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Kill Total: |
5 |
Kill place: |
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Kill date: |
1975 |
Victim(s): |
Sydney Grayland
Donald Lawson
Derek Astin
Leslie Whittle
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Date of Birth: |
1937 |
Marital Status: |
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AKA: |
Black Panther |
Occupation: |
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Aged 39 when jailed for
life, this sadistic psychopath played war games with his
wife and daughter. His prime motive in the killings, it is
alleged, was greed - financial gain.
The Black panther had committed various crimes including
the hold-ups of sub-post offices, but is best remembered
as the killer of Leslie Whittle.
On 14th January 1975, the Whittle family were subjected to
a particularly horrifying ordeal that would stay with them
and friend and family for a very long time.
On Mrs Whittle's arrival at the house at 12:45am, she
found that her daughter Lesley Whittle, was asleep in bed.
She took her usual sleeping tablet and slept heavily,
waking at 7.00am and making breakfast for Lesley.
She was surprised to find that Lesley was not in bed, and
the clothes that she was to wear that day were still
neatly folded on the chair. In panic, she then picked up
the telephone to ring Lesley's brother, Ronald. The
telephone was dead. She rushed in her dressing gown to the
car to find the door was open from the lounge to the
garage. This door was rarely used and was supposed to be
locked. After her arrival at Ronald's home, Ronald and his
wife Gaynor accompanied Mrs Whittle back to the house.
There they found a box of Turkish delight on the
hearth-rug in front of the fireplace with a ransom demand
of £50,000.00, and giving instructions for someone from
the family to be at a telephone box the next day to
receive instructions on passing the money. The message
also said that if police were involved then "death" was
the outcome. It was then clear that Lesley had been
abducted from her house when she was in bed and only her
robe and slippers were missing.
Ron Whittle called the police and reported all the
details. The police made arrangements for the telephone
call to be monitored.
TOP
When the telephone call came on 16th January 1975 at
11:30pm, the call was a taped message spoken by Lesley.
The message said that she was alright, and that someone
from her family was to go to the telephone box in
Kidsgrove to retrieve a message that was behind the
back-board of the kiosk. Her voice was verified by Ron
Whittle and the police then made arrangements for a radio
link to be established, with a spiders web of police
assistance discreetly across the area. Ron was assured
that if he was in need of help, then it could be with him
in under two minutes. All this arranging took 2 hours, and
Ron Whittle left Bridgenorth Police Station at 1:30am to
drive to Kidsgrove. He took a wrong turning in the dark
and eventually arrived at Kidsgrove Post Office telephone
box. After looking for 30 minutes, he found a message that
told him to go to Bathpool Park, which is situated about 1
1/2 miles away. The message instructed him to;
"GO TO THE TOP OF THE LANE AND TURN INTO NO ENTRY GO TO
THE WALL AND FLASH LIGHTS LOOK FOR TORCHLIGHT RUN TO TORCH
FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS ON TORCH"
Ron arrived at Bathpool Park and turned into the "No
Entry" as instructed, but in the dark he did not see the
low wall that edged the railway bridge, and drove to the
end of the lane. He stopped, flashed his lights, got out
of the car and shouted, and there was no-one there. Ron
left the park and met up again with the police.
On 7th February 1975 the police discreetly searched the
park. There was nothing found. On 10th February 1975, the
news black-out was lifted.
A television interview on 2nd March 1975 was staged, with
Ron Whittle and the police. Ron had to mention his trip to
Bathpool Park on TV, and the police needed to act as if
they did not know about this, so that they could stage a
full search of the area. After this interview, a Kidsgrove
headmaster contacted police with a few plastic dymo type
labels two of his pupils had found in the park. One said
"DROP SUITCASE INTO HOLE". The next development was of a
couple of school boys finding a torch wedged in the
grilles of what was locally known as the "glory-hole".
This was one of the capped ventilation shafts of the old
Harecastle Tunnel. The boys said that a plastic label was
attached to the torch which they peeled off, but they said
that they never read it.
TOP
Thursday 6th March 1975 an urgent search of
the park was instructed, starting with the glory-hole. A
Detective Constable went into the shaft and found a Dymo
machine and a roll of tape and not much else. The second
shaft was then checked and nothing was found.
The third shaft, the deepest of the three near to the park
entrance that was once a shaft to Nelsons Coal Mine was
then uncapped. This had to be checked for gas as it was to
a coal mine, and so the search was abandoned until the
next day.
On Friday 7th March Nelsons Coal Mine shaft was uncapped.
It showed a vertical ladder at the side, and a landing
22ft down the shaft. On this first landing was found a
broken torch. This had been dropped down the shaft by
police when lifting the cap. There was then a second
landing, approximately 45ft down from the surface. On this
landing there was a tape recorder. There was then seen a
third landing, approximately 54ft below the surface. On
this landing was a rolled up sleeping bag against the
bottom of the latter to act as a pillow, a yellow foam
mattress and a survival blanket. Then Lesley's body was
seen hanging from the landing, suspended by a steel wire
around her neck. Her feet were only 7 inches from the
floor.
Inspection of the floor of the shaft, approximately a
further 7ft below the third landing was a number of items.
There were strips of used elastoplast 3 inches wide, one
had some of Lesley's eyebrow hairs attached to it and had
been used as a blindfold; there were some brown trainers,
size 7, more Dymotape, a cassette tape, microphone and
lead, Lesley's slippers, a thermos flask, blue cord
trousers and a reporters note pad. In all these things
there was only one partial fingerprint and that was on the
notepad. After four months of every other fingerprint
investigation being put practically on hold, no match
could be found to this print.
On the night of 11th December two policemen in their car
in Mansfied saw a man rushing past and seemed to be hiding
his face. They got out of their car as routine and asked
the man his name and where he was going. The man replied
he was "John Moxon" and then pulled a gun out of his coat
and told the two policemen he wanted them to take him to a
nearby village of Blidworth. When they got to Blidworth,
one of the policemen managed to distract the gunman long
enough to move the barrel from his partners side, and the
gun was fired, tearing a hole in the roof of the car, and
throwing shrapnel all over the driver. The car was stopped
outside the local fish and chip shop where it took both
policemen and the customers from the shop, and a large
miner to capture this wiry little man and put him in
handcuffs. It was said that he fought like a wild animal
and was so strong that it was near impossible to hold him.
TOP
Back at the police station, "John Moxon" was searched and
was found to be carrying a duplicate of each thing he
carried. He had two watches on one strap that were
perfectly synchronised, two torches and two sets of
batteries, two knives, two razor blades and two pairs of
gloves.
As a matter of routine, his fingerprints were taken before
he was locked in a cell. They were checked with the one
from the shaft at Bathpool, and it was a match.
"John Moxon" was not very co-operative at interviews,
sometimes taking as long as 15 minutes before answering a
question. He was asked why this was so, and replied that
he was "thinking". It took a long time before he gave his
correct name and address, saying that he didn't want his
wife and daughter involved, he didn't want to embarrass
them in any way. When he knew he was going to be in the
newspapers and everyone would know, then he gave his real
name "Donald Neilson, Grangefield Avenue, Leeds". His home
was searched and an obsessive amount of firearms and
weaponry was found. His life was found to be obsessive on
the military. He took his wife and daughter on "maneuvers"
and staged fake battles. There were links and clues to
other crimes he had committed as well as to the murder of
Lesley Whittle.
Donald Neilson's trial
started on 14th June 1976 and he was charged with
the following;
|
DATE |
CHARGE |
SENTENCE |
|
14 January 1975 |
Abduction of Lesley Whittle |
21 years in prison |
|
14 January 1975 |
Making demand for £50,000 with menaces and threat to kill Lesley Whittle.
|
10 year in prison |
|
Between 13 January and
7 March 1975
|
Murder of Lesley Whittle |
Life imprisonment |
|
17 November 1970 |
Burglary and steeling fire-arms a Dewsbury.
|
10 years in prison |
|
Between 28 January 1971 and 1 February 1971
|
Burglary and steeling fire-arms at Cheadle Hulme.
|
10 years in prison |
|
15 February 1974 |
Murder of Donald Lawson Skepper in Harrogate at New Park Post Office.
|
Life imprisonment |
|
6 September 1974 |
Murder of Derek Astin in Accrington at Higher Baxenden Post Office
|
Life imprisonment |
|
11 November 1974 |
Murder of Sydney James Grayland in Langley, West Midlands at the Sub-Post Office
|
Life imprisonment |
|
11 November 1974 |
Attempted murder of Margaret Grayland
|
Not guilty |
|
11 November 1974 |
Grievous bodily harm to Margaret Grayland
|
Life imprisonment |
|
11 December 1975 |
Attempting to murder PC Stuart Mackenzie
|
Not guilty |
|
11 December 1975 |
Possession of two shotguns with intent to endanger life.
|
10 years In prison |
|
15 January 1976 |
Attempted murder of Gerald Arthur Smith
|
Not tried - ordered to lie on files.
|
Neilson has always claimed that he did not intend to kill
Lesley, and that she slipped, he also claimed that all the
post office shootings were accidents!!!
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