Innocents. Jonathan Rose
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scientists and the pathologist.
While waiting for the scientists and medical men, Holland began the task of structuring the major investigation, the early stages of which comprise time-honoured routines and procedures which remain common practice today. One key procedure is to attempt to establish the sequence of events at the immediate scene, including the identification of all movements of people (and, essentially, vehicles) and occurrences prior to, during and after the commission of the crime, up to the moment of the discovery of the body so that the exclusion zone can be established. In this way no evidence is lost or contaminated, the value of potential clues is identified and any unconnected material is correctly eliminated.
The experienced police officer, who had attended many, many murder scenes, was able to speculate, quite reasonably, on the circumstances which had brought Lesley to this moor. She had clearly been driven from the back-streets of Rochdale to the moors overlooking the M62 motorway, only twenty yards from the A672 Oldham to Ripponden Road. The frail child had been dragged or carried up forty feet of moorside, to a bracken and heather terrace where she was ultimately found. Had her journey to this final place been non-stop, or had the man taken her elsewhere first? That question would have to wait for an answer. Lesley had undoubtedly been alive when her killer laid her down on the damp ground, but for how long had she been kept there, terrified, before her so-short life was brought to such an unmerciful end?
The forensic scientists and pathologist would soon confirm that, mercifully, she had not been sexually abused, but that, although she had not been interfered with, her last companion had undoubtedly obtained some sexual pleasure from her final hours on earth. Upon her underwear forensic scientists were to find semen, but whether the man had ejaculated in some private, quiet place, or up in the winds and mists of the moors, whether he had done so when she was alive or dead, would also remain unknown. It is known only that the killer had masturbated on to Lesley, and that he had killed her, brutally, stabbing her twelve times in the chest and neck with a small knife, before wiping the blade on her thigh and leaving her, uncovered, to the elements.
The Rochdale police would soon receive many accounts of sightings of Lesley as she walked from her home to the shops, and then at various locations in Rochdale and the surrounding areas. In the initial stages Dick Holland only worked on those sightings of the child which clearly could be relied on, in the hope of piecing together Lesley’s last movements and identifying the moment when her abduction took place. The first witness to confirm that Lesley had left Delamere Road at the time her mother claimed was a young girl called Dianne Reeves, who knew Lesley well. Dianne had seen Lesley turn from Delamere Road into Stiups Lane, passing right by her as Dianne swung on the garden gate at her own home. Mark Conroy, a schoolboy friend of Lesley, saw her further along Stiups Lane as he walked from Kingsway playing-fields across Stiups Lane into a snicket or walkway towards Ansdell Road. Four girlfriends of Lesley’s were heading towards Kingsway playing-fields at this time, and noticed her as she walked along. They and Mark also saw a young ginger-haired girl with a scruffy grey dog, who was so close to Lesley that Mark had thought the two girls were together.
Bernadette Hegarty also saw Lesley walk towards Ansdell Road. She was swinging the blue shopping bag and Bernadette, a 10-year-old neighbour of Lesley’s, thought that she was ‘dilly-dallying’. Bernadette was also heading for the Spar, but took an alternative route which ran parallel with Stiups Lane. She visited the Spar shop, but she did not see Lesley there.
Fifteen-year-old Stephen Tatters, who knew Lesley well, also visited the Spar shop at the same time as Bernadette, but he did not see Lesley there.
John Cooper, a newcomer to the area but one who recognised Lesley, remembered seeing her at twelve fifteen walking towards him on her way to Ansdell Road. He was sure of the time, because he had just asked it of an elderly lady who had been walking in the road ahead of him.
At that time, Anita Owen, aged 13, visited the Spar shop and, having bought some sweets, headed back to her home on Turf Hill Road. She walked along Ansdell Road and was just about to turn right into the snicket leading to Buxton Crescent when Lesley came out of the snicket opposite and to her left from Stiups Lane. The two girls were seen by Jane Jeffreys, a school friend of Anita, who described Lesley’s clothing – especially her socks – with great accuracy. Anita and Lesley said hello. Anita walked on towards Buxton Crescent and last saw Lesley approaching the Spar shop.
Robert and Marion Ellidge, the proprietors of the Spar, were interviewed at 3 p.m. on the Sunday of Lesley’s disappearance. They had closed the shop at 2.10 p.m., and had not seen Lesley all day. Steven Ellidge had worked in the shop with his parents until 12.30 p.m. that day, and had then gone to work on his blue Ford Escort car in a garage on Buxton Crescent. He had seen Danny Molseed searching for his stepdaughter at 2 p.m., and had shortly afterwards gone into the shop and asked his parents if they had seen her. Like them, he was unable to help the police, although he had been backwards and forwards across Ansdell Road several times between 12.30 and 3 p.m.
Frank and Edith Jones owned the tobacconist/confectioner’s shop at 65 Broad Lane, known locally as Margaret’s. Lesley was a regular visitor to that shop, particularly on a Sunday when most other shops were closed. Initially the Joneses said they believed Lesley had not been in the shop that afternoon, but after seeing a photograph of the child they changed their minds, saying that she might have been in around 2 p.m., but that they were not certain whether it had been on the Saturday or the Sunday.
Thus, almost all the sightings of Lesley which were to come to the attention of Dick Holland were for around twelve fifteen on the Sunday, and between Lesley’s home address and the Spar shop. There was one further sighting, by Jacqueline Reilly, who saw Lesley from her kitchen window as she walked along Stiups Lane. Jacqueline Reilly had also seen a small yellow van which appeared to be following behind Lesley, and this fact was noted with some interest since there had already been a number of reports of a yellow van on the Turf Hill Estate acting suspiciously near to young children, in particular at the Kingsway Youth Club on the Friday night prior to Lesley’s disappearance.
DC Roberts was debriefed to ascertain what, exactly, David Greenwell had told him, how both men had approached the scene, and whether either of them had touched or moved the body. But Greenwell could not, yet, be considered only as a witness, since it is not uncommon for the person ‘finding’ the body of a murder victim to be the perpetrator of the crime he claims to have discovered.
With this common occurrence in mind, and the knowledge of the description of Greenwell’s van, Dick Holland ordered that the man be interviewed at length, and his movements between Friday, 3 October and Wednesday, 8 October checked and corroborated. Greenwell explained how he had been working in Rochdale for three weeks on the shopfitting job, saving money by sleeping in his van Monday to Thursday, before returning to his home in the Clifton area of Nottingham for the weekend. He had a perfect alibi, confirmed by his parents, Arthur and Siegrid, with whom he lived, who told the police that Greenwell had spent the relevant weekend at home with them, mostly working on the repair of his mobile home. Neighbours of the Greenwells, Iris Dennis, who lived next door, and George McClean, who lived opposite, also supported the man’s account. The police also checked with the tyre company and scrap yard where Greenwell claimed to have gone that weekend to buy spare parts for his van.
Anthony Stych, a workmate, confirmed that Greenwell had given him a lift to his home in Sheffield on the Friday, and had picked him up again at 10.10 a.m. on the Monday. Together with the foreman, Michael McClean, he was able to vouch for Greenwell’s whereabouts from the time he began work in the early morning through to the early hours of the next morning, for it was common practice for the six employees to work late, and then go out for a meal and a drink together, usually until about 1 a.m., since each of them was working away from home. The only exception to this routine had been the Tuesday night, when Greenwell had gone straight from work to his ‘home’ in the lay-by.
McClean described how Greenwell had arrived on site at about eight twenty on the Wednesday morning, looking shaken, pale and worried. He had immediately spilled out his terrible experience, and both Stych and McClean had urged him to report his find to the police.
The above accounts, coupled with reported sightings by passing motorists of the van in the lay-by between Monday night and Wednesday morning