ITV show Am I A Murderer? looks into case of farmer who claims she murdered the man who raped her 42 years ago – but the police don’t believe her
Janet Holt was never charged with the murder of Fred Handford in 1976 despite her informing police after traumatic memories resurfaced during therapy
A TV documentary has uncovered fresh evidence backing the bizarre story of Janet Holt, who claims she murdered a man after he raped her.
The farmer has never been charged for the killing of Fred Handford in 1976, despite the fact she informed police after the traumatic memories resurfaced after she had therapy almost eight years ago.
Detectives probing the unsolved mystery believe she is a con artist and can find no evidence supporting her claims. But the new ITV show, Am I Murderer?, saw her version of events probed by a top psychologist, Professor Jamie Hacker Hughes.
The former president of the British Psychological Society said that although her recollections of the murder were vague, her memory of the rapes which she says prompted it were compelling.
He said: “Her recall of the two rapes leads me to feel, yes, this is something that actually happened.”
Janet, who was 26 at the time, claims that after he raped her twice, she shot Fred, 56, at point-blank range with a shotgun then buried his body in a shallow grave on Ballbeard Farm which the business partners ran near the town of New Mills in Derbyshire.
She believes the traumatic event was buried deep in her memory until the therapy retrieved them. But police believe Janet, who was once jailed for stealing thousands of pounds, may have made them up to supply a juicy ending to her autobiography which she was writing at the time.
Det Insp Paul Cullen said: “She has tried to con police and psychologist to try and make financial gain.”
They have never discovered what happened to Fred, or uncovered any remains, and the case remains open. His family are convinced Janet did kill him, believing she would inherit the farm once he was dead.
His daughter Lynette Chapman refuses to believe her father was capable of rape. But she admits in the documentary, which airs on Wednesday night, that she once had to defend herself against her violent father with a knife, and he once attacked her mother.
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She said: “He hit my mum. I heard her scream and she was holding her face - I had to call the police and call the doctor and she had to go into hospital because she was so swollen and couldn’t breath properly because he’d squeezed her throat.”
Janet, now 69, who still lived on the farm, has previously said she would rather go to jail for the murder now than have it hanging over her.
In the documentary she says: “There’s always the thought, of that possibility of a knock on the door in the future. But I’ve done everything I can - and I can’t do any more.
“It’s so frustrating when you feel that people are not even beginning to believe you and you’re left with no other way of convincing them other than just repeating the truth all the time.”