Unsolved Murder of Schoolgirl & Bunny girl
47 years after two females were murdered in London, there are still no answers or convictions
Some 47 years ago two sickening murders took place in London, England. Those murders shocked and stunned the people of London and indeed the whole of the UK.
Eve Stratford was murdered in her East End London home by being stabbed many times and her head being almost completely severed from her body, she was 21 years old. The murder took place on March 18th, 1975, it would seem that she was killed sometime after 4.30 pm as a neighbour had reported hearing Eve arguing with a man around that time.
Just a few miles across London on September 3rd, 1975, 16-year-old Lynne Weedon was bludgeoned to death in an alleyway after a night out with her friends.
Eve had left her birth home in Warrington in 1972 for the glamour of London and by early 1973 found herself working at the prestigious Playboy Club in Park Lane. She was very popular with the club’s members and staff.
The club was famous for millionaires, celebrities, and members of the criminal underworld. The waitresses would wear velvet bunny outfits with bow ties and bunny ears whilst they became quite up close and personal with the club’s fraternity.
Whether there is any connection I am unable to ascertain but I am reliably informed that just a few days before Eve was murdered she had fallen out with the club’s management and been suspended after it was discovered that she had posed nude for an adult magazine.
She was discovered by her boyfriend Tony with whom she shared the flat in Leyton E16. Tony was a singer with a band called Onyx and having returned from a performance he found Eve had been Raped, she had been stabbed some 12 times, had her throat cut, and her face cut from ear to mouth.
Eve’s arms had been tied behind her back, her ankles tied tightly with a nylon stocking, and next to her body lay a bunch of fresh flowers. The 21-year-old had only been wearing her dressing gown so it seems that she must have let her killer in.
On September 3rd, 1975 a 16-year-old schoolgirl, Lynne Weedon had been out for the evening with her friends. She took a shortcut through a public alleyway near her family home in Hounslow, West London but never arrived home.
The shy schoolgirl was struck over the head with a heavy blunt instrument, then dragged over a wire fence into an electricity sub-station and raped. Lynne was taken to West Middlesex Hospital but sadly never regained consciousness and died as a result of her injuries.
The coroner recorded the cause of death as a single blow to the head. No killer or weapon has ever been identified.
In 2015 the police believed that they had quite a distinctive breakthrough in both cases when new advances in DNA technology revealed that the same man was responsible for both murders
There is, of course, a very real chance that the killer is dead himself now or at least quite old, to be fair if he was as young as 25 at the time of committing his heinous crimes he would be 72 years old now.
I have to say that a link to the Playboy club seems to be ruled out at this point because it seems highly unlikely that an innocent 16-year-old would have any connection with that fraternity.
The police officer who still officially leads the investigations, Detective Superintendent Noel McHugh said n 2015, “the most significant breakthrough came when advanced DNA techniques finally revealed both women had been killed by the same man. It led to fresh leads and another round of painstaking interviews and trawling of the case files”.
Det-Supt McHugh went on to say, “You can’t imagine how big this news was 40 years ago. For a woman to be killed in her own home was shocking”.
“A schoolgirl to be murdered as well would’ve sent shockwaves through the whole country”.
“There’s someone out there who carried out these evil crimes”.
“We want people to think back. Don’t just assume the information you might have is the information we already have. No matter how small, it could be the piece to finish the whole puzzle.”
It is certainly possible that there is someone still out there who may be carrying the guilt of these killings around to this day, but my feeling is this, If this evil monster was capable of carrying out two violent rapes and murders, seemingly without provocation then it seems strange that there are no more.
Have there been more victims of the killer who killed Eve Stratford and Lynne Weedon? Has he attempted to kill again and failed or has he gotten smarter and disposed of bodies? Is the killer dead or did he leave the area? These are all questions that are in my mind as I type this, please let me know your thoughts and opinions, please.
It is so important that this person or anyone who knows the identity of the killer comes forward and speaks out now. Eve’s parents are dead but Lynne’s parents I believe to still be alive and they deserve proper closure if at all possible.
Anyone with information needs to come forward and contact police on 0208 785 8099 or call Crimestoppers in confidence 0800 555 111
I will be back with more very soon including some research into the tragic murder of a Belfast teenager, Noah Donohoe, and the wrongful conviction of Ricky Percival
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