Muriel Drinkwater 

The school bus dropped 12 year old Muriel Drinkwater at her usual spot, leaving her to walk the remaining half a kilometre home to the family farm in Penllergaer near Swansea. It was a route she had taken hundreds of times before and was a pleasant stroll, especially in summer, through picturesque woodland. Before she entered the trees she looked up and could see the farm in the distance. Her mother was standing at the kitchen window making some tea and waved at her. Muriel waved back and, without a care in the world, skipped along the path as it wound its way into the woods. She soon rounded a corner and disappeared from view. Muriel did not exit the woods as quickly as one would expect, and her mother assumed she had been distracted by something and was playing. As the afternoon wore on and Muriel still did not appear, her family grew increasingly worried and the police were contacted. A search of the woods was undertaken and the following day her body was discovered. Muriel had injuries to the head and had been shot twice in the chest. She had also been sexually assaulted. This horrific act, dubbed by the press the “Little Red Riding Hood Murder” took place on Thursday the 27th June 1946. Over the ensuing decades a few potential suspects have been put forward, though no arrests have ever been made. The case remains unsolved, but evidence emerged in 2020 which might finally shed some light on this 75 year old cold case.

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Muriel Joan Drinkwater lived with her mother, Margaret, father, John Percival, and three older sisters at TyleiDu farm in Penllergaer, about 10 kilometers from Swansea in West Wales. Margaret and John worked  their smallholding together and John also did some forestry work nearby. Muriel was a popular girl famed for her love of singing. She indulged in her talent at every opportunity, including on the bus ride to and from school, and was affectionately known locally as the “Singing Nightingale”. Muriel was a member of the girl guides and described as a bright school student, with aspirations of becoming a teacher when she was older. The family had recently considered moving away from the area, but because Muriel was so happy and doing well at Gowerton County school, they had decided to stay. 

Initially, when Muriel didn’t return home that Thursday afternoon, her mother, Margaret, wasn't too concerned, assuming she had found some friends to play with. As the hours ticked by, both of Muriel’s parents began to feel anxious, and decided to round up some friends and go and look for her. Their first search of the track that snaked through the forest produced nothing to arouse suspicion. The following day the weather was bad and visibility poor but the search party were committed to finding Muriel. A more intensive combing of the undergrowth was undertaken and at 4.40pm PC David George discovered Muriel's body a little way from the path. Muriel was found with one arm by her side and the other raised in the air. Her skin was a shocking white and her eyes were still open. It was an awful day for all involved; a murder investigation was swiftly underway. The assistance of Scotland Yard was sought by Glamorgan police within hours of the body being found.

An autopsy was carried out by the Glamorgan county coroner Mr Wilson, confirming that Muriel had been beaten around the head before being sexually assaulted. She was then shot twice in the chest, one bullet piercing her heart. It looked like the gun used had been a hand held pistol. There were five wounds to her head and it was unclear if they had been made with the butt of the pistol or if another weapon was used. 

Muriel's funeral followed shortly after on Tuesday 2nd July. A procession of school friends followed the coffin through the village to St David’s parish church in Penllergaer and a crowd of over 3000 gathered outside whilst the service was taking place. “There is a home for little children” was sung by the church choir. Detectives mingled in the crowd, as they suspected the killer may well attend and they were looking for anyone acting suspiciously. It was the last church service that Margaret and John Drinkwater ever attended. In an interview with Wales Online in 2018, Clare Phillips, Muriel's great niece, said that the devoutly religious couple could never face going to church again. The outpouring of grief led one police officer to promise that they would move heaven and earth to solve this crime and bring the guilty person to justice. 

Chief Detective Inspector Chapman arrived from London to lead the investigation. The task was difficult, as local police were at a loss for a motive for the murder. The apparent randomness of the selection of Muriel as a victim led the Western Mail to report that there could be a homicidal maniac on the loose, who could strike again. Parents living in the area were scared to let children out of their sight. Within the first week, investigators attempted to piece together the movements of local people. Thousands of statements were taken and police told journalists there was a good chance they may have already spoken to the killer. A few people were questioned further but no one incriminated themselves with their answers.

The Welsh rain hampered further searches of the woods and undergrowth, but several items were found that indicated a level of planning in the murder and challenged notions of this being a random attack. Cigarette butts and lollipop wrappers were found in bushes nearby which the police saw as evidence that the man was waiting for Muriel to come by. This looked like it could have been a well-orchestrated trap, suggesting that the killer was familiar with Muriel’s schedule and was possibly even known to her personally.

The most significant item discovered was the gun, which police released pictures of as it was an unusual weapon that had also been additionally modified. They were sure someone would recognise it. The gun was made for the American military between 1914 and 1918 but police believed it was  issued to a combatant during the Second World War, which had ended only a year before. It was a Colt.45 automatic pistol No.1142684, but the handle had been altered and now had a perspex grip. The original wooden handle was prone to breaking and the new plastic grip had been painted or enameled. The grip might have been made in a local youth club where teenagers had the opportunity to try their hand at various crafts like making plastic toys and ornaments. People were asked to come forward if they remembered anyone making something like this. A significant number of American Infantrymen were stationed near Penllergaer during the Second World War and it was thought that the soldier originally issued the gun then sold it locally. In the hope of finding the buyer of the gun, enquiries were made in America and pictures of the modified gun were also circulated there.

One thing that the investigation team found particularly perplexing was the fact that no one had heard gunshots on the day of the murder. The gun did not appear to have been modified to fit a silencer. Muriel was shot at very close range, had this muffled the noise? Or perhaps another object or piece of clothing had been applied to try and dampen the sound? 

Police suspected that another instrument may also have been used to hit Muriel on the head, so an army bomb squad was drafted in with metal detectors to continue the hunt for clues. Nothing came of this, the search team did not find another weapon.

The finding of this particular type of gun led investigators to suspect Muriel’s case could be linked to another murder that had occured a month earlier, 135 kilometres away in Bristol, England. An American Colt.45 pistol was used to shoot dead Robert Perrington Jackson, the manager of an Odeon Cinema in Bristol. No link was definitively found between these crimes, and in 1989 a petty criminal from South Wales, Billy “The Fish” Fisher made a death bed confession to Mr Jackson’s  murder, saying it occured during a botched robbery. Despite this confession, the shooting remains the oldest unsolved murder in Bristol.

Stories bgan to appear in the paper about another murder of a young girl in the village of Fawkham Green in Kent, England. Kent is around 390 kilometres from Swansea. 11 year old Sheila went missing in the late afternoon on 7th July 1946, whilst playing on a swing at the back of her house. Less than a kilometre away 8000 people were gathered at Brands Hatch Racing Track to watch the motorcycle speedway.Her body was found just after midnight and she had been strangled and sexually assaulted. Police said she had been the victim of a diabolical attack. The timing of these two brutal attacks occurring so close together has led to much speculation over the years regarding whether Muriel’s and Sheila's murders were at the hands of the same killer. Police did not think it out of the question that Muriel's killer could have been one of the many thousands who travelled to Kent for the event at Brands Hatch. Men known to have left the Penllegaer area following the murder were sought and two individuals were traced to the Kent region. It is believed they were questioned but dismissed as suspects.    

The investigation into Muriel’s murder saw over 20,000 people interviewed in the first four months alone.  Every man and male youth within 240 square kilometres of the Drinkwater's farm was spoken to. These enquiries did lead to the discovery of some clues and potentially useful information. Several people reported seeing a car parked in a layby near the woods on the southside of the Penllergaer to Llangyfelach Road. The car was unattended so there was no description of the driver. The vehicle was said to be a dirty and old saloon type with dark blue or purple curtains in the back.

Detectives found a witness who they believed to be the last person to see Muriel alive. Thirteen year old Hubert Hoyles had visited Tyle-Du farm to purchase some fresh eggs from Margret Drinkwater. He lived close by and returned to his home from the Drinkwater’s farm along the same path through the woods. As he did so he came across Muriel heading in the opposite direction towards her home. Hubert told police that he saw nothing suspicious in the woods and Muriel seemed fine when she passed him. When police questioned him he did say that he had seen a man lurking in the woods three weeks earlier. He said the man was somewhere in his thirties, smartly dressed and had distinctive thick fluffy hair. The stranger had come out from behind some trees and approached Hubert asking him what he was doing there and then told him to get a move along and leave. The man spoke with a local Carmenthenshire accent. Police released a description of the man to the local community. Unsurprisingly this man did not come forward to police and was never able to be identified. Unfortunately, for many decades Hubert had a cloud of rumours surrounding him and his involvement in the murder. Hubert was completely innocent of any wrongdoing, as was confirmed much later. We will come to that shortly. 

A little over a week after the murder, a police officer from Penllergarer received a postcard with the following written on it. Quote  “I am the man you are looking for. Wouldn’t I be a fool to give you my address” End quote. The letter was not signed off with a name and the stamp was postmarked from Swansea. As no details of the crime were divulged it is impossible to tell whether this came from the killer or from someone trying to disrupt the investigation for their own sick thrills. It is unknown whether any other correspondence like this was received by the police.

Investigators were sure the guilty man was local, and one high ranking Detective gave a statement to the press, saying they believed a woman was shielding the killer, probably through fear or ignorance. Detectives talked to the press of their frustrations after finding a person who owned a gun identical to the one used in Muriel’s murder; yet who had not come forward before, and none of his friends or aquaintances had either.

In a Daily Mirror article about unsolved murders in and around Swansea from September 1961, the Police complained they had been met with a wall of silence during many investigations in the area. The article stated that people were coming forward with information on cases 12 years later than they should have, and they couldn’t really understand why. The article specifically mentioned the Muriel Drinkwater case and said that police were baffled by the tight lips of locals. Members of the local community I am sure would disagree with this analysis and point to an investigation that simply didn’t have the answers and was attempting to point the finger of blame elsewhere.

In September 1946, four year old Norma Dale disappeared from near her home in Tang Hall, York, England. York is 450 kilometres from Swansea.   Her mother last saw her when she popped in the kitchen to grab a bun to eat and then returned to play outside. A local boy said he was playing with Norma on some wasteland when a strange man appeared wearing a trilby. He told them not to play there and then offered  Norma some money to buy an apple. Norma's body was found the following morning, although in a place already searched. She had been strangled; there was no evidence of sexual assault. This murder is often refered to as the Red Shoe Murder, as one of Norma’s distinctive red dancing shoes was missing. Norma’s death was the third child murder in four months. Police at the time considered whether they were all linked, but no proof of a connection was produced. Like those of Muriel Drinkwater and Shelia Martin, Norma Dale’s murder is unsolved. A cousin of Norma Dale has written an unpublished book naming who he believes Norma’s murderer to be. The name has not been released.  Sheila Martin’s murder is still unsolved.

The inquest into Muriel's death was postponed in August as the police wanted to question more people and gather more evidence; so it was not until November that it was reconvened. A verdict was given of murder by a person or persons unknown. Sadly no arrests followed and the case went cold. It is now one of the oldest unsolved murders on police records in Wales. The Drinkwater family soon moved away from the area, and parents Margaret and John have since passed away without seeing their daughter's killer brought to justice. Speaking in 2008, members of the extended family said that they were still seeking justice and wanted to see the killer sent to jail, regardless of his age. Generations of the Drinkwater family have been affected by what happened and, speaking to WalesOnline in 2018, Clare Phillips, great niece of Muriel, said that finding the culprit would help the existing family come to terms with what happened.

After many decades of inactivity a police review of the case was undertaken in 2003. Developments in technology and forensics gave investigators hope that new evidence could be found. Going through the old case notes it was established that semen was definitely present on the clothing of Muriel when she was found. Try as they might, no trace of Muriel’s clothes could be found in police storage, and it was presumed that they had been lost forever. The gun was still in evidence and was tested for prints and DNA. Regrettably, it had been handled so much in the intervening years that nothing of use could be gleaned from the testing. 

Five years later, in 2008, the case was investigated again. Astonishingly, the cold case team were able to discover a box tucked away in a musty storeroom containing evidence relating to Muriel's case. The clothing that was thought to have been lost was inside, including a blue raincoat which had a yellow circle drawn on it indicating a point of evidence. Nothing was observable to the naked eye but on further examination it was revealed to demark a semen stain. From the stain a partial DNA sample was able to be extracted and checked against databases. No matches were found, but the sample was able to once and for all clear Herbert Hoyle as a suspect. The team were able to  track down a cousin of Muriel, Martin Phillips and were also able to rule out John Drinkwater as a suspect. There had always been cruel whispers that Muriel’s father may have been the killer. There were even some detectives who suspected him, so it was a relief to finally be able to exonerate John. The stain on the coat is believed to be one of the oldest pieces of evidence in the world from which a DNA profile has been successfully extracted and put to use. 

In 2007, shortly before the case was re-investigated, a cold case researcher and author put forward a suspect for the murders of both Muriel Drinkwater and Shelia Martin. The man he named was a convicted murderer of young girls, and someone we briefly mentioned in episode 3 of Persons Unknown. In that episode Harold Jones was at one time mentioned as a possible suspect in the abduction and murder of Carol Stephens, in 1959. Harold Jones hailed from the town of Abertillery, Monmouthshire, South Wales and, in 1921, at the age of fifteen, he murdered two school girls. Freda Burnett went to Jones’s place of work to collect some seed for the family's pet bird. Jones tricked her into coming with him to a shed where he sexually assaulted and strangled her. He came under suspicion straight away as he had dropped a handkerchief at the scene and it was easily identified as belonging to him. He was prosecuted for the crime but was found not guilty due to a lack of evidence. The people of the town actually celebrated as they believed he had been framed by the police. Jones was a popular figure in the town and was renowned as a good musician, particularly as an organist. There are stories of a party atmosphere and Jones being carried high on the shoulders of his neighbours through the street.  He was even awarded a gold watch to commemorate the victory he had won in court. 

Milkins, speaking to WalesOnline in 2007, said that one of the first people to speak to Harold Jones after he was found not guilty was a neighbour named George Little. George congratulated Jones and said everyone had been behind him as they all knew he was innocent. A little over a fortnight later, Jones murdered George Little’s 11 year old daughter, Florence. The following details are very disturbing so please feel free to skip forward 20 seconds if you’d prefer not to hear them. Florence was killed in Harold’s parents house. He slit her throat and drained the blood from her body over the kitchen sink. He then hid the body in the attic and went on with his life as though nothing had happened. 

The behaviour displayed by Jones in the aftermath of the murder certainly points to an extreme lack of empathy and to him being a expert manipulator. Within minutes of hiding the body Florence’s mother knocked on his front door looking for her daughter. He calmly answered the door, talking for some time and even asking her how her son was, as he had recently been feeling ill. He also went out to help with the search parties, all the while feigning concern for the little girl he had murdered in cold blood. Eventually, the police put things together and he was arrested, and this time owned up to the murder. He later confessed in prison to the first murder of Freda Burnett. He blamed his murderous spree on voices in his head. The UK still had the death penalty for murder at this time but Jones was under sixteen and so missed being hanged for his crimes by just 8 weeks. Instead he was sent to Usk prison and languished there until in 1941, at the age of 35, he was released, having finally persuaded the parole board and the  authorities they represent that he was no longer a threat to young girls. 

At this point Harold Jones disappeared. It was the middle of the Second World War, and with no stipulations regarding his release and electoral rolls not being kept up to date, it was relatively easy for him to vanish into thin air. He was spotted from time to time back in Abertillery where he would stay with his parents, and neighbours would hear the haunting sound of the organ strike up from the Jones’s terraced house. 

It is believed Jones spent much of his later living in Hammersmith, London, becoming a husband and father and working as an engineer. His daughter never knew of his shocking crimes until after his death. He died in 1971 from cancer. Milkins said he was first put on the track of Jones when a cousin of Florence Little, Jones’s second victim, mentioned the similarities between the murder of Muriel Jones and the killings in Abertillery. Milkins’s hope was that a familial DNA search could be employed to test the DNA sample from the stain at Muriel's raincoat  against living descendants of Harold Jones. 

This testing was finally done in 2019 but the results did not prove Harold’s guilt. Speaking to WalesOnline in May that year, Detective Chief Inspector Mark Lewis, head of South Wales specialist Crime Review Unit, said the new forensic evidence proved without doubt that Harold Jones was not the killer of Muriel Drinkwater.

This obviously came as a disappointment to Milkins. He is still convinced that Jones has other victims. Apprently his parting words to the prison authtorities just before he was released was that he hoped he didn’t lose the drive to kill and rape. I have little doubt that Jones has other victims. He is most infamously linked with the Hammersmith Nude series of murders in West London in the 1960’s. Six women were strangled and left naked in or near the river Thames  between 1964 and 65. A further two murders have been linked from 1959 and 1963. The killer was nicknamed “Jack the stripper” and remains unidetified. Jones was undoubtedly a vicious predator likely to reoffend, but this is one murder we cannot attribute to him.

In 2020, another team of former detectives, forensic experts and cold case researchers joined forces to delve once more into the murder of Muriel Drinkwater. Their efforts were filmed by the BBC and formed an episode of the documentary Dark Land: Hunting the Killers. Persons Unknown covered other outstanding work by this team in episode 3, which focused on the unsolved murder of Carol Stephens from Cardiff in 1959. 

The  team's hard work and painstaking eye for details produced a new suspect previously unnamed in the case. In 1953, Ronnie Harries killed two of his older relatives in a dispute over borrowing a car. They were bludgeoned to death with a hammer and then buried in a Kale field. He was tried and found guilty for the crime and became the last man hanged in Swansea. Forensic historian Nell Darby noticed similarities in the brutality and violence seen in both attacks and decided to take a closer look at Harries. She said before his execution he gave an interview to the press where he completely denied killing his relatives and rather interestingly kept talking about his wife, who was five years younger than him and who he had started going out with whilst she was still in school. Harries came across as not particularly bright or intelligent but enjoyed dwelling on the fact that his wife was clever and had gone  to grammar school. This interview raised more than a couple red flags with the cold case team and it certainly sounded that Muriel was the kind of girl that Harries could well have fixated on. 

The team made enquiries inthe local community and a person came forward to say that Harries at one point had actually worked at the Drinkwaters’s farm  for Muriel's father. They also found a newspaper article from the time of Harrie’s arrest for the murder of his relatives backing this up. It listed Ronnie Harries at one point working as a casual laborer at the Drinkwater’s small holding. This was a huge find, as it proved that Harries would have known Muriel and her routine. The team also spoke to a relative of Harries who described him as having below average intelligence and being quite a spoilt and entitled character.

Police say that DNA samples were taken from relatives of Muriel and Ronnie Harries. I assume familial DNA analysis would then have been attempted with the DNA sample taken from the semen stain. As of September 2021 the results have not been released. South Wales police say the case is under active consideration and new leads and evidence will be investigated as they arise. 

A brand new discovery by the cold case team was the finding of a book once owned by Muriel Drinkwater in a Carmenthenshire second hand shop. In 2020 they did not know if this had any significance to the case  but were investigating further. No new information has yet been released regarding this book.

From interviews I’ve read, it’s clear a dark cloud has hovered over the Drinkwater family since the murder. It’s incredibly sad to read Martin Phillips' words in Wales online from November 2020 on how his grandparents, Margaret and John Drinkwater never got over it. It's even more distressing that John knew some people thought him guilty. What is also evident from the words of Margaret, Muriel's niece, speaking in 2018 is that the family longs for closure and requires justice to truly move on from that terrible day in June 1946.

Even after all this time there is still a chance the family will get some answers and find out the truth. If there are any announcements from the police regarding the familial DNA tests I will update you.