Janet
Murgatroyd grave (1976 to 16th June 1996)
Violent
murders of young people usual stick in the nation’s gullet but some less so. The
senseless murder of a vivacious 20-year-old woman seems to have been demoted to
the footnotes of Britain's history of unsolved murders. The poor kid was beaten
up and thrown in the River Ribble barely conscious
but still breathing. Despite receiving press attention and a television
re-enactment her murderer has never been brought to justice.
Janet was a carefree student at the University Of
Central Lancashire. On Saturday 15th June 1996 she had been shopping
with a friend in Preston. Their excitement and high spirits were buoyed by an upcoming
backpacking trip around Europe. Later in the day they visited several pubs. The
enjoyable night went on so long that Janet called her mother to tell her she'd
be late home. The friends split up and Janet was seen the Adelphi pub with an
unidentified man at around 12:30am. She must have been drunk as other witnesses
spotted her shortly after asleep in the Fishergate
area near Preston Railway Station. About 1am a taxi driver saw her fleeing from
a man across Penwortham Bridge (but did nothing about it.)
About twenty minutes later two brothers walking
across the bridge heard a woman’s muffled wail. From the bridge they peered
into the darkness of the riverbank at the source of the noise: a man was
crouching over someone (didn’t see his face only his baggy, light-coloured
shirt.) They did nothing about it.
The following afternoon Janet’s naked dead body
was recovered from the river. She had been severely beaten, kicked and stomped
on. A series of scratches on her flesh pointed to her dragged through the
undergrowth (probably to get her in the water.) A post-mortem report concluded she
had died from head injuries and drowning; she'd probably been raped, too. It
added she’d been alive for a significant period of time after being dumped in
the water.
Janet’s clothes and jewels were later discovered
in the bushes by the river. DNA evidence was extracted from hairs found on her
blouse and socks. In 2002 a twenty-two-year-old man was convicted of
manslaughter in connection with the crime but his conviction was overturned on
appeal in 2004. No further arrests have been made in the case.
While on the way to the coast for the day I
visited Penwortham Cemetery to find her grave - and to the parking area by the
river where she was attacked. One day I hope to be browsing through the
newspaper and spot column-filler - a man who has committed a small crime has
had his DNA taken and it matches up with that found on Tracy's possession. A
prison sentence beckons. He's probably a local man, still alive, in his sixties
and has a wife and children. Every day he must think of that attack on a
drunken woman in the early hours in summer 1996...and wonder who is behind the
door every time there's a knock. I did a salute and left.
She probably died
on the bank of the River Ribble...
