TEEN MURDER
What happened to Lesley Whittle and who killed her?
More than 400 police officers were involved in the high-profile search
A CHANNEL 5 documentary tells the story of the abduction and murder of Lesley Whittle.
Here we take a look at what happened to Lesley Whittle in 1975 and if the killer convicted of her death is still alive today.
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What happened to Lesley Whittle?
In January 1975, Lesley Whittle was abducted from her bedroom in the quiet village of Highley, Shropshire, by serial killer Donald Neilson, known as The Black Panther.
Born on May 3, 1957, Lesley was just 17-years-old at the time of her abduction.
She was only wearing her dressing gown and slippers when she was taken.
The teenager became a target because of a public family dispute over the will of her father George, who died in 1972.
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As the head of a successful coach business in Shropshire, he left a fortune of £300,000 - to partner Dorothy and their two children, Ronald and Lesley.
Having read a newspaper report on the case, Neilson began plotting his heinous crime - watching the family’s home for a year to establish their routines and the best way in and out of the property.
Then, in the early hours of the morning in January 1975, Neilson travelled to Lesley’s home address, cut the telephone wires, and entered the property via the garage.
Once there, he let himself into the teenager's room where he gagged her, tied her hands, and forced her out of the house to a Morris 1100 that he had stolen to use during the kidnapping.
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She was just an ordinary college girl. She shouldn’t have been treated like that by anybody
Former officer Alex Salt
The terrified teenager was then driven almost two hours to Bathpool Park, Staffordshire.
There he forced her down a maze of drains and tunnels that reached 90ft below ground.
The morning after Lesley's abduction, the teenager's mother Dorothy awoke to discover her daughter missing from her bed.
Dorothy tried to call her then 28-year-old son Ron who lived nearby, but the lines were dead so she drove to his house.
On their return, Ron searched the house and found a Turkish delight box containing four rolls of Dymo-tape - plastic tape that could be punched with letters and words.
A sinister message was also discovered, saying that Lesley had been kidnapped and that a ransom of £50,000 was being demanded.
It also contained instructions to go to a bank of phone boxes outside a nearby shopping centre that evening between 6pm and 1am and wait for a call.
The discovery then ended with the sinister threat: “No police, no tricks - or death.”
Despite this, the family went to the police and the story soon dominated national headlines for 11 months - with the investigation involving officers from the West Mercia Constabulary, Staffordshire and West Midlands police forces, and the Metropolitan Police.
More than 400 police officers were involved in the search, but they failed to free Lesley, including an unsuccessful ransom drop.
Lesley’s body was later discovered in the shaft on March 7, 1975.
The teenager’s blue dressing gown was found hanging above the platform, alongside a sleeping bag and a survival blanket.
A wire was also fastened to the bottom of the ladder and when an officer shone a torch below the platform, he found Lesley’s body, hanging from the wire noose around her neck, just 7 inches from the ground.
Discussing the tragic finding, former officer Alec Salt said: “I’d seen the body and it was the body of a young woman.
“She was just an ordinary college girl. She shouldn’t have been treated like that by anybody.”
Is Donald Neilson still alive?
Following the discovery of Lesley's body, in December 1975, two police officers spotted a man acting suspiciously in Mansfield.
The man in question turned out to be Neilson.
Neilson was holding a shotgun, however, police were able to arrest him.
Following the arrest, an investigation found Neilson’s fingerprints to match one of those in the drain shaft, and as a result, he admitted to the kidnapping.
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He claimed Lesley had died on the third day of captivity, after accidentally falling off the platform when she moved to allow him to sit down.
In July 1976, Neilson - who had already killed three sub-postmasters in armed robberies - was jailed for life for the murders and died in prison in 2011, aged 75.
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