Eve Stratford, Lynne Weedon and Lynda Farrow// Serial Killer?

In the spring of 1975, a 21 year old model and playboy promotional bunny was viciously murdered in her London flat. Six months later a 16-year-old school girl was raped and murdered after a night out with friends. Four years would go by before another young woman was brutally attacked and murdered in her own home, in 1979. In 2006 DNA would definitively link two of these murders. Was a serial killer responsible for all three? 

Transcript

In the spring of 1975, a 21-year-old model and playboy promotional bunny was viciously murdered in her London flat. Six months later a 16-year-old schoolgirl was raped and murdered after a night out with friends. Four years would go by before another young woman was brutally attacked and murdered in her own home in 1979. In 2004 DNA would definitively link two of these murders. Was a serial killer responsible for all three? 

Hello Everyone and welcome to the Crime Valley podcast. I am your host Amber, and today I will be covering 3 linked cold cases from the UK, two of which are very solvable. Before I get started I want to give a big thank you to my regular listeners. You guys show up for every episode and I really appreciate your support. I’d also like to give a big Hello and thank you to my new listeners too. It is very humbling to see Crime valley growing each week, and I have lots of amazing content planned for the next few months, which I can’t wait to share with you! 

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Albert Stratford had just arrived in London on an emergency flight home. He had been working for the George Wimpey Construction company in what was then known as Zaire when he received word that his daughter Eve had been involved in an accident. A town car was sent to collect Albert from the airport, and there on the seat of the car, somebody had left the day’s newspaper. It was the Sun newspaper, and on the front cover was a picture of his daughter Eve with the headline “ Who Murdered Bunny Ava?”. This is how Albert learned of his daughter’s brutal murder. The story went that nobody could bring themselves to tell Albert about Eve’s death, so instead, the newspaper had been left for him to find. Albert was in shock. The last time he had seen his daughter was at Christmas, less than 3 months before, when Eve had come to visit her parents in Warrington. A few days into the new year, Eve and her Father had travelled to London together. Eve to return to her home in Leyton, and Albert to travel back to Zaire for work. They had said goodbye to one another at Euston train station and gone their separate ways. Albert wanted answers, and shortly after he arrived on the emergency flight,  he went to the Playboy club where Eve had worked. 42-year-old Albert was distressed and in tears, but nobody could answer a desperate father’s questions. 

21-year-old Eve Stratford had been forging her own way in life. The only child of British army medic Albert Stratford and his German wife, Elisabeth Eve Von Bork, who was known as Liza, Eve was the apple of her parent’s eyes. Born in Dortmund Germany on the 28th of December 1953, Eve and her parents had travelled the world, following her father’s career throughout much of her childhood. In 1969 the Stratford family relocated back to Albert’s home country of  England and settled in Aldershot, Surrey. In 1973 Albert retired from the Army and he and his wife moved to Warrington in Cheshire. This was around the same time that Eve moved to London. Bilingual Eve had picked up work as a secretary, before taking a job at the German tourist office. Eve Stratford though was not a person who was going to settle for anything mundane or mediocre. She was a stunningly beautiful girl with long blonde hair, blue eyes, and an amazing figure, and becoming a model seemed like an obvious choice. In 1973, at the age of 19, she picked up work at the prestigious Playboy Club in London. Eve worked as a cocktail bunny and would become known as bunny Ava. Eve was well-liked by colleagues and patrons alike, and she earned a good wage working as a promotional Bunny and earning $160 US dollars a week in addition to $50 tips, which with inflation equates to over $1000 in today’s times. Eve was a firm favourite at the club and had a reputation for having a great personality, working hard and being extremely reliable. Her beauty, personality, and big smile always made her a top choice for the club when they needed to do promotional campaigns.  Despite her success at the club, Eve was frustrated. She had auditioned to appear as a Playboy playmate of the month centerfold, for the US-based playboy magazine, and had been rejected. The rejection was blunt. You need to lose weight. It was a low blow, and Eve now looked to greener pastures. She had found a gig at Playboy's rival magazine Mayfair. Mayfair was described as a top-shelf magazine, the British answer to playboy, and the team there had no problem with the way that Eve looked. 

The London Playboy club was fair and had no problem, with their girls doing other modelling gigs on the side, as long as the club was made aware of the fact. Eve had done the right thing and taken leave, to participate in the Mayfair shoot. The problem was, that unbeknownst to her, the issue she appeared in was released in late February, not early March. This was earlier than Eve had planned. As soon as the March issue of Mayfair magazine showed up at the London playboy club, management was less than pleased to see one of their girls appearing on the cover and as the centerfold of the rival publication. Eve was quickly placed on a two-month suspension. It wasn’t that the Playboy club was being petty. They were actually very fair with the girls that worked for them, providing a good working environment and supporting them in their endeavours. The issue boiled down to the fact that Eve was still on the books when she appeared in Mayfair magazine. 

Unfortunately for Eve, this was not the only issue that arose from her appearance as  Miss March in the Vol 10, no 3, issue of Mayfair Magazine. On the cover of the Spring Bonanza issue, Eve was touted as the most classic blonde we have ever uncovered. Modelling under the pseudonym Eva Von Bork, the article that accompanied the sultry photos went into explicit detail, regarding her sex life. Even describing Eve’s predilection for rough sex. Some of the article reads as follows “ If a man is truly a man, he will know how to handle me. I like to be dominated sexually. I do tend to flirt and tease rather a lot. I just get a kick out of turning men on”.  “ I like to be dominated. Not whipped or tied up or things like that. Just kept in my place”. After the magazine was published, Eve was said to be horrified at the write-up and emphatically denied having given that interview to David Brenner, who was the feature editor at Mayfield magazine. The article had also given the reader tidbits about Eve’s life, some of it factual but most of it fictional. For example, Eve did not live alone with a pet cat, surrounded by copious amounts of clothing and expensive jewellery as the article suggested. This shows that there were some definite falsehoods and elaborations in the article, more likely to have come from David Brenner than from Eve Stratford. The Mayfair article was clearly trying to create a fantasy to accompany the pictures of Eve. The fact that Eve lived quite a modest life in a small maisonette flat with her long-term boyfriend Tony and a couple of his bandmates was not sexy, and more importantly, was not what the men who were lost in the fantasy of Eve’s pictures wanted to hear. David Brenner said that Eve was the one who had given him this information and that he was being truthful. It was a he said, she said situation and one that Eve had to bear the repercussions of. For any of the 10’s of thousands of men seeking fantasy from Eve’s centerfold, it probably didn’t matter much whether the article was true or a figment of someone’s imagination. For Eve though, what was meant to have been a serious modelling job to build her career, and to put her name on the map, had led to frustration and embarrassment. It is not known whether Eve felt fear over the article and the repercussions from it, but she probably felt safe enough, living with her long-term boyfriend Tony Priest, and two of his bandmates. Tony Priest was the lead singer of a band called Vineyard which in its former incarnation was named Onyx. The band had its humble beginnings in Cornwall and had eventually become known as a BBC band, getting plenty of airplay over a 3 year period. The band played backup for Queen and Thin Lizzy and had moments where it seemed that they might achieve great success. But despite their talent, persistence, and hard work, Vineyard’s music had never taken off as the band members had hoped. By early 1975, Vineyard was winding down. The band members were working in construction, with lead singer Tony Priest working as a forklift driver. Their days as a group were numbered. 

Eve was pushing forward despite the stress with Mayfair magazine, and on the 18th of March 1975, she was a woman on a mission. That Tuesday was a freezing cold day in London. It was a forewarning of things to come in the next few months, where an unprecedented cold snap would hit England, and bring snow and unseasonably low temperatures with it. As miserable as the 18th was, it was still a weekday, which for most meant business as usual, bad weather and all. 21-year-old Eve Stratford was one of these people. Tony Priest left for work at 7:30 am and the landlord collected the rent at around 9 am. Eve left sometime after this and went to meet with her agent Annie Walker in Camden town. Eve then went to Bayswater for a business meeting. She was in a good mood and seemed to be feeling very positive about her upcoming appearance on the cover of a South African publication, and another photo spread that she was appearing in. After the meeting Eve then travelled from Bayswater back to Leyton, riding the tube and disembarking at Leytonstone Station. It was 3 quarters of a mile walk from the station to her home at 61 Lyndhurst drive Leyton, a suburb in East London, and it had been snowing on and off throughout the day. Eve was seen leaving Leytonstone tube station at around 3:45 pm on foot and a neighbour saw her arriving home just after 4 pm. At 4:30 the neighbour heard two sets of footsteps ascend the stairs in Eve Stratford’s flat, one set walking close behind the other, followed by the sound of Eve talking with a male. Their tones were low and calm, and it would have been an unremarkable moment in time if Eve’s neighbour hadn't then heard a loud thud. It sounded as though a chair had been knocked over. There were no more voices, no cries for help, or sounds that could indicate trouble. Only the heavy sound of a solo set of footsteps hurrying down the stairs and then somebody running out on the street outside. 

Tony priest and his bandmates arrived home less than an hour later, at 5:20 pm. One of the housemates noticed that the front door was unlocked, and all 3 men entered the flat. They soon discovered Eve, Lying Face down on her bedroom floor next to the mattress that she and Tony slept on. Eve’s hands were tied behind her back with the belt of her dressing gown. She was dressed in her pink underwear and some reports say a blue negligee or dressing gown. There was also a ligature in the form of a pair of pantyhose, tied around one of her ankles. Eve’s throat had been cut, at least 12 times, almost to the point of decapitation. The shocked group of men phoned the police, who quickly descended on the property, looking for discarded weapons and clues. Tony Priest and his bandmates were intensively questioned at the police station before they were allowed to go home. Scotland Yard would then launch their investigation into who had killed 21-year-old Eve Stratford. 

Shortly after her murder, the Playboy club offered a 1000 pound reward for information leading to the apprehension of Eve’s killer. 

Law enforcement immediately surmised that Eve’s death was sexually motivated. The fact that she was found bound, and dressed in her underwear, in addition to the inflammatory article published in Mayfair magazine, seemed to support this angle. Not long into their investigation, Detectives found evidence of sexual activity. Newspaper reports started to say that Eve had had sex shortly before her death and that enforcement was unable to say whether the sex was rape or whether it was consensual. Detectives could only investigate the other clues found at the crime scene, to help point them to the most likely scenario. 

The damp clothes that Eve had worn were found on the bedroom floor. She had no doubt started changing shortly after arriving home, due to the fact that her clothing had gotten damp due to the weather. Some believed that Eve had taken off her clothes for a lover, before redressing in her underwear after they had been intimate. 

The front door was unlocked and there was no sign of a forced entry, so it was thought that Eve may have known her murderer and that she had let him into her home. The question was asked, was the murderer someone that Eve was having an affair with, who had killed her in an unexpected fit of rage, was he an acquaintance to who Eve felt comfortable opening the door or was he a stranger who had followed Eve home and entered her flat either by force or through an unlocked door? Physical evidence found on ligatures around Eve’s wrists and ankle was collected, and from what I can gather I believe that this physical evidence was sperm. It is unclear whether this evidence was the only indication that Eve had had either forced or consensual sex, or there was more evidence that showed that Eve had sex before her murder. A further examination showed evidence of asphyxiation, and law enforcement thought that this may have occurred when the assailant covered Eve’s mouth during the attack. 

 A long bunch of dried flowers was found at the crime scene. Some reports described them as blood-spattered, insinuating that they were found next to Eve’s body. Perhaps a gift or a calling card brought by a lover who snapped after a rendezvous with Eve. The dried arrangement was very similar to one that could be seen behind Eve in her Mayfair photoshoot, adding even more of an ominous tone to the investigation. Other reports stated that the bunch of dried leaves and flowers were found discarded on the hallway floor of the flat, and were noted by Eve’s boyfriend and housemates as they arrived home from work. The flowers were an important clue in the initial stages of the investigation. Investigators hypothesised that the killer may have been masquerading as a delivery man, who forced his way into Eve’s flat when she opened the chained door to take the flowers. Police also wondered if Eve had purchased the arrangement herself. 

One journalist made a good point when he said that a man would buy a woman fresh flowers, not an artful array of dried grasses and leaves. Police checked out all of the shops in the area, and by the 23rd of March, they had found the shop where Eve had purchased the arrangement on her walk home from the station. The fact that Eve purchased the flowers herself, seemed to be more of an indication that her visitor had been an unwelcome one. The fact that she stopped to purchase flowers, shows that she wasn’t in a big hurry to get home, on the afternoon she was murdered. It makes the illicit love affair angle much less likely. The report of the flowers being dropped in the hallway, rather than next to Eve’s body seems to be the correct account, and the fact that they were hurriedly discarded indicates that Eve had been panicked or startled. 

A reenactment of Eve’s walk home was staged,  with a policewoman dressed in clothing similar to the ones worn by Eve on the last day of her life. A large felt style hat, a black handbag, and a large bunch of dried flowers were worn and carried by the policewoman, who walked from Leytonstone station to 67 Lyndhurst drive. The purpose of the reenactment was to jog the memory of people who may have seen Eve being followed by a man, on the day that she was killed. Police asked the public to come to them with any information regarding cars that had been in the vicinity of Eve’s home and any visitors that may have been seen at Eve's home between 2 pm and 5:30 pm. 

Immediately after Eve’s murder, multiple men had come forward, confessing to the crime. They were all quickly ruled out. Later that year police received a tip from a landlord in Liverpool. A man in his twenties had done a runner on his rented bedsit, leaving behind newspaper clippings and articles about Eve Stratford and her murder. After law enforcement investigated the man they were able to rule him out. He was never publicly named. 

The investigation into Eve’s murder brought with it a salaciousness that only the media could create. Instead of Eve Stratford, beloved daughter, girlfriend, and friend she became Bunny Ava, sex pot, and playboy bunny. Risque pictures from her modelling shoots and photos of Eve dressed in her playboy bunny cocktail outfit were splashed across the front pages of newspapers, with headlines such as “Did nude poses do Bunny in?” and “Sex picture clue to Bunny murder.” Much was made in the media of Eve’s diary, packed with Men’s phone numbers. In actual fact, Eve’s diary was a series of pieces of paper, found around her flat. The media jumped on the fact that many of those bits of paper contained the phone numbers of male contacts, casting more aspersions on Eve. It was implied that Eve had a plethora of men in her life and that she was romantically involved with men other than her boyfriend Tony Priest. The truth was probably much less exciting. The fact of the matter was that Eve was trying to build a career in an industry that was dominated by Men. It seems pretty obvious that she would have collected the contact details of modelling agency contacts, photographers, editors, and the like. 

Another woman who had appeared in Mayfair magazine came forward with a story about her own nightmare experience. Model Marilyn Looms had appeared in the December 1974 issue of Mayfair Magazine. This was just 3 months before Eve Stratford’s issue. As soon as the November issue started circulating, Marilyn Looms started to receive threatening phone calls. In one of the phone calls, a man said “I am going to kill you. I know who you are and where you live. Understandably she was terrified and began to take extra precautions, such as changing her route home and keeping a weapon underneath the seat of her car. Marilyn did not go to the police until she heard about Eve’s murder and realised that she could be in grave danger. Marilyn's Mother Yvonne said that their lives had been turned upside down by the harassment and threats. Some nights they received up to eight threatening phone calls. 

After Eve’s murder, her father Albert was committed to clearing her name. Albert was upset at how Eve was being presented in the media, and he was adamant that she was a good girl, who did not say the things that were printed in Mayfair magazine. Albert said that his daughter was upset by the article and had cried when she read it. When Eve had first become a Playboy bunny, Albert had not been happy. He felt that his daughter was wasting her considerable intelligence. But he said that after visiting the playboy club, he came to realise that the girls who were employed there, only kept their jobs if they adhered to strict rules. Albert Stratford was correct. Despite the fantasy created by Playboy, for most of the men who frequented the club, a fantasy was all that it was ever going to be. The women who worked there were forbidden from fraternising with visitors, both inside and outside of business hours. Undercover detectives would patrol the floor, making sure that everything was kept above board, and the girls knew that they would lose their jobs if they took gifts from or organised dates with the club goers. Albert Stratford was also desperate to discover who was responsible for his daughter’s murder. He wondered if there had been an underworld link to the crime. In the end, he would go and interview infamous British Gangster Reggie Kray who was serving time in prison. Although Krey seemed sympathetic to Albert’s plight, he was unable to shed any light on Eve’s murder. 

Some of Eve’s coworkers at the Playboy club had been shocked by her Mayfair interview. They were so happy that Eve had been granted the opportunity to be featured in the Magazine, but was taken aback by the contents of the article. After her murder one of her coworkers, Christine Howard said that “Eve was very unhappy about the article. She told us it made her appear bent.”  Another Coworker Vicki Gunn said, “I honestly believe Eve would have been alive today if she hadn’t posed for Mayfair”. 

Shortly before her death Eve had been photographed for a South African crime publication. In the photo, she appears terrified as a knife is held to her throat. After her murder, Peter Pugh-Cook, the photographer who had taken the photo, asked the art director, Ken Simms, not to use the image. After the way that Eve had been murdered, the photo was too close to home and he felt that it would be disrespectful to publish it. Art director Ken Simms disagreed and went ahead and used the image. Both Pugh-Cooke and Simms would be looked at by police, and eventually cleared. 

The men who worked with Eve at Mayfield magazine were looked at closely. Editor David Brenner and Photographer Ed Alexander In particular. David Brenner claimed that the contents of Eve's article was given to him over the phone by Eve herself and that he had never met her in person. Police thought it was odd that he had never met Eve in person. Photographer Ed Alexander who had taken the pictures of Eve for the photo shoot also had a lot to say on the matter. He was livid with David Brenner and felt that it was Brenner’s fabricated article that had led to Eve’s murder. He said that Brenner had deliberately misquoted Eve. Brenner defended himself saying “Everything I wrote was exactly what she told me”. He felt that Eve couldn’t have been too concerned about the article, because according to him, she had agreed to make a 4-minute striptease video for one of Mayfair’s subsidiary companies. Ed Alexander said that “what happened in Mayfair, about her sex life was a load of nonsense. She could have made a lot of money modelling, and I told her that she was wasting her time as a bunny girl”. 

Another man who would be looked at by police was Abdul Khawaja. Khawaja had a colourful reputation and was a regular at the club. He was said to be taken with Eve, even referring to her as his second wife. His name would not be cleared until after his death in 2009 when A family member would volunteer DNA, and prove that Abdul Khawaja had not killed Eve and Lynda.       

Tony priest would say this after Eve’s death “ She was a very beautiful girl who turned men’s heads. But there was never any question of egging on anyone. She simply wasn’t that sort of girl”. 

Tony Priest was devastated by the loss of his girlfriend. In June 1975, just 3 months after Eve’s murder he left the UK and moved to Holland. There he joined a band called the Knack. He left the music business in 1978 and became a prison warden, a job that he worked until his retirement. In years to come, Tony Priest would voluntarily submit his DNA to the police. This cleared Tony’s name once and for all. Photographer Ed Alexander and Editor David Brenner would also be cleared by DNA. 

Lynn Weedon was just starting out in life. She was 16 years old and absolutely adored by her parents Margaret and Fred. On the night of Wednesday the 3rd of September in 1975, Lynn went out with a group of friends to celebrate the fact that they had completed their O levels. The group went to the Elm tree pub in Hounslow, and spent some time there, before leaving the pub, shortly after 11 pm. The group travelled on foot down the Great West rd. When they came to a laneway known as the short hedges, Lynn said her goodbyes, crossed the road and headed down the lane. During the day the short hedges was a non-threatening shortcut, a fenced-in gravelled path with dappled sunlight. In the dark though, the short hedges took on a sinister feel. The path was unlit and a person traversing it was effectively boxed into a small area. Lynn’s parents had told her never to walk home alone at night, to always stay with the company, and to call them if she ever needed a lift home. But with the confidence of a young person, making their way through a town they knew like the back of their hand, Lynn made the decision to take the shortcut alone. When Lynn’s parents awoke the next day and saw that their daughter had not come home, they didn’t immediately panic. Lynn was a responsible girl and they thought that she must have stayed the night at one of her friend’s houses. It was unusual for Lynn not to call them and let them know, but with the reassurance of parents who lived in a safe town and had a mature and sensible daughter, their minds did not go to a nefarious place. 

It was a school caretaker who found Lynn. His home and the school backed onto the short hedges. He saw her, laying in the old power substation that also bordered the shortcut. Police were called to the scene, and a barely alive Lynn was taken to the West Middlesex hospital. It seemed to police that Lynn had been accosted from behind, shortly after she had started her journey down the dark laneway.  Lynn had been bludgeoned from behind, with a blunt instrument, before being thrown over the high wire fence of the substation. Once the attacker climbed the fence into the substation he had dragged Lynn to a secluded corner and sexually assaulted her. Lynn had been left, injured,  the bottom half of her body unclothed until she was found some 7 and a half hours later. She clung to life for 7 days, before passing away on the 10th of September 1975. Lynne had never regained consciousness. The mystery of who her killer was would not easily be discovered, but the Modus operandi of Lynn’s attacker was extremely similar to another killer who was operating in the UK at the time. Peter Sutcliffe, is better known as the Yorkshire ripper. Lynn’s parents would later describe her as the perfect daughter, and as a person who would get along with everyone. 

Lynda Farrow was a 29- year- old mother of two who lived in Whitehall Rd, in  Woodford Wells, Essex. Lynda was a former croupier, who had worked at the International sporting club, situated in the West end. Lynda had recently divorced her husband Paul and was now living with a man named Fred Gay. The two lived with Linda’s daughters, 11-year-old Samantha and 8-year-old Justine, and they were in a happy relationship. Lynda and Fred were expecting their first child together, and in January 1979 Linda was 4 months pregnant. On Monday 19th January Lynda Farrow had been out shopping with her Mother at the Dorston market. After her shopping trip, Lynda said goodbye to her Mother and headed to a stall that her boyfriend Fred ran, on Bethnal Green. Lynda had made tea and sandwiches for Fred and herself, and the two chatted and shared their lunch. Fred would later recall that it had started snowing, and after Lynda complained of being cold, he told her to head home and warm up. It seemed that when Lynda arrived home her phone was ringing, and in her rush to answer it, she may have left the front door open. Her killer was then able to gain entry to her home. 20 minutes later, Lynda’s daughters Justine and Samantha arrived home early from school. They had been sent home early due to a snowstorm that day. When their mother didn’t greet them at the front door, the girls looked through the letterbox and saw their mother lying on the floor in a pool of blood. With no apparent motive for Lynda’s murder, police warned the public that there was a maniac on the loose. Worried that he would strike again, they warned women to put chains on their doors, and not to open the door to strangers. The only potential clues to Lynda’s murder were footprints and tire tracks left in the snow, and the sighting of a swarthy dark-haired man, of middle eastern appearance, with afro-like hair. Some locals had seen the man loitering in the area. He had been seen wearing a donkey jacket and the boot prints left behind, leading to Lynda's front door, came from a size 7 Wellington boot. Interestingly Peter Sutcliffe wore a Donkey jacket and wellington boots for work. His shoe size was the same as that at the Farrow crime scene and he had dark hair and a swarthy complexion, with curly dark hair. Unfortunately, there was no evidence obtained from the crime scene, although the murder knife was left at the scene. Lynda had not been sexually assaulted, but that may have been due to the fact that her attacker had been interrupted by the arrival of her children. Two schoolgirls who passed Lynda Farrow’s home, at the time of her attack would later tell police that they heard a screaming or squealing sound. It sounded to her as if two children were chasing one another, and as one got to the front door to escape, the other child came up behind the first and slammed the door shut. Police told the public that they were dealing with a maniac. There was no apparent motive behind Lynda’s murder, and police were worried that the killer would strike again. 

From the get-go Eve Stratford’s and Lynda Farrow’s murders were linked. The commonalities between the two cases are striking. Both women had been out on the days of their murders, before returning home and being murdered. Both Eve and Lynda were killed in the afternoon, in their own homes, on days when it had been snowing. There was no sign of forced entry at either scene, which indicated that the killer had either been invited in, or entered through an unlocked door. Both Eve and Lynda had arrived home, perhaps distracted as they carried items into their homes, potentially leaving their front doors unlocked. Both women had worked in gambling establishments and had been acquainted with some of the same people. Eve had worked as a promotional bunny and Lynda had worked as a croupier. They had both received catastrophic neck injuries which were described as near decapitations. A detective would later remark on the fact that the injuries received by both women were rare enough, but the fact that they b ….The biggest differences between the two murders were that in Lynda Farrow’s case, the killer had been scared off. If he hadn’t been, would the murder weapon have been left at the scene? The other big difference was that in Eve’s case there had been a sexual element to the murder. If Lynda’s attacker had have been able to take his time, would he have gone on to sexually assault Lynda? 

In 2006 police had a breakthrough. Lynne Weedon’s murder was being reinvestigated by cold case detectives. When testing the DNA found at her crime scene, they came back with a match to the DNA found at the Eve Stratford crime scene. The killer had killed both a glamorous model and a 16-year-old schoolgirl, in different parts of London, four months apart. It was not what anyone had been expecting. There had never been any reason to connect Eve’s and Lynne’s deaths. Apart from youth, and a sexual element, there was nothing else that obviously linked their murders. They were killed at different times of day, in different suburbs, and with different weapons. Was the killer somebody who saw a potential victim, and followed them home? It certainly seemed likely in Lynne Weedon’s case. It seemed likely that Eve had been followed too, but perhaps the killer had planned out the attack ahead of time. In Lynda Farrow’s case, the idea of a stalker following her home seems likely. In response to the DNA link, Lynne Weedon’s mother Margaret said “We are well aware that whoever murdered Lynne also murdered Eve Stratford. That young lady also had her life snubbed out. Her family has died now. Another true life sentence.

"The hurt eases but the pain still sits deep somewhere inside. There are so many questions. So many thoughts. So much heartache.

"I will make a mother's plea for anyone who can tell us some information about the person who took my daughter and Eve Stratford's lives to come forward. Please, please give us some sort of closure.

After Eve’s murder, her mother Liza had been consumed by grief. Eve’s grave was vandalised at least 8 times between her burial in 1975 and 1983. Albert and Liza Stratford had also received many harassing and threatening phone calls. During one call Liza was told that she would be killed next. The couple was forced to change their phone number 4 times to escape the harassment. After her daughter’s death, Liza Stratford had turned the family home into a shrine for Eve. Photos of Eve were placed all around the house, and Liza gave up her dress shop business. It was unbearably painful to see young happy girls coming into the shop, that reminded her so much of her daughter. In 1986 Albert came home and found his wife Liza dead. On Liza Stratford’s death certificate the cause of death was listed as a broken heart. Now that he had lost both his wife and daughter, Albert Stratford couldn’t bear to look at all of the photos of Eve. He burned them all, apart from a small photo which he carried in his wallet until his death in 2007. The photo was of happy times and showed the smiling images of his beloved daughter Eve and her boyfriend Tony Priest. Albert died without ever finding out who had killed his only child. 

In 2015 police issued an appeal for information leading to the identification and apprehension of Eve and Lynn’s killer. It coincided with the 40 year anniversary of Lynne Weedon's murder. The London Metropolitan police announced a  40,000-pound reward. The hope was that the fact that these cases were decades old, may make it easier for someone to now come forward with information. A September 3rd article from the Evening standard included a plea for information from detective Chief Inspector Noel McHugh who said “ One phone call to the incident room could be all that it takes to bring two bereaved families closer to some closure or justice…..I urge you to examine your conscience and if you are wavering on making that call, think of Eve’s family who have now passed away, and Lynn’s parents who are in their eighties and have endured 40 dreadful years not knowing who murdered their daughter. Perhaps the person who killed Lynne and Eve confided in you? Please do not keep their secret for a day longer and come forward”. In the Uk, DNA was not collected from prisoners until 1995. This means that there was a 20-year window where Eve and Lynne’s killer may have been imprisoned without having to give his DNA. Police believe that the man was a white male, aged b/w 17 and 30 at the time of the murders, who had connections to the two areas, especially Hounslow, and that he was probably familiar with the laneway known as the short hedges. In both scenes, the weapon had been taken away by the perpetrator. In 2015 Police were appealing to psychiatrists and probation officers, who 40 years before, may have dealt with the perpetrator, and received information that may not have been deemed relevant at the time. 

The same year, “Yorkshire Ripper. The secret murders” was published. The book was written by former police intelligence officer Chris Clark and investigative journalist Tim Tate. It detailed the crimes of Peter Sutcliffe who became known as the Yorkshire ripper. The original police investigation now holds a dubious place in Uk history as one of the biggest law enforcement bungles in living memory. The investigation necessitated the 1981 Biford report. A scathing document that was not fully released to the public until 2006. Its pages detailed mistakes piled on mistakes as well as gross discrimination towards the victims themselves, many of whom were sex workers. 

It is widely accepted that there are unknown Yorkshire ripper victims to this day. At the time of the Yorkshire ripper investigation, police worked on the presumption that Sutcliffe only attacked sex workers, which was completely inaccurate. While many of Sutcliffe’s victims were sex workers, many of them were not. Potential Yorkshire ripper victims were discounted because of this. The 2015 book details probable victims, including similarities between their murders or attempted murders and Sutcliffe’s Modus Operandi. Eve Stratford, Lynne Weedon, and Lynda Farrow are all on that list. The issue with Peter Sutcliffe was that he was a non-secretor, meaning that his blood type could not be determined from a Semen sample. As I understand it, In order to try Sutcliffe for further crimes, there would have to be compelling evidence, linking him to other murders, to get him before the courts again. A 2022  mirror newspaper article states that Police only hold mouth swabs and hair samples in their national databases, for Peter Sutcliffe and were unable to take a full blood sample before his death. 

The other problem with Sutcliffe was that his attacks were deemed to have no sexual element, mainly because his crimes did not involve sexual penetration. This was despite the presence of semen on many of his victims, and despite the details of the strange outfit he had on when he was finally arrested. In place of underwear, he had been wearing an upside-down jumper, with his legs worn through the jumper's arms, and the neck hole of the jumper fashioned to support his genitals. This meant that Sutcliffe could effectively pull down his fly and have ready access to his penis in attacks that were ruled as non-sexual attacks. The fact that his admissions were taken at face value, and it was believed that his attacks had no sexual basis is astounding. It appeared that Peter Sutcliffe not only got away with an unknown number of attacks and murders but that he also duped the system into allowing him to live out most of his days in a psychiatric facility. After receiving a life Tariff for his crimes in 1981, he was held at Broadmoor psychiatric hospital between 1984 and 2016.  A review by a health tribunal in 2016 found that Sutcliffe no longer needed treatment at the hospital for his diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. In November 2020 Sutcliffe died in prison at the age of 74. During their own investigation of the Yorkshire Ripper case, Chris Clark and Tim Tate were able to ascertain that Sutcliffe had been based within a few miles of Eve and Lynne on the days that they were murdered. It is possible that he was close to the area of Lynda Farrow’s house on the day she was killed. Although Sutcliffe attacked most of his victims with a hammer, from behind, there were also incidents where he used a knife. Despite his pious act, it is known that Sutcliffe had Men’s magazines, in the vein of Mayfair and Playboy in his work truck. 

The question of who murdered Eve Stratford, Lynne Weedon, and Lynda Farrow is still a mystery. With the use of genetic Geanology, Eve and Lynne’s murders have a high probability of being solved. It has been 47 years since the first murder and even if the Killer or killers are deceased, it is likely that somebody close to them knows something. If you have any information regarding the murders of Eve Stratford in March 1975, Lynne Weedon in September 1975, or Lynda Farrow in January 1979

Can contact police at the incident room on 020 8785 8099 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.

THANK YOU FOR LISTENING TO TODAY'S EPISODE. STAY SAFE, STAY INFORMED AND I WILL MEET YOU AGAIN NEXT WEEK IN CRIME VALLEY.