MURDER AND MY LIFE ON MARS...
A fresh-faced young bobby, PC John Olver, stands on the edge of the Downs holding a poster bearing the words "Did You See This Girl?"
The year was 1974, and the people of Clifton were reeling from the horrific murder of 20-year-old Glenis Carruthers.
Glenis was strangled and her body left in what, today, is Bristol Zoo's car park.
The 26-year-old beat bobby clinging to the poster was using the only type of media campaign the police knew at the time.
Thirty-seven years on, and John, now 62, shakes his head as he examines the monochrome photograph.
"It is extraordinary, but that was how things were done in those days," he says.
"To give some idea of how things have changed, I heard about the murder of Joanna Yeates on Twitter," John adds, as he potters about the kitchen of his Brislington home making a pot of tea.
"My son tweeted me to let me know."
The world may have moved on in the 37 years between the two tragic Clifton murder cases, but few things have changed quite as much as policing.
"It really was like Life On Mars back then," John says. "It was a time of great change in the policing world, especially here in Bristol. At the time, the top brass were preparing for the amalgamation of the old Bristol Constabulary with the Somerset force, much to the consternation of many policemen.
"I remember there were some bobbies who refused to change their cap badges after the amalgamation. Tensions were running high in the force.
"I think the Carruthers case was probably the last murder the old Bristol Constabulary actually dealt with. I remember they started bringing officers in from Somerset to work with our guys on the case, so everyone was a bit unsettled.
"Could that have influenced the failure to find the murderer?" John ponders, gazing out of the window as if looking back down through the decades.
"I don't know," he shrugs after a long pause. "But I doubt it. My theory is that the culprit was completely unknown to Glenis – that it was an opportunistic sexual assault or robbery gone wrong.
"Those kinds of murders, where there is no connection between the victim and the perpetrator, are always the most difficult to solve – especially in those days before the onset of DNA evidence.
"The policing world was a very different place back then. You only have to look at the old photographs of the makeshift incident room we had up on the Downs, near to the entrance of Bristol Zoo, close to where the body was found.
"If you look at those old photographs, there wasn't a single computer in sight.
"We took around 16,000 statements in that case, and they were all stored in a card indexing system.
"Today they would all be filed on a computer, and the computer software would scan everything, looking for correlations between all the different statements.
"Back then it was all about old-fashioned detective work and sheer manpower.
"I was a humble PC, but I was brought on to the case because I was a beat bobby in Clifton – part of what would now be known as a community beat team. We had the local knowledge and contacts.
"In those days foot patrols were the staple of policing. We had a lot more officers regularly on the beat, and as a result we got to know our areas well.
"I knew so many people in Clifton, and because they were familiar with me, people would come and talk to me if they had any information."
Glenis Carruthers, a student teacher at Bedford College of Physical Education, had actually travelled to the city to attend the 21st birthday party from which she mysteriously disappeared.
Nobody saw Glen
is leave the Worcester Crescent party venue. Various theories were mooted at the time – perhaps she slipped out quietly when other party-goers became romantically involved, or as the then head of Bristol CID suggested, she may simply have "been hot and needed a breath of fresh air".
"There was another theory," John says, "that she left the party to walk to a phone box to make a call – another sign of changing times."
Whatever the reason, the mystery struck fear into the community.
"As beat bobbies, we had the job of going out in the weeks after the murder, to be a visible presence to try to put people at ease.
"Clifton hasn't actually changed much over the years – the community was made up of wealthy people and students.
"There were a lot of young women living there, particularly students, who really did feel vulnerable after the murder.
"We offered the usual advice – that young women shouldn't go out alone after dark, especially as at the time the street lights were out on account of Edward Heath's fight with the miners.
"I distinctly remember the nervousness among the community – it was only surpassed in my experience by the later Clifton Rapist, who was eventually caught, of course."
But John says the media interest in the murder was on a very different scale to the Yeates case.
"The recent case went international in the media. As far as I remember, the Carruthers case didn't really go national. There wasn't that same kind of pervasive media then – no 24-hour news channels, no Crimewatch on the BBC. It also meant there was less hype and nervousness.
"I think the presence of CCTV in modern-day murder cases has the effect of allowing members of the public to feel they know the victim – when you can look at the images of the victim going about her business moments before her disappearance, it really brings the tragedy of the murder home to you on a personal level."
Back in 1974, police were entirely reliant on eye-witnesses. In the Carruthers case, the central eye witness was Bristol Zoo keeper Alf Elliott, who lived in nearby Northcote Road.
He said he had spotted someone who fitted Miss Carruthers' description while he was out exercising his dogs.
He passed what he thought was a courting couple but, when he passed them again, the man got up and walked away, leaving the woman in the grass.
"I shouted to him 'hey, what's your game?' He didn't reply and I repeated what I had just said. He just stared and went on his way," the zoo keeper later recalled.
"I could not see the man very well as it was quite dark and a mass of hair hid his face."
Alf called the police straightaway.
"We knew Alf well," John says. "Often we would divert our beat through the zoo, and we would chat to the zoo keepers – they were an important part of the community we were policing.
"I don't know whether Alf actually saw the killer or just another member of the public, but if he did, sadly his description never helped to apprehend him."
In the exhaustive inquiry that followed, 175 detectives and officers questioned almost everyone in the area, including every pupil at nearby Clifton College.
A key piece of evidence was the shank of a pair of spectacles which might have belonged to the killer, found nearby. Every optician in the county was visited but no information was forthcoming.
"Ultimately," John says. "Every line of inquiry reached a dead-end."
Never solved, the case was never closed on the murder of Glenis Carruthers, and today it is one of many unsolved "cold cases" being examined by the police's Major Case Review Team (MCRT).
But John says he doubts whether the culprit will ever be caught. It's a hell of a long time ago now," he sighs. "It is tragic to think justice might never be done for Glenis Carruthers."
http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/news/MURDER-LIFE-MARS/article-3184223-detail/article.html
The year was 1974, and the people of Clifton were reeling from the horrific murder of 20-year-old Glenis Carruthers.
Glenis was strangled and her body left in what, today, is Bristol Zoo's car park.
Thirty-seven years on, and John, now 62, shakes his head as he examines the monochrome photograph.
"It is extraordinary, but that was how things were done in those days," he says.
"To give some idea of how things have changed, I heard about the murder of Joanna Yeates on Twitter," John adds, as he potters about the kitchen of his Brislington home making a pot of tea.
"My son tweeted me to let me know."
The world may have moved on in the 37 years between the two tragic Clifton murder cases, but few things have changed quite as much as policing.
"It really was like Life On Mars back then," John says. "It was a time of great change in the policing world, especially here in Bristol. At the time, the top brass were preparing for the amalgamation of the old Bristol Constabulary with the Somerset force, much to the consternation of many policemen.
"I remember there were some bobbies who refused to change their cap badges after the amalgamation. Tensions were running high in the force.
"I think the Carruthers case was probably the last murder the old Bristol Constabulary actually dealt with. I remember they started bringing officers in from Somerset to work with our guys on the case, so everyone was a bit unsettled.
"Could that have influenced the failure to find the murderer?" John ponders, gazing out of the window as if looking back down through the decades.
"I don't know," he shrugs after a long pause. "But I doubt it. My theory is that the culprit was completely unknown to Glenis – that it was an opportunistic sexual assault or robbery gone wrong.
"Those kinds of murders, where there is no connection between the victim and the perpetrator, are always the most difficult to solve – especially in those days before the onset of DNA evidence.
"The policing world was a very different place back then. You only have to look at the old photographs of the makeshift incident room we had up on the Downs, near to the entrance of Bristol Zoo, close to where the body was found.
"If you look at those old photographs, there wasn't a single computer in sight.
"We took around 16,000 statements in that case, and they were all stored in a card indexing system.
"Today they would all be filed on a computer, and the computer software would scan everything, looking for correlations between all the different statements.
"Back then it was all about old-fashioned detective work and sheer manpower.
"I was a humble PC, but I was brought on to the case because I was a beat bobby in Clifton – part of what would now be known as a community beat team. We had the local knowledge and contacts.
"In those days foot patrols were the staple of policing. We had a lot more officers regularly on the beat, and as a result we got to know our areas well.
"I knew so many people in Clifton, and because they were familiar with me, people would come and talk to me if they had any information."
Glenis Carruthers, a student teacher at Bedford College of Physical Education, had actually travelled to the city to attend the 21st birthday party from which she mysteriously disappeared.
Nobody saw Glen
is leave the Worcester Crescent party venue. Various theories were mooted at the time – perhaps she slipped out quietly when other party-goers became romantically involved, or as the then head of Bristol CID suggested, she may simply have "been hot and needed a breath of fresh air".
"There was another theory," John says, "that she left the party to walk to a phone box to make a call – another sign of changing times."
Whatever the reason, the mystery struck fear into the community.
"As beat bobbies, we had the job of going out in the weeks after the murder, to be a visible presence to try to put people at ease.
"Clifton hasn't actually changed much over the years – the community was made up of wealthy people and students.
"There were a lot of young women living there, particularly students, who really did feel vulnerable after the murder.
"We offered the usual advice – that young women shouldn't go out alone after dark, especially as at the time the street lights were out on account of Edward Heath's fight with the miners.
"I distinctly remember the nervousness among the community – it was only surpassed in my experience by the later Clifton Rapist, who was eventually caught, of course."
But John says the media interest in the murder was on a very different scale to the Yeates case.
"The recent case went international in the media. As far as I remember, the Carruthers case didn't really go national. There wasn't that same kind of pervasive media then – no 24-hour news channels, no Crimewatch on the BBC. It also meant there was less hype and nervousness.
"I think the presence of CCTV in modern-day murder cases has the effect of allowing members of the public to feel they know the victim – when you can look at the images of the victim going about her business moments before her disappearance, it really brings the tragedy of the murder home to you on a personal level."
Back in 1974, police were entirely reliant on eye-witnesses. In the Carruthers case, the central eye witness was Bristol Zoo keeper Alf Elliott, who lived in nearby Northcote Road.
He said he had spotted someone who fitted Miss Carruthers' description while he was out exercising his dogs.
He passed what he thought was a courting couple but, when he passed them again, the man got up and walked away, leaving the woman in the grass.
"I shouted to him 'hey, what's your game?' He didn't reply and I repeated what I had just said. He just stared and went on his way," the zoo keeper later recalled.
"I could not see the man very well as it was quite dark and a mass of hair hid his face."
Alf called the police straightaway.
"We knew Alf well," John says. "Often we would divert our beat through the zoo, and we would chat to the zoo keepers – they were an important part of the community we were policing.
"I don't know whether Alf actually saw the killer or just another member of the public, but if he did, sadly his description never helped to apprehend him."
In the exhaustive inquiry that followed, 175 detectives and officers questioned almost everyone in the area, including every pupil at nearby Clifton College.
A key piece of evidence was the shank of a pair of spectacles which might have belonged to the killer, found nearby. Every optician in the county was visited but no information was forthcoming.
"Ultimately," John says. "Every line of inquiry reached a dead-end."
Never solved, the case was never closed on the murder of Glenis Carruthers, and today it is one of many unsolved "cold cases" being examined by the police's Major Case Review Team (MCRT).
But John says he doubts whether the culprit will ever be caught. It's a hell of a long time ago now," he sighs. "It is tragic to think justice might never be done for Glenis Carruthers."
http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/news/MURDER-LIFE-MARS/article-3184223-detail/article.html
