Journalist investigating thousands of murders says one killing still haunts him

A journalist who has investigated thousands of murders said one particular killing still haunts him.

Richard Ault has compiled a list of Britain’s 1,000 Unsolved Murders after submitting Freedom of Information requests to every police force in the country.

After spending a year researching cold cases across every part of the country, Richard discovered that there are certainly several hundred killers living amongst us who have never been held to account for their crimes.

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He said: "Every case represents a life lost, a family shattered, and in some cases, a community destroyed. Among these cold cases are gangland killings, contract murders, violent robberies gone wrong, street fights, and many seemingly random attacks, usually on women, carried out without reason by apparent strangers.

"It is these motiveless attacks that are the most chilling. Where victims were targeted because they were vulnerable, or happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Put simply, the people who were murdered by predators who struck simply because they were fairly sure they could get away with it?"

The Mirror reports the most affecting cases in Richard's list of cold cases invariably involve children - such as 11-year-old Allan Graham, who was found strangled to death 24 hours after he went missing in Newcastle.

Richard said: "Who could do such a thing to an innocent child? What sort of monster lurks in the shadows waiting for a chance to carry out such an act of almost unspeakable evil?"

One almost “forgotten” case is the Hammersmith Nude Murders. The serial killer Jack the Stripper was more prolific but far less famous than his Victorian namesake, murdering at least six women in the 1960s.

After the killings stopped, it emerged that one of the prime suspects was Harold Jones - a convicted child killer who had served time for the murder of two young girls before his release and relocation to London. Among the names of victims on Richard's list is one that is particularly haunting for him.

Builder John Iveson vanished in 2007. It is not known what happened to him, but two farmers were tried - and cleared - of his murder in 2012, and of disposing of his body by feeding it to pigs.

John said: " I’ve not seen John since he moved away and left my class at Brierley Street Primary School in Crewe when we were around 10-years-old.

"We were not friends, but I remember him clearly at that age. It’s disturbing and deeply sad to contemplate his fate, years after I last saw him walking through the school gates. Someone knows what happened to him.

"There is - or was - someone out there who knows how and why every single person on the list of Britain’s 1,000 Unsolved Murders met their end. And in every case, justice has been denied for far too long.

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