Lynne Weedon was just 16 when she was murdered in a Hounslow alleyway in 1975 but her killer has never been found
Lynne Weedon was brutally murdered in 1975(Image: PA)
A girl “shone” and was celebrating her exam results was found raped and dumped with fatal injuries – and the killer has never been found.
Lynne Weedon was just 16 years old when she was discovered unconscious on the grounds of an electricity station in Hounslow one morning in 1975. She had been struck over the head with a blunt object, thrown over a fence, raped and left for dead and tragically passed away in hospital seven days later.
To this day, her sick murderer remains a mystery. On the evening of September 3, Lynne, a bright and well-liked teenager, had been making her way home after celebrating her O-level results with school friends at a nearby pub.
Her route back to her home on Lampton Avenue took her through an alleyway running alongside her school. The passage would usually take her a minute to walk through. But that night, she never came out of it.
Lynne was driven and gifted, with aspirations to complete her A-Levels and pursue a career as a translator for the European Parliament.
Lynne had ambitions of being a translator(Image: PA)
Vernon Grant, a retired television producer, was also 16 and had recently left school to take up a position at a solicitor’s office when Lynne was killed. Both were part of a close-knit circle at Lampton School, though Grant had not been at the pub on September 3, having chosen to stay home and watch the football match between England and Switzerland.
He learned of the tragedy the following day. He told the BBC: “I received a telephone call from another school pupil whose house and garden backed on to the alley. It was beyond belief.
“I found it frankly impossible to believe that anybody could’ve been attacked there in an alleyway we all used for school, and so close to Lynne’s front door. She lived right next to our school, which was convenient for break times and gatherings. In 1975, in Hounslow, stranger murders just didn’t happen, it was unheard of.”
Grant said that Lynne’s murder continues to cast a long shadow over her friends half a century on. “We all felt for Lynne’s parents greatly. But when a murder happens, sometimes other people, friends, get forgotten. The trickle-down effects of a murder go way beyond the immediate family.The effects, I believe, can last for decades.”
Lynne Weedon was found a few yards from her home and school near Lampton Avenue in Hounslow(Image: Mirrorpix)
Grant said his friend’s murder “left a scar on us all. It affected everybody”. He recalled a well-liked girl, who excelled at sport, including athletics and tennis.
He added: “She was the cleverest in our year, but very humble and modest with it. She had a particular gift with languages, whether it was German, Spanish or French.
“The thing about Lynne was that she was popular with just about everybody. She was a good friend. She shone.”
Derek Carruthers was a young PC serving on the murder squad at Leytonstone police station when he became the first officer at the scene of Ms Stratford’s murder, recalling it as “the most vicious type of injury I’d ever seen”. He left the Met Police two years afterwards as a Detective Sergeant, returning to his native Ireland.
Now aged 79, he has travelled to London to speak with me, driven by his conviction that resolving these two linked cases remains vital. He said: “In the ’80s I became aware of the advances in DNA and wrote to the Met because I knew there was semen among the exhibits for Eve Stratford, and suggested that they have a look at it.”
Upon the link being confirmed, he said he “realised there was a possible serial killer” and “as a consequence I’ve kept an interest in it”.
Carruthers admitted the case continues to weigh on him five decades later: “You wonder what has happened in the last 50 years. Has [the killer] died, has he gone off the radar, has he moved away? I would hope that DNA would eventually answer that question.”
The Metropolitan Police confirmed both cases remain active, but declined to reveal whether there were additional DNA connections – or if any other unsolved cases might be linked.
Det Ch Insp Ali Foxwell, of the Specialist Crime Command, said technological advances enabled them to connect Ms Stratford and Lynne’s murders, but “it would be inappropriate to comment further on an ongoing investigation”.
She said there is no evidence linking the murders to any other historic case, “but we retain an open mind”.
Historic unsolved cases undergo regular review to determine if they can be progressed with the passage of time.