Cannock Chase murders

On the afternoon of 12 January 1966, the body of Diana Tift was found by a man hunting rabbits. She lay half-concealed in undergrowth aside a water-logged ditch at Mansty Gulley on Cannock Chase in Staffordshire, between the villages of Penkridge and Littleton.[25] This location was a seldom-used farm track just half a mile from the A34.[26][11][n 1] An autopsy later revealed the child had been raped, then suffocated with the pixie hood of her anorak as her murderer had pressed upon her nose and mouth.[28]

The naked body of Margaret Reynolds lay just inches away. Her body was largely skeletonized, and none of her clothing was ever recovered save for one shoe. As such, pathologists were unable to determine her cause of death.[29] Aside from traces of semen found upon and within Tift's body, no forensic evidence was recovered from the crime scene.[30]

Prior to the discovery of the children's bodies, police had concluded their abductions were linked. The modus operandi of Taylor's 1964 abduction and body disposal also led investigators to strongly link her abduction and attempted murder to the same perpetrator.[28] At a press conference held on 14 January, the Assistant Chief Constable of Staffordshire Police, Thomas Lockley, informed the media: "We are hunting a dangerous child killer who may strike again."[31]

At 2:30 p.m. on 19 August 1967, a seven-year-old named Christine Darby was lured into a grey car as she played with friends near her home in Camden Street, Caldmore, Walsall.[38] The individual had asked Darby and her two friends if they knew the directions to Caldmore Green. When the children pointed the direction to this individual, adding his intended destination was just a short distance up the road, he had feigned confusion and asked Christine to enter the car and show him the way, promising to drive her back to her friends immediately afterwards. The child—whose parents did not own a car—had entered the vehicle excitedly.[39] Her friends then observed the vehicle reverse, then drive at speed in the opposite direction to Caldmore Green—the direction of Cannock Chase.[19]

The witnesses to Darby's abduction immediately ran to Darby's home to report the incident to her mother; she in turn almost immediately ran to a payphone and notified police.[n 3] With assistance from neighbouring police forces, the devised plan to install roadblocks at all minor and major roads exiting Walsall and further afield was immediately implemented.[40]

Questioned by police, the two witnesses to Darby's abduction explained the man had been in his mid-thirties, clean-shaven and with dark brown hair. He wore a white shirt and drove a grey car—possibly an A55 or A60 "Farina" model Austin Cambridge or a Morris Oxford—and spoke in a notable local accent. One of the children in particular, seven-year-old Nicholas Baldry, remained adamant the man had pronounced Caldmore Green as "Carmer Green" and not "Cold-moor Green", as only a local individual would.[n 4] This information further reaffirmed the police view they were hunting a local man. Furthermore, all three children had lived within a seventeen-mile radius of each other and near the arterial A34 road which passes through Cannock Chase.[42] As such, police concentrated their manhunt for the perpetrator in and around Walsall.[43] A team of 80 detectives began house-to-house enquiries in a renewed effort to apprehend the murderer.[44]

The police flyer distributed in and around the West Midlands appealing for eyewitnesses to the abduction and murder of Christine Darby.

On the afternoon of 22 August, a soldier named Michael Blundred, searching a cluster of trees within an area of Cannock Chase known to the Forestry Commission as Plantation 110 discovered the child's sprawled, naked body partially concealed by fern branches.[48] This individual immediately raised his right hand and called for his colleagues to halt the search.[47]

Darby lay on her back on a small ridge between two rows of trees. She was naked from the waist down, with her arms outstretched, her legs parted and her knees raised. Blood had stained the grass and needles beneath her body, indicating the child had been sexually assaulted where she lay. Signs of petechial haemorrhage about Darby's face and neck and the fact her tongue protruded beyond the tooth margin indicated she had died of suffocation.[49] The location of her discovery was only a mile from where the bodies of Reynolds and Tift had been discovered the previous year.[10]

A detailed examination of the crime scene on the morning of 23 August revealed fragmented tyre tracks close to where Darby's body had been discovered.[n 5] These tyre impressions extended 140 yards from the open heath into the plantation where the child's body was discovered, and clearly indicated Darby's murderer had driven into the plantation, then later reversed some distance from the location prior to performing a U-turn.[50]

Margaret Reynolds (left), Diana Tift (centre), and Christine Darby

The manhunt for the Cannock Chase murderer was now led by Sir Stanley Bailey, Staffordshire's Assistant Chief Constable at the time.[51][52] Via a process of elimination, investigators began the task of identifying and eliminating all vehicles upon Cannock Chase on the afternoon in question from the enquiry. Over the following months, the owners of over 600 vehicles known to be upon Cannock Chase were traced and eliminated from the enquiry.[53][n 6]

Two individuals who had been on Cannock Chase on the afternoon of 19 August reported to investigators they remembered seeing a grey vehicle parked close to the location where the child's body was discovered. The vehicle in question had been driven by a white male with dark hair.[26] One of these witnesses, Victor Whitehouse, gave a detailed description of the man, whom he had observed leaning on the door of a vehicle he believed to be a Cambridge or Oxford saloon parked where police had found the vehicle's tyre tracks. Whitehouse was certain he would recognise the man should he see him again. The other witness, Jeanne Rawlings, was certain the vehicle was an Austin Cambridge A60.[54]

In response to this information, police began the mammoth task of tracing every grey Austin A55 and A60 in the Midlands.[4] Over the following months, investigators checked 1,375,000 files from eleven local taxation offices, identifying 23,097 vehicles which needed to be traced, their owners interviewed, and their alibi on the date of Darby's abduction verified. As each successive vehicle was eliminated from the enquiry, investigators expanded their search radius—gradually interviewing the owners of over 44,000 Austin A55 and A60 vehicles in and around the Midlands.[55][n 7] In what would prove to be the first instance in British criminal history in which police created and distributed a colour facial composite of a suspect in a manhunt, over 2,000 copies of a facial composite of the individual seen close to Plantation 110 were distributed throughout the country on 5 September.[56] This Identikit produced several thousands of further leads for police to investigate—ultimately to no avail.[55]

Morris was arrested in connection with Aulton's attempted abduction. He denied any knowledge of the incident, but did confirm to detectives—who were aware Morris had been questioned four times in recent years in relation to the abductions and murders[n 9]—that he had only purchased the Corsair within the previous year, having previously owned a grey Austin A55. Investigators were also struck by his uncanny resemblance to the 1967 composite drawing.[13]

By 12 November, an examination of Morris's insurance records revealed that at the time of the abduction of Julia Taylor and the murder of Margaret Reynolds, he had owned a two-tone Vauxhall Velox, which he had sold in November 1965. Furthermore, petrol receipts obtained from his employer placed him in specific areas at the time of abductions. For example, he had been driving a green company-issued Hillman Super Minx on the date of Reynolds' abduction, being tasked with visiting a particular Aston firm on this date.[61] However, the young woman who had observed Aulton's attempted abduction failed to identify Morris from an identity parade, resulting in his being released. Shortly thereafter, investigators from Scotland Yard were again called to assist in the investigation.[58]

Raymond Leslie Morris was born on 13 August 1929 in Walsall, Staffordshire (now part of the county of West Midlands).[4] Morris lived in Walsall his entire life and was reported to have an IQ of 120.[8][4] In 1951, he married the daughter of a neighbour who was two years younger than he; the couple fathered two boys.[8] Their marriage lasted less than ten years before his first wife left the marital home, in part due his violent behaviour. The coupe officially divorced on the grounds of adultery when she later gave birth to another man's child.[8]

An engineer by trade, by 1967, Morris had risen to the rank of foreman at a precision instruments factory in the town of Oldbury. Both personally and professionally, he was considered polite and helpful, but unfriendly.[7][4][58]

Morris's first wife would later describe her first husband as a highly-sexed individual with a need to express sexual dominance and whose "cheeks would go pale" if she did not disrobe immediately upon his ordering her to do so.[8] At the age of 35, Morris married again, this time to a 21-year-old woman named Carol Horsley.[4] The year prior to Darby's murder, in October 1966, he had been suspected of taking indecent photographs of two schoolgirls, aged 10 and 11, whom he had encountered truanting and who he had lured into his flat. He was not charged in relation to this incident as although police had searched Morris's flat, they had failed to find any evidence to corroborate the children's claims.[13] At the time of the A34 murders, Morris and his wife lived at Flat 20, Regent House, Green Lane, Walsall.[4][58]

Morris was brought to trial at Stafford Assizes on 10 February 1969, charged with the murder of Christine Darby, two counts of sexual assault against his niece, and the attempted abduction of Margaret Aulton. He was tried before Mr Justice Ashworth.[7]

On the second day of the trial, two of the most crucial prosecution witnesses—Victor Whitehouse and Jeanne Rawlings—testified as to their eyewitness statements regarding the man they had seen on Cannock Chase on 19 August 1967 and the Identikits they had subsequently helped investigators to produce. Although on both occasions Morris's defense counsel asked his client to stand before handing the witnesses copies of the colour and black-and-white composites, asking both to compare these composites to Morris as he physically appeared in the courtroom and stating "Neither Identikit picture bears very much resemblance to [Morris], does it?", both witnesses disagreed, with Whitehouse concluding his testimony by stating: "I think if I had happened to see Mr. Morris walking down a street on the other side, any time after August 1967, I would have been able to pick him out."[63]

Carol Morris would eventually become the chief witness for the prosecution and retract what she had initially told investigators about shopping on the day of Darby's murder.[4] Detective Inspector Pat Molloy reported that when informed he was to be arrested for the murder of Christine Darby, Morris had exclaimed "Oh God. Is it my wife?";[64] Morris denied making such a statement, and alleged that he had been beaten in police interrogations.[13]

In November 2010, Morris was granted a judicial review of the refusal of the Criminal Cases Review Commission to refer his case to the Court of Appeal, in a bid to overturn his conviction.[68] A statement from Morris's defence team said:

The application for a judicial review is the first stage in his attempts to have the matter referred back to the Court of Appeal after 42 years in prison. If Morris's conviction was overturned it would be the longest running miscarriage of justice in British history. It might also potentially mean that a child murderer had remained at large for more than 40 years during Morris's incarceration.[69][70]

However, Mr Justice Simon rejected the judicial review.[71] Shortly thereafter, Morris indicated his potential intention to transfer his case to the European Court of Human Rights. He later abandoned this plan, adding his belief he would die in prison.[72]

The Austin A55 used by Morris to abduct Christine Darby is publicly burned on 28 March 1969

The four-year enquiry into the Cannock Chase murders is reported to be one of the most exhaustive British child murder investigations of the 20th century. By the time investigators had apprehended Morris, they had amassed millions of index cards, making the volume of information so enormous and cumbersome that by the autumn of 1967 the task of cross-checking information had become difficult and laborious.[60]

Although convicted only of murdering Christine Darby, Morris is considered the chief suspect in the deaths of both Reynolds and Tift in addition to the abduction and attempted murder of Julia Taylor,[73] despite a lack of sufficient evidence for him to be charged with either murder or Taylor's attempted murder.[7] All three cases were officially closed in 1969.[5][8] Relatives of all three children share investigators' conviction Morris had killed both children and attempted to murder Taylor in addition to having killed Christine Darby.[5]

Shortly after the conclusion of Morris's trial, it was discovered that in early 1966, his own brother had entered Cannock police station, stating he and his mother had long known of his predilection for prepubescent girls and that they believed Morris to be capable of abducting and murdering Reynolds and Tift, whose bodies had at the time yet to be found. However, as Morris's brother had no evidence to substantiate his statement, his report had simply been marked 'No Further Action' . Due to a filing error, this incident was not discovered until after the trial.[13]

Five weeks after the conclusion of Morris's trial, on 28 March 1969, the Austin A55 car in which he had abducted and murdered Christine Darby was bought by a Worcestershire-based car dealer, who immediately drove the car onto the forecourt of his garage and publicly burned the vehicle.[74]

Raymond Morris died at the HMP Preston health facility of natural causes on 11 March 2014 at the age of 84,[75] having spent the final 45 years of his life in prison. He never admitted his guilt in any of the Cannock Chase murders, or any semblance of remorse.[61]

Morris was reportedly issued with a whole life tariff by a Home Secretary or High Court judge at some stage, although this was never confirmed by the Home Office.[76] By the time of Morris's death, he had become one of the oldest and longest-serving prisoners in England and Wales.[77]

Nine months after Morris's death, the Ministry of Justice publicly released the details of the cost of Morris's taxpayer-funded cremation. In response, a retired policewoman named Maureen Freeman, who had participated in the manhunt to identify and apprehend Morris, stated: "I'm sure the families of his victims would be disgusted. Cannock Chase will never forget what he did."[78]

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• Contemporary news article detailing the discovery of the bodies of the first two victims of the Cannock Chase Murders
• 17 February 1969 Canberra Times news article detailing the trial of Raymond Morris
• 2011 Birmingham Mail article pertaining to the Cannock Chase murders
• 2014 BBC news article focusing upon Morris's death
• Sickening Cases of the Cannock Chase Murders at thefreelibrary.com
• The Cannock Chase Murders at crimeandinvestigation.co.uk