Authors: Roger Forsdyke
The Perfect Crime (21 page)
Late night, Monday 13th January 1975.
The Panther made his way to his Nuneaton lock up. He loaded his stolen Morris 1300 with the kidnap equipment so carefully accrued from around the country and set off for Highley. The vehicle was fitted with false plates, TTV 454H, from another, identical 1300 he had seen in Nottingham. Around two a.m., he parked in the centre of the village and walked the back roads through the council estate, along a footpath he knew led to the Whittles’ house. He scouted around carefully and made sure all was quiet. The garage door remained open and the connecting door into the house was insecure, as he had previously loosened the hinge screws.
He cut the telephone wires to prevent any alarm being activated and having satisfied himself that all was well, returned to the parked car. He then drove to the quiet lane running alongside Beech Croft’s garden. There, after donning his Black Panther outfit, silently effected entry and crept upstairs. The only occupants were Dorothy and the girl. He went back to Dorothy’s bedroom, where she was snoring loudly.
He stage whispered, “Wake up.” But there was no response. The snoring continued. “Wake up.” A little louder. Again, she did not stir, so he shook her by the shoulder. Gently at first, then more roughly. It was no good, she appeared dead to the world – as indeed she was, having taken a sleeping tablet a couple of hours previously.
He sighed.
It would have to be the girl.
He went to Lesley’s room and shook her awake. There was little obvious need for silence, so he said in his stilted Black Panther manner (which he considered to be a fair West Indian accent), “No noise now. Keep quiet and you not be hurt. All right?”
Eyes wide with fright and fixed on the Smithson sawn-off, Lesley nodded.
He said, “I want money and I want you to come with me.”
She said, “It’s in the bathroom.”
He frowned, “What? How much?”
“About £200 – £300 in change.”
He said, “Show me.”
She got out of bed and stood in front of him.
He looked at her and after a long pause, said, “Get dressed.”
“Why?”
He said, “For goodness’ sake cover yourself. Anyway, you’ll get cold.”
Lesley reached her dressing gown from the foot of the bed and shrugged it on, pushing her feet into her mules as she did so. He took hold of her elbow, warned her again not to make any noise, steered her downstairs and out of the house. He hustled her across the garden and towards the Morris. Quickly securing her wrists and ankles with elastoplast, he stuck one final strip across her mouth. He fitted a hood over her head, pushed her onto the back seat and positioned the foam rubber mattress over her to conceal her from view. Back into the house, he found a large vase in an alcove in the lounge and placed it in a prominent position in the middle of the hearth rug, his Dymo tape ransom demand on top where it could be plainly seen.
*
After some miles, he could hear determined grunting from the back seat. He waited until they reached a stretch of road with no street lighting, stopped and drew his balaclava down over his face. He turned to the back of the car, uncovered the girl and pulled the elastoplast from her mouth.
“What are you doing?” She asked. “Where are we going? What’s happening?”
The Panther used another of his voices, higher than normal. Harsh, something akin to a Nazi Dalek; a voice of command – or so he liked to think. “You have been kidnapped. Stay still and you OK. If you not behave, you go in boot. OK?”
“I’m cold.” She said.
He covered her over again and turned up the heater. They drove on.
It was later than he had intended and close to first light, when they pulled up in Bathpool Park. Parking close to the central shaft, he started lugging his specially gathered purchases down to one of the dry, horizontal shafts. In stout polythene bags, he stacked them, safe against the damp.
The girl was still blindfolded and he had some difficulty persuading her to go with him into the shaft. He did not want to upset her unduly, as part of his plan was to get her to record a message onto a cassette tape, to up the ante with her family if needed. He coaxed her to the edge.
“Bend your knees.” He said.
Obediently, she crouched down into a squatting position. He got onto the top of the iron ladder in front of her.
He said, “Put your hands on my shoulders.”
He could feel the draught from the black hole they were atop and sensed her reluctance to comply. As she moved tentatively forward, he reached round behind her, underneath her legs, pulling her off balance and onto him. He then started the arduous climb down the sixty foot shaft, with her on his back. As they descended, he thought,
Couldn’t
have
done
this
with
the
brother
.
Lucky
she’s
only
small
. In fact, Lesley was only a shade over five feet tall and weighed under eight stone.
As he laboured downwards, the warmth of her body permeated through to him. Her arms were round his neck, he could smell her. It was longer than he could remember that he’d had a woman so determinedly close to him. Dependent on him. Her legs were wrapped tight around his waist. Underneath that dressing gown, her nakedness pressed close against the small of his back. Special, very special. In spite of his physical exertions and dogged concentration on the task in hand, he felt a stirring down below.
In the main horizontal tunnel, the water ran five or six inches deep. He didn’t want her to get wet, but there was insufficient height for him to carry her.
He said, “You get dry soon.” And led her, still hooded and with her wrists bound, towards her temporary prison. There was one final hurdle to overcome. He needed to get her up onto a small dry culvert he had found to accommodate his captive, but in front of them and between their current position and the ledge, another tunnel dropped vertically down into the depths. He stopped her on the edge of the drop. He straddled the gap, one foot on her side and the other on the short ladder up to the ledge. He took hold of her arm and told her to step over to the ladder, not telling her how much of a drop she would be suspended over. Standing on the ladder, she hesitated.
“Climb up, now.” He said, not unkindly.
Still she did not move. “I’m getting really cold.” She said.
“Soon be nice and dry – and warm.” He told her and put his free hand under her bottom to encourage her up the ladder. The touch was electric.
Once on the landing, he took the elastoplast off her wrists and making sure his balaclava was properly in place, removed the hood from her. He then bade her take off her dressing gown.
“Dry yourself on the top, the dry bit.”
She did as she was told, then let it drop, standing there in the torch light. The ledge was narrow, no more than two feet wide and about five feet long. She was close to him. Very close. He fastened a wire cable around her neck, the other end through an eye screwed in to the wall of the tunnel. He’d padded it with elastoplast so it would not bite into her flesh and it was long enough for her to lay down and move around a bit. It was, he decided, the safest and most secure way of keeping her where he wanted her to be. Rope she might be able to untie or unpick, but not wire cable. She moved even closer to him – or was it his imagination? She gazed at him steadily, as if to see who it was, there, under the mask. He gazed at her, drinking in the sight. Long, medium brown tresses framed her face, little bee sting titties, slim waist, neat dark triangle of hair atop slim, young legs.
“Is this what you want?” She asked. “Is this what it’s all about?” She shivered.
He swallowed. This had never entered into the equation, his thought processes, his plans. He shook his head to clear it and tried to concentrate on the task in hand, but somehow, the thought of that imminent fifty thousand pounds only served to increase his excitement, his feeling of burgeoning elation. The girl was slim and pretty, in stark contrast to his wife Irene, who – he considered – had allowed herself to become a right grunter over the years. Perhaps, once he’d got his hands on the money… it wouldn’t hurt, would it? Surely she would do it gladly for him, in return for the promise of imminent release? She wouldn’t tell anyone, would she? She wouldn’t want it known that she’d been with her captor. In any case, he would never be identified even if she did.
And then, joy of joys, something that had not happened for a long, long time.
Hard. Rock hard. Harder than he could ever remember.
“Get in sleeping bag.” He said gruffly.
Dorothy Whittle woke with a sleeping pill induced headache and realising she was late, rushed downstairs to get Lesley’s breakfast and coffee for her. She was only a few minutes after her usual seven o’clock, so was surprised to see that Lesley was already out of bed. She switched on the electric heater, for it was a cold winter’s morning. She looked in the bathroom and called her daughter. Back in the bedroom, she was puzzled to see that yesterday’s clothes were on the floor, but her clean clothes were still neatly folded on the chair. It was still dark and she felt sure that Lesley would not have gone out already. Nothing made sense. With a rising sense of panic, she ran round the house calling out, “Lesley. Lesley. Where are you, girl?”
Head spinning, she tried to phone Ron and Gaynor, but could not. The line was dead. Still in her dressing gown, she hurried to her car in the garage and was surprised to see the interconnecting door ajar, but ignored it, as her overriding concern was to get to her son and enlist his help.
At Ashleigh Gardens, she spilled out her tale.
Ron said, “Mum, Mum. Calm down. She’s got to be somewhere round the house, you’ll see.”
“She’s not, I’ve looked everywhere.”
They drove the short distance back to Beech Croft and leaving Gaynor there, mother and son, in separate cars, toured Highley in a vain effort to locate Lesley. While they were gone, Gaynor searched thoroughly and although she could not locate her sister-in-law, did discover that the telephone wires had been cut.
Dorothy largely confined her quest to the upstairs, but Gaynor was determined to carry out a really thorough job. She satisfied herself that there was nowhere on the first floor Lesley could be and went downstairs. Having searched the lounge, she went out, but then paused in the hallway.
I’m
sure
that
vase
isn’t
usually
left
in
the
middle
of
the
floor
…
She went back into the room. On top of the vase was a box of Turkish Delight and curled amongst the sweets were several strips of red plastic tape. The tape bore words produced by a Dymo machine. Dorothy had seen them earlier, but dismissed it as some of Lesley’s college work. So entirely engrossed in her search for her daughter, she had not stopped to read. Gaynor did not suffer from morning sickness, but the heavily pregnant woman felt positively nauseous as she read,
NO POLICE £50000 RANSOM BE READY TO DELIVER FIRST EVENING WAIT FOR TELEPHONE CALL AT SWAN SHOPPING CENTRE TELEPHONE BOX 64711 64611 63111 TO 1 A.M. IF NO CALL RETURN FOLLOWING EVENING WHEN YOU ANSWER CALL GIVE YOUR NAME ONLY AND LISTEN YOU MUST FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS WITHOUT ARGUMENT FROM THE TIME YOU ANSWER THE TELEPHONE YOU ARE ON A TIME LIMIT IF POLICE OR TRICKS DEATH
Another strip read, £50000 ALL IN USED NOTES
Another, £25000 £1 £25000 £5 THERE WILL BE NO EXCHANGE ONLY AFTER £50000 HAS BEEN CLEARED WILL VICTIM BE RELEASED
Yet another said, DELIVER £50000 IN WHITE SUITCASE
And last – SWAN SHOPPING CENTRE KIDDERMINSTER
Gaynor sank to the floor and wept. Then, unable to phone her husband, she hurried to his office, several hundred yards away.
She delivered the dreadful news.
Detective Chief Superintendent Bob Booth, head of West Mercia Police CID had been on duty without break for over twenty four hours. They were investigating the stabbing of a young woman, whose naked body had been found after being thrown into a roadside ditch. At Wellington police station, he was interviewing their principal suspect and thought that a confession was not far off. He was less than pleased, then, to be interrupted to be informed about a possible kidnap, some twenty five miles away at Highley. He hurriedly issued orders that the police operation must be kept as low key as possible and only plain clothed officers should go anywhere near the scene. They were to make note of all and any vehicle registrations in the vicinity and on no account was any information to be given to the media. He instructed that No. 4 Regional Crime Squad be immediately contacted to assist and that every last piece of information, gossip and intelligence about the Whittles, their family, friends and associates should be assiduously gathered.
So it was that his boss, Assistant Chief Constable Fred Hodges was first on the scene at Beech Croft to liaise with the RCS co-ordinator, Harry Williams. Both men were aware of the Muriel McKay fiasco, but knew that, historically, kidnap wasn’t a British problem. On the continent, maybe. The States, certainly, but neither man had any direct experience of the crime and were initially dubious that a real kidnap had been committed. There were various niggles that made it appear less than genuine. Why target a family in an insignificant Shropshire village? There were wealthier families elsewhere that could potentially command a far greater ransom. Why the Dymo tape? To prevent familiar handwriting from being recognised? There was no hostage’s name mentioned, nor was the identity specified of the person who was to make the drop off. It all looked remarkably amateur. The strange alternative ransom arrangement and the curious juxtaposition of ‘IF NO CALL RETURN THE FOLLOWING EVENING’ seemed at odds with, ‘YOU ARE ON A TIME LIMIT’ and ‘IF POLICE OR TRICKS DEATH’. Other details that did not ring true with the officers included the trail of mud in the house. It looked a little too obvious, as if someone wanted the police to believe that a break in had occurred and deliberately planted the dirt trail. There were also no indications of a struggle in Lesley’s bedroom and several hundred pounds in cash was lying on the floor of the bathroom. Several weeks wages for some folks, so what real criminal would have just left that there?
There was a difficult decision here. If it was genuine, then there was a real risk to Lesley’s life. If it was a hoax, they didn’t want to be caught out, red faced, nor did they want to waste precious resources into detecting some student prank.
Enquiries at Wulfrun College, where Lesley was studying ‘A’ level geography and geology together with pure and applied mathematics (and beginner’s German) led to no suspicion of a student’s rag stunt. The college principal said that Lesley was a quiet, pleasant and sincere girl.
A team of officers was dispatched to Sheffield University to interview Lesley’s boyfriend, who was horrified to be arrested on suspicion of the abduction of his girlfriend. Fortunately for him and the already stretched resources of the kidnap investigation, he was quickly ruled out – and released.
DCS Booth headed for Bridgnorth police station where an incident room for the kidnap was being set up. He spent his refreshment break supervising arrangements for the night’s ransom rendezvous at Kidderminster. Following this working lunch, he headed for Highley. After liaising with his colleagues and talking to the Whittle family, he quickly decided that the ransom demand and death threats were genuine.
Ronald Whittle spent most of the day with the police as they planned their ransom trap around the Kidderminster telephone boxes.
There was one seemingly insurmountable problem hanging over them.
‘IF POLICE OR TRICKS DEATH’
And Ron had called the police. Booth suggested a simple way out. Because of the death threats, Lesley’s life could hinge on the kidnapper thinking that the family were acting independently of the police, so they would pretend that was the position. Somehow the police may have got wind, but it was nothing to do with the family and so it was perfectly safe for the kidnapper to deal with Ron as a private person. Then, under police supervision, special arrangements were made for him to withdraw enough money from the bank to make up the bundles of £1 and £5 notes. Before they were placed into the suitcase, each was microfilmed for future identification purposes. As they were packing, it became obvious that there was another problem. There was simply too much cash for one suitcase. It would have to be two.
As these arrangements were being progressed, detectives were busy in Kidderminster. Post Office engineers were called in to the local exchange to monitor the three phone boxes in the Swan shopping centre. They were aware that one of the greatest dangers the operation faced, was frightening off the kidnapper. They had no way of knowing if the kidnapper would turn up in person, or send an innocent messenger to make the collection; send Ron on to another location, or even attack him and make off with the cash. RCS surveillance expertise was being used for the operation and over forty detectives were in the area. Some found observation points in nearby offices, others posed as casual motorists, shoppers walking through the centre, or random passers-by.
DCS Booth took pains to keep the whole affair low key and at Highley was largely successful, but when the operation started at Kidderminster, it was a different matter. Bill Williams, a freelance journalist made and retained contacts ranging far and wide, high and low, inside and out. Late on Tuesday afternoon, he received the first hint of something special taking place at the Swan shopping centre. His source was impeccable but – and probably because of this – would have to remain anonymous. No matter how unimpeachable the source, before Williams could take it any further, he would have to obtain some sort of official confirmation. At six p.m. he rang Kidderminster police. A superintendent informed him that he could not say anything about the situation, that matters did not lay in his hands and that his instructions from on high were not to disclose anything. Williams at once knew that something
was
afoot and, that it was serious enough to have everyone twitching – which in turn meant that any pressman worth his salt would have to follow it up. He sent what story he’d got to The Birmingham Post, followed up by a call to the BBC. The BBC rang Kidderminster police station at eight p.m. and read the story over to a senior officer, but they obtained the same response. The police were not in a position to confirm or deny the story. Wildfire. From seven p.m. until nine o’clock, the phones at Beech Croft (restored within three hours by the post office, following police action in respect of the kidnapping) and at the Whittles’ home on Ashleigh Avenue had been ringing incessantly. In the absence of her husband, Gaynor Whittle enlisted police help to deal with the calls to her home.
Bob Booth and his boss, Fred Hodges were aghast at the accuracy and extent of the reporter’s knowledge. At ten thirty p.m. at Kidderminster police station, Booth bowed to the inevitable and held his first press conference – ever. He was later to liken it to scarcely credible events on American TV detective series.
This
is
just
like
on
Kojak
, he thought.
He told the assembled press that when Lesley disappeared she was wearing just a pale blue candlewick, full length dressing gown and a pair of blue slippers. Otherwise, apart from a wrist watch, gold signet ring and matching silver jewellery made for her by her boyfriend, she was naked. He told the journalists that news of the crime had been withheld because he felt that publicity could have jeopardised the police arrangements. He added, “I am not too happy that someone saw fit to make public the activities the police were involved in.”
Out of public purview, he and ACC Hodges were incandescent. With the world’s press on the phone and regular news bulletins being broadcast, highlighting the disappearance, there was no point in continuing the pretence that the police were not involved. It was a racing certainty that the kidnapper would not now come within light years of the Swan shopping centre. At nine p.m., half an hour after the first news flash about the kidnapping, all personnel were ordered to withdraw to Kidderminster police station for debriefing. Clearly, all secrecy in respect of the operation had been blown wide open.
Late that night, ACC Hodges called a planning conference with the eight senior officers handling the investigation. At this meeting, the operation was called off and all personnel sent home. Ron Whittle, still with his bodyguard, drove home to Highley, where two armed detectives stayed through the night.
*
From his underground bunker, perfectly insulated from any radio and TV broadcasts, the Black Panther emerged to implement the next step in his grand plan. As he dictated and well before his self-imposed deadline of one a.m., he rang Kidderminster 64611. He was disappointed, but not overly worried when no one answered, so he rang off and called 64711. He became concerned when this was also unanswered. What was going on? What had happened? After all his careful preparations, what
was
there to go wrong? In growing desperation, he called the one remaining number, Kidderminster 63111. He sighed with relief as eventually it was answered.
“Hallo?”
“Who’s this?” He asked. His clear instructions had been to give a name – only a name. It could only be one of very few.
“Who’s this?” Came the response.
The hairs went up on the back of his neck. He rang off.
