Murder With My Husband - 141. Lynda Mann and Dawn Ashworth - The Pathway Murders

Episode Date: December 5, 2022

On this episode of MWMH, Payton and Garrett discuss the first case to ever use DNA profiling. This was the murder of both Lynda Mann and Dawn Ashworth. Live Show Tickets: https://www.moment.co/murderwithmyhusband Links: https://linktr.ee/murderwithmyhusband Case Sources: Medical Detectives, “The Footpath Murders,” broadcast October 23, 1996 on TLC Wikipedia.org, Colin Pitchfork The Blooding (1989, Random House Publishing Group), by Joseph Wambaugh Sky News: news.sky.com, “Colin Pitchfork: Double child killer arrested and recalled to prison after 'breaching licence conditions',” November 19, 2021 bbc.com, "Colin Pitchfork recalled to jail after approaching young women,” November 22, 2021  Newspaper.com sources: Tony Donnelly, Nottingham Post, "Hunt is on for two killers," 23 November 1983, archived (https://www.newspapers.com/image/760618392); citing print edition, p.1 Leicester Mercury, "Lynda ‘might have screamed’," 1 December 1983, archived (https://www.newspapers.com/image/860734136); citing print edition, p.1 Leicester Mercury, "Lynda: Youth seen running," 2 December 1983, archived (https://www.newspapers.com/image/860734331); citing print edition, p.27 Leicester Mercury, "Fresh plea over Lynda murder," 7 December 1983, archived (https://www.newspapers.com/image/860735339); citing print edition, p.13 Leicester Mercury, "Murder hunt police seek 'crying youth'," 8 December 1983, archived (https://www.newspapers.com/image/860735594); citing print edition, p.21 Leicester Mercury, "Scarf used to kill Lynda, inquest told," 26 January 1984, archived (https://www.newspapers.com/image/860742794); citing print edition, p.19 Leicester Mercury, "Lynda: Police issue picture," 1 February 1984, archived (https://www.newspapers.com/image/860747472); citing print edition, p.1 Leicester Mercury, "Lynda in walk to death on Black Pad," 3 February 1984, archived (https://www.newspapers.com/image/860748945); citing print edition, p.30 Leicester Mercury, "Lynda seen with punk in city," 17 May 1984, archived (https://www.newspapers.com/image/860751836); citing print edition, p.23 Leicester Mercury, "Murder 'started road into debt'," 9 July 1984, archived (https://www.newspapers.com/image/860879334); citing print edition, p.6 Associated Press, The Charlotte Observer, "DNA 'Fingerprinting' Process Nearly Foolproof, Scientists Say," 7 December 1985, archived (https://www.newspapers.com/image/624686909); citing print edition, p.17A Leicester Mercury, "Murder of Lynda: Police issue new appeal for clues," 26 April 1986, archived (https://www.newspapers.com/image/860868746); citing print edition, p.11 Leicester Mercury, "Dawn vanishes after trip: Huge hunt for missing schoolgirl," 1 August 1986, archived (https://www.newspapers.com/image/860906178); citing print edition, pp.1, 15 Leicester Mercury, "Three years on — a killer still at large," 2 August 1986, archived (https://www.newspapers.com/image/860907003); citing print edition, p.9 Leicester Mercury, "Dawn's killer 'has struck before'," 3 August 1986, archived (https://www.newspapers.com/image/846785964); citing print edition, p.1 John Meehan and Alan Kay, Coventry Evening Telegraph, "Tell on Strangler: Don't shield girls double murder, pleads mum," 4 August 1986, archived (https://www.newspapers.com/image/819772229); citing print edition, pp.1-2 Leicester Mercury, "Tiny scratch 'could be a vital clue'—Dawn: Hunt for Double Killer," 4 August 1986, archived (https://www.newspapers.com/image/860908353); citing print edition, pp. 1, 5 Leicester Mercury, "Dawn: Man seen fleeing from scene," 5 August 1986, archived (https://www.newspapers.com/image/860908553); citing print edition, p.1 Leicester Mercury, "Sadistic double killer is jailed for life," 23 January 1988, archived (https://www.newspapers.com/image/861261211); citing print edition, pp.1, 10-11 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Yes, you energy. Energy for everything. Captain Banner now to learn more. Hey everybody, welcome back to our podcast. This is Murder with My Husband. I'm Peyton Morlin. And I'm Garib Morlin. And he's the husband.

I'm the husband. This is the last week to buy tickets to our online live show December 11th. We're really excited. The last live we did was a pretty popular case and this one is going to be different. I don't think everyone will know this case and it is crazy. You're not going to want to miss it.

So get tickets now for our online live show that's coming up December 11th. Link is down below in the description. There'll kind of be links everywhere depending on where you're listening to this. All right, I think that pushes us right into your 10 seconds for this week. All right, so for my 10 seconds this week,

I actually just got my haircut today. If you're watching, thank you. Appreciate the compliment. If you're not watching and you're listening, thank you, I appreciate the compliment. But I was getting my haircut and I asked my barber, I said, is my hair in the back of my head thinning and he was like I don't think so so and he blow dried it and everything and he

show me and I was like oh no it looks fine. And he's like why? It's like oh my wife the other day just out of nowhere was like I think the back of your hair is thinning and the back of your head. I was like what are you talking about? So I went to the barber today and he was like, no, it doesn't look like it's thinning to me. And I was like, I don't know, I guess my wife was just being a savage that day. Well, baby, he doesn't see the way I see you. Oh, what is that supposed to mean?

He doesn't have your best interests at heart like I do. No, I looked at him and I said, dude, I need you to tell me the truth. And my thinning or not. And he even showed me a picture. Well, he lied. And it wasn't thinning. So I think it might have been just because.

You had hot hair. I had hot hair. I think so too. Anyways, that's my 10 seconds. So that's kind of what I was stressing about this week. I mean, I already know like I'm thinning a little bit in the front. It's just, I guess I just can't avoid it,

but it's hoping it slows down a little bit. RKSARCES are medical detectives, Wikipedia, the blooding skynewsbbc.com, and newspaper.com. The history of forensics dates all the way back to the year 1248. How's that possible? It's a book written in China whose title translates into English as, quote, washing away of wrongs. And in that book is the earliest documented use of a forensic technique. There had been a murder in a Chinese village

where the victim had been killed with a sickle, which is basically just like a curved knife. And the dude investigating the murder assembled all of the suspects in an outdoor location and had them lay their sickles down in front of him. When a swarm of flies landed on one particular sickle drawn to the traces of blood that had been left behind, that's when the investigator knew who the murderer was. And that person then confessed to the murder validating the investigator's method. You may be surprised to know that fingerprint

identification is barely a century old. It wasn't until the 18th and 19th century that scientists even recognized that fingerprints were unique to an individual. Yeah, I would say that of the last 50 years, it's kind of when it's become more evilator as well. Right. And only in 1902 was fingerprinting first use to solve a crime. That's around the time scientists first discovered blood types,

which itself would eventually be implemented into forensics as well. We've come a long way since then. The Golden State Killer, California's most notorious unidentified serial killer, was arrested in 2018 after being identified with forensic genealogy. And since then, over 200 other cold-case murders, some dating back to the 1950s, have been solved using the same technique. Where the DNA of an unidentified criminal offender is uploaded into a genealogy database, and after the criminals' relatives are identified, genealogists construct a family tree and narrow down potential suspects until they find their killer.

I'm sure many of our listeners are already aware of this. It's amazing, almost like magic. But did you know that DNA profiling itself is actually relatively speaking a fairly new thing? The first murder case where DNA was used to weed out the killer was only 35 years ago in 1987. Wow. I would have thought it, I don't know, I just would have thought that it had been used

before then at some point. Yeah. And that's the case we're going to talk about today. The first case to use DNA to weed out suspects. The villages of Enderby and Narbro in England are pretty typical of what you'll find if you travel to the part of the country known as the Midlands. These villages have remained largely unchanged for centuries, with most families having resided in the region for many generations.

In fact, when the area began to see a big wave of newcomers in the 1970s and 80s, that caused a lot of enderby and Norbro locals to fear that the identities of their quaint little towns might get lost or diluted if this influx continued. The population of both villages was about 6 to 7,000 residents a piece. And these were peaceful places where violent crime just didn't happen. And for Kathleen Mann, Norbro seemed like the ideal place to raise her two young daughters, Susan and Linda. After a failed marriage and an attempt to establish herself in Lester, which was where she was born and raised. Kathleen, who went by Kath, decided she needed

some space from her mother and ended up settling in the small village where the gardens were well manicured and the homes looked like something out of a story book and honestly it's true. It's true. I mean, we went to Scotland, which I know isn't necessarily this place, but it is England and like, it looks like out of a story book. It is just so, the places are just so quaint and perfect and cute. Well, I think just it's because a lot of stuff is preserved.

There's a lot of history there. Yeah. I mean, no offense to all of us Americans, but there's, I mean, yeah, there's history here, but it's just it's so different compared to, when you're on the other side of the world. And it's completely understandable to me why Kath is gonna take her two daughters and like,

run away to one of these villages and raise her family. Now, sometime in the late 70s, Kath met a man named Eddie Eastwood and was smitten with him. They moved in together and in December of 1980, they were married. Kath had a third daughter with him soon after and the family moved into a bigger semi-detached house. And life was good for Eddie and Kath, their new family in this English village. Even if Eddie at this point was working 90 hours a week. He gone through a bankruptcy in the mid-70s and was now working to clear up the debts related to it in the 80s.

But the couple was doing well and Kath's daughters were happy and well-adjusted, especially Linda, who by 1983 had blossomed into a popular and polite 15-year-old girl, well-liked at Lutterworth Grammar School where she was a student. Some saw her as shy in a little old-fashioned, but she had no shortage of friends and was by all accounts a typical teenager, and very independent for her age. And that's what the Eastwoods life looked like back in 1983, living in this village in England together, adding on to their family and enjoying life. That's what the Eastwoods life looked like back in 1983, living in this village in England together, adding on to their family and enjoying life.

It was November 21, 1983, and it was a cold and frosty evening. It was around 5 p.m. when Linda, the teenager, left the house to babysit for a neighbor, and she got back home around 6.20 p.m. for a quick meal with her stepdad Eddie. By this point, the temperature had taken even more of a dip, and Linda was scheduled to babysit for another neighbor, so she slid into a sweatshirt and darted out the door. But she returned home shortly after. That neighbor, it turned out, was on sick leave, and let Linda know she wouldn't be needed that night. So Linda spent a few minutes now watching TV, and then

she prepared to leave again, telling Kath, her mother, that she was going to visit her friend Karen. Are you coming straight home, Kath asked? Linda told her mother she'd probably stay at Karen's for a while and then stop by her friend Caroline's. Don't worry, Linda told her mom, I'll be home by 10. So Linda went on her way and it was about 7-10 pm at this point. As she was heading towards Karen's, Linda actually crossed paths with another friend of

hers, Margaret, who later recalled that Linda seemed like her normal, cheerful self during this interaction. Linda then popped into Karen's place, but it turned out that her friend wasn't home. So Linda talked for a few minutes with the girl's mother, and then told her she was off to see her other friend, Caroline, in the neighboring village of Enderby. Now Caroline had actually borrowed some record albums from Linda and now Linda wanted to pick them up. She explained so she's like oh well it's fine Karen wasn't Karen wasn't home. She's telling Karen's mom I'm just gonna go to Caroline's pick up my my record

albums and then I'm just gonna go home. And then she left she left to go to Caroline's. But as always in these left, she left to go to Caroline's. But as always in these cases, Linda Mann never made it to Caroline's house. Kath and Eddie Eastwood, Linda's mother and stepfather had been out that evening playing darts at the local pub and got back home about half an hour after midnight

to find Kath's oldest daughter Susan still waiting up. Linda's not home, she immediately told them, still waiting up. Linda's not home. She immediately told them, sounding very concerned. This was totally out of character for Linda, as I explained earlier. And Kass' heart started racing immediately. She had told her she was going to be home by 10. Now it's almost midnight, and she's not home. Eddie, Linda's stepfather, got into his car and began driving around the neighborhood,

checking all of the local teen hangouts. He then walked the black pad, which was a footpath that ran alongside Carlton Hayes Hospital, which by the way was a psychiatric hospital whose grounds had many acres of farmland that separated the two villages, Norbro and Enderby. The hospital was torn down in the mid 1990s, but if you look at its former location on Google Maps, you can see just how much land the hospital occupied. It was practically the same size as either of the two villages.

So you have this hospital, and then on one side of the hospital's enderby, on the other side is Norbro, and in the middle is this huge hospital with land with a path that cuts through on either side of the hospital to get to the two villages. Does that make sense? Yep, it makes sense. So, on one side of the hospital to the east ran the footpath known as 10-pound lane, and on the other side was another footpath called the Black Pad, which was the shortcut that Linda was known to take, the one that she would have taken that night to get to

Caroline's, which is why her stepdad is now searching it. Man, I don't know if I'm taking a road called the black pad, just saying. It runs next to a psychiatric hospital. Yeah, it's gonna scare you. And both of these footpaths joined Norbro with, and her bee, like I said, they were relatively well-traveled by locals. And if Linda had been heading to her friend, Caroline's, it was very likely she'd have taken the black pad.

So Eddie searched up and down this footpath, which was not lit up at night. There was no lighting of any kind. Though there was a full moon out that night, so Eddie was able to see along the path fairly well, but he couldn't find Linda anywhere. After an hour, Eddie gave up and returned home to phone the police and report Linda missing. Eddie could hear the lack of urgency in the voice of the policemen on the other side and so he stressed that Linda always returned home before 10. But with the report made, there was nothing more for Linda's family to do but spend a sleepless night waiting for some word, hopefully from Linda and hopefully that everything was okay.

At around 740 the next morning, a hospital porter was on his way to work at the psychiatric hospital, walking the black pad footpath when he looked through the raw iron fence, separating the footpath from the grassy fields of the hospital grounds. And there he spotted what looked like a mannequin. Is it ever really a mannequin?

Never. Never, never, never. It's never, I I mean I'm maybe Once out of the blue moon it's a mannequin, but it's never a mannequin and You know obviously this this worker can't be sure that it's not a dead body So he flagged down a colleague he was driving past and brought him to the location with him and real quick If I saw something that looked like a body I think my first thought would be it's a body not a mannequin

But I feel like everyone always says, oh, it's a mannequin. I think you think that but I've never found you Know how shocking it would be to find a dead body for sure 100% I think just for self-preservation you would go. Oh, it's just a mannequin. It's not real You would be so scared and so shocked that you wouldn't think it's real. Yeah, I can see that. The colleague walked through the open gate and into the fenced-off area and saw what was clearly not a mannequin. But a human being, a young woman partially nude with bruises and a bloody nose and a scarf

nodded tightly around her neck. He bent down to check the young woman for a pulse, but the rigor mortis made it instantly clear that he wouldn't find one. Meanwhile, all Eddie Eastwood could talk about at work that morning was how his teenage stepdaughter was missing. And sometime before noon, word reached Eddie that a body had been found along the black pad footpath. He left work that moment and raced to the location, pushing past police barricades.

I think that's my daughter Linda, he told them. The police took notes and told them to go home and wait for a call They needed to investigate. Eddie realized upon walking home that he had passed right by that body the night before Within three yards of it during his search for his daughter. How scary is that? He's walking past and going, I walked right past this last night. within three yards of it during his search for his daughter. How scary is that? He's walking past and going, I walked right past this last night. A short time later, Eddie was summoned back to the footpath

and allowed to look at the body. That's her. He told the detective who lift up the shiny black tarp. Oh, man. Eddie immediately recognized the jacket and the scarf, the one that was tightly wrapped around her neck as Linda's. Put it down, Eddie then said he couldn't bear to see her. Imagine having to see that and then also knowing that you would walk right past your daughter the night before. Eddie returned

to the house with two detectives and the ass Linda's mother, Kath, a battery of questions about Linda, whether she had a boyfriend, if she'd been wearing earrings the night of her death and so forth. Kath was in such a days that everything only half registered to her. Examination of the crime scene made it very clear that Linda had been sexually assaulted. Her jeans and her underpants had been tossed into a pile several feet away from where her body was found, and her sweater had been pushed up. Postmortem examination confirmed that Linda was raped, probably after being strangled

to death, which this is a pretty big clue because it's pretty distinctive to assault a body after that person has died. Police felt that the killer had to be someone local because an outsider to the area likely wouldn't have known about the footpath that everyone crosses through to get to the two villages. Yeah. Nor how to get to the other side of the fence where Linda was found. And of course, the psychiatric hospital right near the footpath offered the most obvious possible solution, which is that a patient from the hospital had killed Linda, but the police investigators believed it was more likely that the killer was living a normal life in the community. So although everyone's first jump is someone escaped the hospital and killed her, police

are kind of like, we don't think that. We think it was someone who lived in the community. In the immediate aftermath of Linda's murder, there was some speculation in the press that Linda's killing may have been linked to another recent slaying the rape and murder of 16-year-old Collette Ayrham. Now Collette's murder had occurred three weeks earlier, 30 miles to the north in the town of Keyworth. Like Linda Mann, Collette had been walking home from a friend's home when she was confronted, was also strangled, and was found the next morning. And both victims lived near the M1 motorway. Though Collette had been abducted from the scene

and taken elsewhere before being dumped. And spoiler alert, Collette's murder was solved in 2009 and there was no connection to lend a man. It's so hard, I mean, she was murdered somewhere that's not really out in the open. It's kind of just sitting there like, how do you, I mean, obviously, you started the story with the DNA,

but other than that, and there's, you're not gonna see anything, you're not gonna find anything, it's impossible. Except DNA on your body. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Have you ever found yourself at a crossroads unsure of which direction to take in life? We all face those moments of uncertainty where the right path seems elusive. But guess what? There's a solution that can help you find clarity and confidence. And that's therapy. As you guys know, I talk about therapy all the time. I go to therapy weekly.

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and manage your expenses the easy way. By going to rocket money.com slash husband. That's rocket money.com slash husband rocket money.com slash husband. Although detectives didn't know this at the time, they didn't know that the two murders weren't connected. But despite that, they actually continued investigating Linda's murder on its own. They were like, we're not going to lump these two girls together, even though they were found 30 miles apart, we're going to look at Linda's murder as a hometown murder, essentially. Detectives were interviewing people in the area of the footpath on the night of Linda's murder.

And they learned that a girl fitting Linda's description had been seen with what witnesses would describe as a punk rocker. Remember this is 1983 England, so punk was definitely a thing. This was a peak punk era. And this guy that witness his saw they thought Linda with, he was your prototypical punk with spiked hair, dark clothes, and the two of them were seen at a bus stop. And they were also spotted dashing across a busy street,

forcing one motorist to slam on the brakes. So several people come forward and say, they think they saw Linda with this punk-looking guy. According to the news reports, that motorist quote spoke briefly to them after they dashed across and made him slam on his brakes, which sounds like a euphemism for he cussed them out. Like he did. 100%.

But anyway, the police investigating Linda's murder become convinced she has some kind of date or pre-arranged meeting with this punk rock or guy on the night of their death. She's like, they become convinced that although you guys think Linda's such this good girl who's going to Caroline's, they believe something else. The assumption they were working on was Linda left her home, ran into her friend Margaret on the way to Karen's, got to Karen's and talked to her mom who she also told she was going to see Caroline. But once she left Karen's home, she actually met up with this punk with spiked hair

and they were spotted together. Interesting. It's funny how they describe him as a punk with spiked hair. And all the sources referring to him is that. Because now I feel like that's not how you would describe somebody. No. It's just like back then, I don't know, I guess,

punk with spiked hair. Yeah. When I was in elementary school, I had spiked hair. I mean, they probably said Justin Bieber was a punk with long hair. Oh, I'm sure. 100%. You know?

Police later released what they called an artist's conception of the punk. They were really focused on this punk and they spent months trying to draw whoever this was in for questioning. They considered this to be their strongest lead. I'm just going to reveal this now for you that the punk was never identified

and it turned out to be a red herring. Like this was not actually what happened that night. Okay. But police don't know this at the time so they're still working this air angle but I'm just going to let you all know now that like this is not what happened that night. But this punk wasn't the only person witnesses came forward about in Linda's murder case. Some other unidentified people that witnesses reported included a young male and his late teens who was seen running from the area looking frightened, and a man about 20 years old with a stalky build and dark maybe red or brown curly or layered hair who was walking from the scene with his shoulders hunched up. And this is something interesting that happens a

lot in these cases is when you ask eyewitnesses to come forward, it's like all of them were live like at the exact same place seeing 10 different realities. I was gonna say that I legit was about ready to say that. It's like are is it really helpful when they come forward at describing four different men? You know what I mean? The only other potentially useful detail from the night of the murder was that one witness heard someone shouting no no no and sounding very scared at around 9.25 pm that night. So police were like, okay, maybe this was her being murdered. So now we have a timeline. But a month after Linda's murder, even after all of these potential

leads, police were no closer to identifying the killer. A teenage girl had been brutally assaulted and murdered in this quiet English village that was supposed to be safe. Lighting was then installed along the black path footpath, making it somewhat safer to travel at night in hopes of this never happening again. Though at this point, people were kind of avoiding this footpath at night like the plague. Word had spread throughout the community

and Linda's murder was on everyone's mind. People were horrified and it was covered in the local newspapers nearly every single day. Linda's funeral took place on February 2, 1984. It was attended by over 100 friends and family members. Morners described as young punks and leather-jocketed teenagers even showed up to pay their respects with wreaths that they laid outside of the church. And the police, all the while, were keeping that they laid outside of the church. And the police all the while were keeping a watchful eye on the event.

In fact, they set up a video surveillance and were recording everyone who attended the services. They could review the tape for anyone that they had interviewed. It seems so dumb of the person who did it would show up to the funeral. But it happens so often. It does happen and it's absolutely mind-blowing.

And although DNA profiling wasn't a thing yet, forensic science did look at blood type and more specifically blood enzymes. That was already happening. And the seamen taken from Linda's body revealed that the killer had type A blood and a PGM1 plus enzyme profile, which would only match 10% of the male population. Wow, that's amazing. It's amazing.

It's insane. And it's something, right? It's something in this investigation. But as the months wore on, the investigation just wasn't going anywhere, despite that they had this blood DNA. The police and Linda's family believe that someone out there knew who the killer was and was shielding him. They believe that whoever this killer was, their behavior would have changed after the

crime, enough to arouse the suspicions of their own families and friends. But as much as they kept urging that hypothetical person to come forward, nobody did. And the trauma of Linda's murder was really taking a toll on her family. Eddie, Linda's stepfather, fell into a depression and was no longer able to work 90 hours a week. And the loss of income resulted in a second bankruptcy. And the once daily coverage of the crime had now dwindled to weekly and then monthly. It just happens these cases grow cold.

But starting in March 1985, news articles began appearing, touting this brand new process that was being developed, which scientists were calling, quote, DNA fingerprinting. Can you imagine? No. For example, I'll read you part of an associated press piece that ran in December of 85. Quote, scientists, at Britain's National Crime Laboratory are testing a new technique,

they say makes it possible to identify murderers and rapists from blood samples with virtually no chance of mistake. This technique has not yet been tried in police work anywhere in the world, but could revolutionize crime detection if accepted by the courts. We take it for granted almost because it's so normal now. So normal. Like everyone's just like, oh, did you touch that? You're doing your fingerprints are on there.

Yeah. Yeah. It's so normal now. It's got to be the most exciting thing that has come along for a long time, Infra-N's Accine said the deputy director of the Central Research Establishment. However, a spokesman for the Home Office, which is in charge of the police and courts,

said the technique was expensive and predicted it would not be used routinely in the near future. Okay. But it would. And it would. And then the articles go on to say that DNA fingerprinting had already been used in Britain to prove maternity in an immigration case.

And the spokesperson said the government plan to introduce it the following year in a yet to be chosen criminal court case. So they're going to choose a case to try to test the theory. So I wonder how many rapists and murderers were reading these articles in 1985 and getting nervous. That's such a good point. Like, oh my gosh, they found a way to like, collect my blood and figure out that it's me.

That's such a good point. That would be nuts. But one person who clearly wasn't was the killer of Linda Man because flash forward to Thursday, July 31st, 1986, two years after Linda's murder. It was 3.30 pm. A 15-year-old girl named Dawn Ashworth was getting off work, ending her shift at Enderby News, the local newsstand. And Dawn had a lot in common with Linda, actually. Not only was she the same age Linda had been when she was killed, but she also attended the same school.

And just like Linda, was an upbeat, popular, happy young woman and a familiar face in the community. And Dawn was in an especially high spirits on this day because she had a vacation planned with her parents for the weekend, a weekend trip to Hunston, which is a seaside resort town and that's a couple hours away. So I'm going to guess it's like a place where the locals would go to vacation a lot. Don went home and told her mother Barbara that she was planning to meet her friends Sue and Sharon in neighboring Narbro for T. Barbara told Don to be back by 7 p.m. sharp because the family had committed to going to a birthday

party for the little boy of a family friend. It was a little boy that Dawn sometimes babysat, again another babysitter. Dawn already had plans to see a friend that night, but she agreed that she would cancel those plans and be back by seven. And then she sent out, first stopping back by enderby news, her workplace to buy some candy and a present for the little birthday boy. And then she left to continue on to Norbro. Now, the quickest route to Norbro was through 10 pound lane, the other footpath opposite of the black pad that cut through the sprawling grounds

of the psychiatric hospital. We're just working within these two little towns that surround this hospital. And again, Dawn is going to cut through this path to get to the other side. Well, it sounds like this crazy person who was killing people is just like watching those pass. Yes. Don's father had warned her many times not to use these footpaths because of Linda

Mann's murder. He's like, you're basically now her same age. Do not walk this path. Linda's murder had so fear in the heart of the community and everyone with young daughters had grown a little more vigilant and protective. But it was broad daylight at this point this day and made afternoon and this route cut the travel time nearly in half. So Dawn made the decision to travel 10 pound lane that day. And she soon safely made her way to her friend Sharon's house. She makes it through. Okay it through. However, once she got there, Sharon's mother came to the door with the news that Sharon had already left two town with Sue, the friend that she was supposed to be meeting up with.

The friend's mother suggested to Don that she just try Sue's house. So Don left and knocked on Sue's door. But Sue's mother told Don that Sue wasn't there either and suggested that she go look for her two friends in the village like they'd already made their way. But it didn't seem like there'd be enough time at this point and it was important to Don that she not be late for the birthday party. She's already wasted so much time checking both friends house. Don was very punctual and always on time so instead of going to chase her friends in the

village, she turned back and headed toward home. The last time anyone saw Don alive, she was walking toward the farm gate about to reenter 10 pound lane. Okay, dang it. A 705 that evening, when Dawn felt to return home promptly at 7, Barbara Ashworth already knew something was wrong. Dawn had never once been late returning home. A deep feeling of dread overcame Barbara, who left by herself to deliver her presence to the little birthday boy and she then immediately returned home, only to find that her daughter still hadn't come back.

So then Barbara drove to Su's house and talked to the girl's mother who told Barbara that she'd last seen Dawn around 430 when she redirected the girl to look for her friends in the village. Barbara drove around the village until she located Dawn's friends, Sharon and Sue, sitting near the new stand where Don worked. They told Don's mother that they hadn't seen Don all day and had no clue where she might be. Barbara then returned home and was joined by Don's father, Robin, and the two parents enlisted

the help of some friends and began searching around the village, even along the dreaded black pad where Linda Mann had been killed. Now imagine being this family. Your daughter is just gone missing. You know that she most likely took this shortcut. And just two years earlier, a girl, this exact same age, very similar, also baby sat wet missing and was murdered on this path.

You would think after this, that like they would close the path down. Yeah. The knowledge would be scary. Another girl goes missing on the path. Especially if you don't find the killer. Yes. When Dawn still hadn't come back by 9.30 PM that night, her family decided to call police

and report her missing. And again, another girl has just gone missing on these paths. The very next morning, a large group of uniformed policemen began searching the fields with tracker dogs. One person the search caught the attention of was Kath Eastwood, Linda Mann's mom. The site of the tracker sent chills down Kath's spine. It took us right back. She later told the press, we hoped upon hope

that the result wouldn't be the same for this family. So sad. But two days later, all that hope evaporated when the body of Dawn Ashworth was found alongside 10 pound lane concealed by dense undergrowth into which her killer had dragged her body. Much like Linda man, Dawn's body was nude from the waist down. Her bra had been pushed up and her body had extensive injuries, though it was determined that many of them were from post-mortem insect bites.

It was found that Dawn had been violently raped and probably struck in the face and neck and strangled to death, but possibly not in that order. The pathologist noted that the sexual assault may have occurred after Dawn's death. So it was believed right from the outset that whoever killed Dawn Ashworth was the same man who had killed Linda Mann two years earlier, whose body had been found only half a mile from the location Dawn was killed. And the semen taken from Dawn revealed the same blood type and enzyme type as Linda's killer.

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D-O dot com slash husband and use promo code husband. Now after the second murder, both villages, Narbrow and Enderby were in straight panic. Yeah. Teenage girls were told to travel in groups, never be alone and to avoid the footpaths. And though Don's co-workers at the newsstand, try not to think about what Don must have gone through that night,

it was hard not to as every newspaper they sold had Don's face on the front page. Police were determined to stop this killer before he struck again, and they were convinced that he would. They launched an extensive investigation with even more muscle and resources than the Linda Mann inquiry. And that's actually what they call investigations in England

They call them inquiries the police learned that multiple witnesses had heard screams from the area of Ted Poundland around 5 p.m. That day and two different witnesses said early well that's when she was walking. Yeah, yeah That's really early and two different witnesses said they'd seen a man crouching in the tall grass of an embankment near the footpath and the description, a white male in his early 20s with blonde hair, was consistent with that of another man who'd been seen running across a nearby street, nearly being hit by a car. And then reports came in about a suspicious man who was seen loitering around the crime scene on his motorbike, both on the day of the murder and during the investigation afterward, showing an intense interest in the activity

beyond the police tape. That young man was a 17-year-old kitchen porter at the psychiatric hospital. I kind of figured it was someone that worked right there by the path. Like, I'm not going to say obvious, but obviously when you look back, the... Yeah, and this man's name,

the 70 year-old's name was Richard Buckland. Now Buckland and his motorbike had been seen multiple times near 10 pound lane throughout the day that Don was murdered. He'd been seen driving slowly past her house the day after her murder and he'd been observed watching the search teams before Don's body was found 17 years old. And then he actually approached one of the investigators to talk to him, claiming he'd seen Don walking up the gate leading into 10-pound lane. So I'm just basically including this to show that he's inserting himself in the investigation. But the most concerning piece of information about Richard Buckland was that he told one of his co-workers about the discovery of the body before it had been in the press, only a few hours after it was found.

Again, he works there, so he could have known about it beforehand, but still it's weird. Plus, he had a reputation around the village for scaring girls as they walked home from school. It was like a hobby of his. That's not cool. No. For the task force investigating Don's murder, all of this was enough to arrest Richard Buckland

and take him in for questioning right away. So they showed up at his house on the morning of August 8th and placed him under arrest, much to the shock of his parents, who just couldn't fathom their son being involved in a murder. Once back at the station, they began their questioning of Buckland, who couldn't account for his movements the day of Don's murder, and struggled with the questions in general because Bucklin had some intellectual disabilities and sometimes he trell off during the questioning into discussions about motorcycles and other unrelated topics. So in the middle of being questioned he just started talking about motorcycles.

But the techtives labored hard enough to keep him on track and during all of this it emerged that he knew details about the crime scene which hadn't been released to the public, such as what Don had been wearing and the position her body was found in. And after about 15 hours of questioning, Buckland confessed to raping and murdering Don and actually confessed. Wow, we confessed. Yes. Okay.

Now, charged with Don's brutal murder, it was widely assumed that he was also responsible for Linda Man's murder two years earlier. It has to be. It was clearly done by the same perpetrator. However, Blackland denied responsibility for Linda's murder. And also, Richard Buckland would have only been 14 years old at the time that Linda was killed. That's so young. It doesn't make it impossible that he killed Linda, but it's rather unusual for a 14-year-old to commit a crime of this nature.

It's happened. There are cases where it's happened, but it's rare. Then again, you may remember that one of the suspicious people that witnessed this had seen in the area of Linda's death around the time she was killed was a teenage boy. Multiple sources came forward and said there was this teenage boy running around. But Bucklin was insistent that he had only killed Dawn and not Linda. So this presented a quandary for investigators. The man in charge of the Leicester Shur criminal investigation department was detective chief superintendent David Baker and he had been aware of the development of DNA fingerprinting for some time. He'd heard

about it, he'd read about it, and with the problem of Buckling confessing to Don's murder and denying responsibility for Linda's, Baker felt it may be time to put this new technique to the test. So he reached out to Alec Jeffries, a genetics researcher at the University of Lester, which was incidentally less than 10 miles from where Don and Linda were killed. Jeffries' discovery of DNA profiling was quite accidental,

and he'd been researching hereditary diseases when he'd had this sort of euphoria moment, which led to what began as a side project. This is literally telling the story of how this guy came up with DNA profiling. Jeffries eventually developed DNA fingerprinting along with Peter Gill and Dave Wearett of the Forensic Science Service. And it was used successfully in a maternity case case like I mentioned earlier. In that case, it was proven that a French teenager was the father of an English divorcee's child, and that was a history-making event, though it didn't make much of a media splash at the time. When he was approached by David Baker, Alec Jeffries, who was quite familiar with the footpath murders, was more than

happy to help. And so Jeffries started with the, by then, quite degraded, Siemens sample from the Linda Mann murder, and he was able to develop what he was more than happy to help. And so Jeff restarted by then quite degraded semen sample from the Linda Mann murder. And he was able to develop what he called the genetic signature, which is now what we would call a DNA profile. So it's so crazy. So he comes up with this DNA profile of Linda's killer.

He then developed a DNA profile from a blood sample taken from Richard Buckland. And the result was the man who killed Linda Mann was not Richard Buckland. He had just been eliminated using DNA profiling. I thought for sure you were going to say it's the same person. A week then passed before a full DNA profile was developed from the sample taken from the semen found inside dawn ashworth. The result dawn ashworth killer was the same man who killed linda man.

Therefore Richard Buckland was innocent in both murders. So he just admitted to it, but he didn't do it. He had some learning disabilities. Oh, I thought you were maybe going to say he actually raped them after they had died. I didn't think of that. And so that's why he was connected, but he didn't actually kill them. Right, right. Well, that's obviously not what happened because it still is in his DNA. Yes, it's one of DNA. But I think it just, you know, he was put under pressure, he, you know, didn't have any representation.

Okay. And then he ended up doing a false compression. Wow. This is why we have DNA. Aren't you glad? Jeffries then broke this news to Detective Chief Superintendent David Baker, who was floored. Any chance of a mistake, Baker asked?

Alex Jeffries was wondering the same thing himself. So he had the test repeated by independent parties at his home office, and they reached the exact same conclusion. And Richard Bucklin was then released. Bucklin later explained that the pressures the interrogators imposed on him was too much, and he ultimately just caved and falsely confessed, believing there was no other way out of the situation. And what Richard Bucklin may not have fully appreciated in that moment was that he had just made history, becoming the first man to be exonerated by DNA evidence.

That's awesome. Alex Jeffries later stated that he had no doubt that Buckland would have been tried and found guilty had it not been for that DNA. He's like a hundred percent. This guy would have served a prison sentence for this if this DNA had not excluded him. But now the hunt was on again for the sadistic killer of the two 15 year old school girls on the footpaths.

They have more to go on here because now they know for sure it was the same killer. Imagine having to explain to Don's family that although this kid confessed and had acted extremely weird after the murder, this new science experiment scientist found confirmed he didn't do it. Like a DNA profile wasn't even a phrase yet. I'm sure they could wrap their minds around it because of fingerprinting and blood types,

but still it was probably really hard for them to be like, what do you mean this little test just said he didn't do it? He said he did it. The county police now believed in the legitimacy of this new technique and they came up with a novel idea. A genetic dragnet. In January 1987, a massive coordinated campaign was organized between both the villages of Narbro and Enderby as well as the nearby village of Little Thorpe where they asked more than 5,500 local men between the ages of 17 and 34 to give their blood in an effort to identify the footpath killer. Essentially, they are creating the first DNA database without even realizing it. Imagine how expensive the investigation must have been by this point with all of this new scientific stuff.

This was such an ambitious effort and it's the kind you wouldn't really have seen in a larger city where crimes like rape and murder are more of a common thing. But some reasonable corners were cut here. Of the blood samples that they collected, they only test those who had the same blood type A with a PGM1 plus enzyme as the killer. So that's 10% of the population. So they really weren't able to cut down their field quite a bit. And so once all 5,500 plus samples were obtained, roughly 550 of those would have been DNA tested.

This collection effort would end up spanning six whole months. And unfortunately, once all of the samples were tested, none of them matched the footpath killer. Okay, so now what? Well, it was a tremendous disappointment. That was until August 1st of that year, a year and a day from the date of dawn Ashworth's murder. That Saturday afternoon, some bakery workers on their lunch break were drinking at a local

pub called the Claren Den when one of the workers, a man named Ian Kelly, made an interesting claim. Kelly claimed that his coworker at the bakery, a guy named Colin Pitchfork, had offered him 200 quid to masquerade his Colin and take the blood test for him. Kelly himself did not live in either enderby or norbro nor in little Thorpe, so he wasn't among the 5500 men asked to give a sample. Pitchfork explained to Kelly that he himself had already given a sample for another guy a friend of his and so now he needed someone to cover for

him to go show up and be him to take the test. He also told his coworker he'd had encounters with the police in the past and didn't really want to deal with them, so he's like, can you just go do this for me? So Ian Kelly had agreed, and the two men then went to a photo booth where Ian Kelly had his picture taken, and then Colin Pitchfork took the photo of Ian, back home, and inserted it into his passport replacing his own photo. Kelly then showed up to give the blood sample as Colin Pitchfork using Pitchfork's doctor passport. Ian Kelly's manager at the bakery where they worked was at the pub and was part of this conversation. And she walked away from it, troubled. And it continued to

not hurt until she finally just went to police a little over a month later to tell them what she overheard. Police looked at the signature on the form that Colin Pitchfork had allegedly signed when giving his blood. And they noticed that it did not match Colin Pitchfork's other signatures. They think that what his coworker had just told them is true. So they decided this point to arrest Ian Kelly, who's the man who went and took the test forum. And he admitted to covering for Colin Pitchfork and told them the whole story. Colin Pitchfork, a 27 year old baker with his own side businesses decorating cakes.

He was a married father of two young boys and a man with multiple previous arrests for flashing and indecent exposure with teenage girls. In 1980, he was even sent for psychiatric counseling at the Carlton Hayes Hospital. Of course he was. The psychiatric hospital sandwiched between the two footpath murders. Considering all of this, the police arrest Colin Pitch pitch fork on September 19th 1987 and he confessed almost immediately to both footpath murders. Okay, so he confessed but that doesn't get me excited about them catching the right murder because this is already happened once. It's already happened once.

Dayjavu. Now we got to get to the DNA process. He admitted to exposing himself to over a thousand women beginning in his early teens, a compulsion that escalated to sexual assault and eventually murder. And shockingly, he detailed how before attacking and killing Linda Mann, he'd parked his car near the footpath and left his infant son in the backseat when he carried out. Oh, that is sick. That is so sick. The police meanwhile took Colin Pitchfork's blood and compared the DNA to the DNA of the footpath killer. And it was a perfect match.

Investigators learned of other incidents that Colin Pitchfork had been involved in, including two sexual assaults and a kidnapping. In the kidnapping incident, Pitchfork had offered a ride to a 17-year-old girl named Liz Knight, whom he had spotted walking home by herself late at night. She'd asked him before getting into the car if he was a rapist, which he assured her he wasn't. It wasn't until she got in his car and buckled up that she noticed him staring at her

in a way that made her pretty nervous. It really revolting dead eyes, she said, that just stared right through me, and knew then that I had made a mistake, and indeed she had. As they approached her turn off, Colin didn't reduce speed and ignored her directions. That is like such a scary moment. Yeah, I can imagine.

He just kept right on going, not saying another thing to her, accelerating faster as an evil smirk appeared on his face. That's when Liz took the steering wheel and struggled with him as she tried to force him off the road. He slammed on the brakes and yelled at her. I thought you wanted it. I thought this is what you wanted. You're a freaking kidding.

Yeah, he's nuts. All I want is to go home, she cried. Colin regained his composure, turned the car around in the direction of her home, explaining that he'd had a couple drinks, Liz then offered to drive if he was too drunk. I haven't hurt you yet. Colin reassured the sobbing teenager as he put his hand on her knee.

As they approached the turn off, he slowed the car to a stop. And as the trembling young woman unbuckled her seatbelt, he asked her, how about a good night kiss then? He is such a just, he is a predator, saying nothing she bolted from his car and before driving away, he said to her,

I bet you would never accept a lift from a stranger again. So this girl could have easily been murdered just as the other girls, but somehow she escaped. It's Camp Levy's married and has two kids like what a sickening human being. Colin Pitchfork was charged with two counts of murder, two counts of sexual assault, one count of kidnapping, and one count of conspiracy to pervert justice for having his workmate pose as him for his blood collection. The workmate, Ian Kelly, was himself convicted of this charge and received an 18-month suspended sentence.

A psychiatric report that was compiled by a doctor diagnosed pitchfork as a psychopath. He was sentenced to two life terms which carried at the time a minimum sentence of 30 years. At his sentencing the high court judge said to Colin Pitchfort, quote, the rapes and murders were of a particularly sadistic kind. And if it wasn't for DNA, you might still be at large today and other women would still be in danger. And the Lord chief justice stated, quote, from the point of view of the safety of the public, I doubt you should ever be released. So was he still alive today? Yes, Colin, Pitchfork is still alive today. Oh, that's that's scary. Pitchfork has apparently been a model prisoner. And while incarcerated, he earned a degree, becoming an expert at the transcription of printed music into Braille. And also became an accomplished artist.

One of his sculptures was actually exhibited at the Royal Festival Hall in 2009, a sculpture called Bringing the Music to Life. But there was an outcry from victim advocacy groups in the sculpture was probably removed, which like duh, he can't put a sculpture while he's serving life in prison. Yeah, that doesn't make sense.

And then, incredibly, in 2016, the parole board moved Colin Pitchfork to an open prison, which means the prisoners are allowed employment outside the prison and limited access to the community. So he's not like, we never learn from our mistakes, do we? No. And the following year, Colin Pitchfork was indeed seen and photographed walking around Bristol. He was being allowed on supervised

days at this point. So he is let back out into the community. This is pretty astounding. Some key differences there between the UK prison system and how things kind of are done here in the States. But then in 2021, pitchfork was actually granted release on what's called a conditional license, which is sort of like probation, where he's closely monitored and required to follow a strict set of roles in guidelines.

How old is he? I think he's roughly 61, at this time that he's being released. The number of conditions Pitchfork had to respect was more than five times what the average parole murderer would have to agree to. And those included a GPS tag to monitor his movements, exclusion zones, curfews, and polygraph tests. It was the most restrictive set of conditions ever imposed on a parold

prisoner in England. However, only two months after his release, that release was revoked and Colin Pitchfork was returned to prison because it was reported that he had been get this approaching young women while out on walks from the halfway house where he was living. Yeah, what a surprise. It's, I never would have thought he was going to reoffend. Yeah, come on. And it was the probation staff at the halfway house that raised these concerns. And it was also learned that pitchfork was learning breathing techniques that would allow him to

fool his polygraph tests that he was supposed to be taking. And here's the chilling thing. After all of this, Colin Pitchfork has another parole hearing scheduled for December 2022. Oh, there's no way he's getting out. And then not after this case goes out. Listen, we will keep you up today if you see anything keep us up today because that is coming up soon. And he's already got out once. He is staying in prison.

I sure hope so for murdering two teenage girls and then assaulting their corpses. But that is the story of the footpath murders and the birth of DNA profiling. Can't you believe that's the story? It's like a super bittersweet, just in the fact that horrible that those two girls died,

but also amazing that DNA was able to catch them, otherwise, who knows what else he would have done. Well, and just like, I found this story so interesting because you see all of these things becoming, like DNA profiling without them realizing, a database without them realizing, things that would be used so prominently in the future

to now solve over 200 cold cases like genetic DNA has ever since the Golden State Killer. I think this is just one of the most amazing things we've seen in the true crime community and I'm so happy that it's happening and the cases are being closed and I mean we have to give respect to the cases that started at all, the footpath murders. Okay you guys, that is our episode for this week, and we will see you guys soon for our virtual live show and another episode. I love it. And I hate it.

Goodbye. you