have got into a car thinking it was a taxi.

‘The police said Jacqueline was last seen talking to a woman with long hair at Victoria train station.’

Speaking from her home in Heysham, Lancashire, she added: ‘I am bewildered and very disappointed that the police have not solved her case and we have been denied justice.

‘It is almost as if her case has been wiped from the face of the earth.

‘There is no mention of it as a cold case or anything.

‘My mum’s last wish before she died was that they would solve it as a cold case.

‘We don’t know if there is any DNA or anything.

‘We just don’t know what the police have but I am shocked if it is actually still open.

She went on: ‘I was very close to Jacqueline as we were just 14 months apart and we did everything together.

‘The family was devastated and heartbroken by her death. I just wished she stayed in Southend after the wedding and not tried to come home.’

The Metropolitan Police declined to comment on Jacqueline’s case.

But a police source has claimed that Robert Black had indeed kept a bracelet in his flat, that may have been a souvenir taken from a murder victim. Rumours are that it was pink and silver.   

Jacqueline’s family were also shown a bracelet with multi-coloured beads which police found when they arrested Black, MailOnline understands.

Her younger sister Annette Belcher, 64, said: ‘They showed me a bracelet which they found with Black’s stuff and they thought it might be Jacqueline’s.

‘It had different coloured beads. She had a similar one but I’m more sure it was hers.

‘They police showed it to me but they didn’t say it was from Black.

‘I only knew as they left a file on the table with Robert Black’s name on it.

‘However they mentioned Black’s name to my mum and Susan.

‘I don’t know whether she was killed by Black.

‘He did like younger girls and Jacqueline looked older than her age.

‘But we just don’t know what happened. It could have been Black.’

Black, dubbed ‘every parent’s worst nightmare’, was handed 12 life sentences for murdering four girls aged between five and 11 in the 1980s but is suspected of being responsible for countless more.

Black, from Falkirk in Scotland died at Maghaberry high-security prison in County Antrim in January 2016. 

The 68-year-old spent the the 1970s and 1980s working as a delivery driver and cruised the UK looking for young victims to abduct.

His reign of terror ended in 1990 when he was caught by police with a barely alive six-year-old girl. 

She was found hooded, bound, gagged and stuffed in a sleeping bag in the back of his van in the Scottish village of Stow. Horrifyingly the girl’s father was the policeman who found her.

In 1994, Black was found guilty of three child murders in the 1980s, those of 11-year-old Susan Maxwell, from the Scottish Borders, five-year-old Caroline Hogg, from Edinburgh, and Sarah Harper, 10, from Morley, near Leeds, as well as a failed abduction bid in Nottingham in 1988. 

In 2011, he was found guilty of the 1981 murder of nine-year-old Jennifer Cardy, from Ballinderry, County Antrim.

Susan Maxwell was aged 11 when abducted in 1982 near the border between Scotland and England.

Her body was gagged and bound and she was found 250 miles away, in England.

His next victim was a girl aged five, Caroline Hogg, who was abducted from Portobello in Edinburgh in 1983 and her body was found 300 miles away.

Sarah Harper, aged 10, was abducted in 1986 and found dead in the River Trent near Nottingham. 

Black, who lived out his last days in Maghaberry high security prison in Co Antrim, was also suspected of involvement in other killings and unexplained disappearances and had long been the prime suspect in the case of missing 13-year-old Genette Tate, who was last seen in a rural lane in Aylesbeare, Devon, in 1978. 

The couple whose wedding Jacqueline attended just before her death have spoken of seeing her happy and smiling before she died.

Susan Baynes, who was aged 18 when she married, had become friends with Jacqueline while working with her at Commercial Union’s office in the City of London.

As a result, she invited the teenager to her wedding to Stock Exchange dealer David Houghton at St Michael’s & All Angels church in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex.

Jacqueline who was wearing a long yellow dress and her sister’s coat was among 100 guests at the ceremony before a sit-down meal at the nearby Arlington ballroom function venue.

The guests then split into two groups for evening reception parties at the homes of Susan and David’s respective families in Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex.

Jacqueline left Susan’s family home at around 10.30pm with two work colleagues who gave her a lift to Upminster station, according to reports at the time.

She was due to go on a District Line underground train to Victoria, and then get a train back to her home in Thornton Heath, Surrey.

But reports said police believed she may have missed the last train at 11.26pm and met her killer while possibly heading to stay with relatives in Battersea, south-west London.

One of the theories at the time was that she had tried to hitchhike home – although family and friends have said that they do not believe she would have got in a car or a van with a stranger full stop.

Her naked body was found in a goods yard at Battersea less than two days later, with only her blue and yellow platform shoes nearby.

Susan and David had spent their wedding night at their new home in Shoeburyness before heading off on honeymoon to a hotel at Porthmadog, north Wales.

The couple who celebrated their Golden Wedding last year were woken in the middle of the night by the hotel manager, saying there was a phone call for them downstairs.

David, now 74, took the call from Susan’s father and was given the awful news that Jacqueline had been found murdered.

Susan, now 68, said she had become friends with Jacqueline while they worked together in the life assurance department at Commercial Union.

She said: ‘It was a long time ago. We were the youngest in the department, and used to go to lunch together.

‘Jackie was just a normal teenager, but she wasn’t a party girl. I think that is why we got on so well. Neither of us really went out on the town.

‘She didn’t have a boyfriend, and I can’t imagine that she would ever have voluntarily got into a car with a stranger.

‘She was living in London, and I was in Southend, so we didn’t see much of each other outside work.

‘But I remember we were involved in a Christian group which had a sailing barge, and she came away with us for a weekend on a fishing smack.

‘Thinking back to our wedding, I can’t remember speaking to her or anyone else from work because there were so many people there.

‘When we got the bang on our door on our honeymoon, we didn’t know what to think.

‘It was terrible to hear she had been murdered, but our families wanted us to know as soon as possible in case we read about it in the papers first.

‘When I went back to work, it was a strange atmosphere not having her there. I even expected her to suddenly appear.

‘For a few months, I was too scared to go anywhere by myself. But luckily David worked in London so we could commute together.

‘I remember Jacqueline’s mother sent me a letter. I also went to her funeral with other work colleagues. It was the first time I had been to a burial.

‘I spoke to her mother at the funeral. It was very upsetting.’

Susan added: ‘The story about her murder quickly faded out of the news, although there was a report done on the first anniversary of her death.

‘Quite often, I wonder if the police have got closer to finding the person who did it. But we have not heard anything more over the years.

‘We can only hope that one day they might find the killer. You never know if there might be a scientific advance to show up new evidence.’

Susan later moved to a new job at Commercial Union offices in Southend so she could work nearer to home shortly before starting her family.

She and her husband who have three children and four grandchildren, now live in retirement in Norfolk.

David said: ‘Memories came back when we had our Golden Wedding last year. We had dinner in the same hotel in Porthmadog where we had our honeymoon, and it came up then.

‘I don’t think the police ever got close to solving it. But it is quite possible that the killer is still alive.

‘You never know if something might come up, and they could be caught after all this time. With modern technology, something might just click in.

‘All these years on, it is still a complete mystery to me. I just think something happened when she reached Victoria.

‘When we found out on honeymoon, we went to the local police station to tell them where we were staying, just in case the Scotland Yard detectives wanted to speak to us. But we were never asked to give an interview.’

Reports at the time said Jacqueline’s parents had phoned Susan’s late mother Audrey Baynes on the day after the wedding to ask if she had stayed overnight after she failed to arrive home.

Mrs Baynes, then 40, said at the time: ‘If only she had decided not to go home, this ghastly thing would never have happened.

‘At the reception, Jacqueline was very happy. She sticks in my mind as the laughing girl in the yellow dress.

‘She said to me, “We have to catch a train”, and she told me she had had a lovely time. There was a sea of faces and I remember Jacqueline turning and waving. Then she was gone.’

Mrs Baynes told reporters how her then 18-year-old daughter and her new son-in-law were on honeymoon at the time.

She said: ‘I have spoken to Susan by telephone. This has upset her tremendously. She wanted to come home, but I told her, she mustn’t. There is nothing she can do now. It is too late to help Jacqueline.’

Jacqueline’s mother Mrs Anne Johns said after the murder: ‘Jackie had second thoughts about going to the wedding – she much preferred staying at home to going out. But we persuaded her to go. We thought she would have a good time.

‘She phoned on Saturday morning to say she had arrived safely. She always let us know where she was. That was the last time we spoke to her.’

Jacqueline who left Norbury Park High school at the age of 15 had five sisters and two brothers, but was said to have been closest to her 18-year-old sister Susan, a telephonist.

She said: ‘I used to have to force Jackie to go out to parties and things. She was much happier staying in her bedroom listening to records on the new record player we bought between us.

‘But she loved clothes and spent most of her money on jumpers, shirts and trousers.’

Why I believe Jacqueline Johns could have been murdered by Robert Black, by the criminologist who is one of the UK’s leading experts on the Scottish serial killer’s horrific crimes

Northern Irish criminologist, author and researcher Robert Giles is a leading expert on British serial killers.

He is co-author of ‘The Face of Evil: The True Story of Serial Killer Robert Black’ along with Chris Clark.

Writing for MailOnline, Robert has described the horror of Jacqueline’s murder – and the tragedy of it never neing solved as well as the reasons why he won’t rule out Black being responsible for her murder.

He also believes there was another killer operating in London at the time who could also fit the bill of the suspect. He remains alive today.

Or could it have been someone who struck on that night in 1973 and never again? Mr Giles has his say on Jackie’s tragic death below.

This was a particularly callous murder. A young girl in high spirits after attending a friend’s wedding, only trying to make her way home.

Somewhere along the way she met evil and encountered her killer – or killers.

Jacqueline Johns had been in Leigh On Sea in Essex that day for the wedding. She got a lift from the wedding reception to Upminster Underground station and dropped there at 11.15pm on the Saturday night.

The next sighting of Jacqueline was at Victoria Train station where she was seen by a witness chatting to a woman with long hair. That woman could be a vital witness as to what Jacqueline did next.

Jacqueline would have been expected to get on a connecting train to take her on towards South Norwood where she lived in Thornton Heath.

But Jacqueline did not come home that night. Her family reported her missing to police.

On the Monday morning workmen made a shocking discovery. Jacqueline’s body was discovered nude at a goods yard beside a railway line at Spicers Wharf, below Chelsea Bridge in Battersea. 

She had been raped and strangled. Her clothes were never found.

This was a sexually motivated murder of a young girl. The position of her body had made police suspect that two people had potentially dragged her body to its found location.

The location where Jacqueline was found was just over a mile away from Victoria Station. A police theory from the time was that Jacqueline had missed her connecting train and started to hitch hike as she made her way over Chelsea Bridge.

Police later stopped drivers over Chelsea Bridge and asked them did they recall seeing a girl matching Jacqueline’s description on Saturday night or did anyone recall giving her a lift?

Wearing a long yellow halter neck dress and a sheepskin coat Jacqueline would have stood out wearing such distinctive clothing.

Jacqueline was described as the kind of girl who would not get into a car with a stranger. But approaching midnight, away from home and on a cold and most probably dark end of September night did she on this one occasion decide to take a chance?

Unfortunately London had it’s fair share of sexual deviant killers living within it in 1973. 

One such man was the serial child killer Robert Black who was living some distance away in Stamford Hill, North London at the time. Black did not get his driving licence until 1976 when he got a delivery job as a van driver with the now defunct Poster, Despatch and Storage. 

However, it is worth noting that Black had a delivery job in 1964 as a 17 year old youth delivering the Glasgow Evening Times and delivering for John Menzies whilst living up in Scotland so he was driving unofficially well before 1976. In 1968 he moved to North London. 

In 1972 he was convicted of a motoring offence and when arrested had a ball of car keys in his possession that demonstrated he had access to several vehicles. When police searched Black’s attic flat in 1990 they found a pink and silver girl’s bracelet.

When Jacqueline went missing she was wearing a similar friendship type bracelet. 

Unfortunately Jacqueline’s family could not be 100 per cent sure if the bracelet found in Black’s flat belonged to Jacqueline. 

We know that serial killers often like to keep items belonging to their victims as sick souvenirs or trophies marking a memory of a particular murder. If the bracelet didn’t belong to Jacqueline it may have belonged to another unfortunate victim.

On the 22nd of March 1967 whilst still in Scotland Robert Black was convicted of three counts of indecent assault and voyeurism and sentenced to a year in borstal. 

At this borstal in Polmount he became friends with a now dead convicted rapist. 

They had discussed the possibility of raping women together, it is thought Black lived with this man for a while after his release in 1968 but it is not known if they kept in touch after this period or put their horrific plans into practice.

There are things however that point away from Black being potentially involved in Jacqueline’s murder. Black was first and foremost a sadistic paedophile who targeted primarily pre-pubescent little girls. Jacqueline a mere few weeks away from her 17th birthday does not match the preferred victim profile of Black at all.

Another man living in London at the time was double murderer Colin Campbell. Campbell lived several miles away from Battersea in Acton. 

In the early 1980s whilst working as travelling salesman he abducted and raped and murdered two young women. 

In 1981 17-year-old Claire Woolterton was abducted by Campbell walking home from an amusement arcade in west London. 

She was found the next day partially clothed, mutilated and raped on a footpath in Windsor. 

In 1984 he abducted a 29 year old hitch hiker called Deirdre Sainbsbury in Roehampton, West London. She was later found naked, sexually assaulted and mutilated on a golf course. 

Campbell was 33 when he murdered Claire Woolterton in 1981. Did he have any other victims? Had he struck earlier? 

There is a major difference it seems however between Jacqueline Johns and Campbell’s two victims in the nature of the injuries they suffered with Campbell’s two known victims having being brutally mutilated by their killer. Jacqueline Johns it seems did not suffer injuries of that nature.

Multiple Killers however can change their method of operation (MO) from time to time. The escalation of brutality can increase from one victim to the next.

This is a case with more questions than answers. Forensic advancement would be one such way of seeing it resolved. Unfortunately with Jacqueline’s clothes never being found those opportunities may be somewhat limited, unless police kept body samples from Jacqueline or took samples from the crime scene at the time.

It may also be that Jacqueline’s killer has never came to police attention or public prominence. 

Perhaps it was a local man. Jacqueline could have been accosted or attacked by an offender or offenders on Chelsea Bridge with a degree of local knowledge, someone who knew about the goods yard nearby. But there are no reports of a scream or a struggle. 

Or did Jacqueline meet her killer/killers at Victoria Station or near it? Did she ask someone for advice or directions and that individual quickly gained her trust offering her a solution to her current plight?

Sadly almost 51 years on we do not know for sure. In that time potential witnesses pass away, they perhaps move abroad and memories inevitably fade with the mix of passing of time or cognitive decline.

But we must always have hope, that the truth will come out and families gain some form of closure. The family of Jacqueline Johns like many others, deserve it.