The Murder of Judith Roberts

The Mark of Peter Sutcliffe

Tanita Matthews, Chris Clark

• Publisher: Pen and Sword
• Year: 2024
• eBook ISBN:
  9781399080149
• Edition: 0

In the Summer of 1972, 14-year-old Judith Roberts took off for a bike ride within the vicinity of her Staffordshire home. Her body was discovered after a three-day manhunt, concealed from view in a thick privet having been brutally attacked. The community of Tamworth was rocked by the news of her death and an outcry for justice ensued. Within weeks of her murder, an impressionable and troubled soldier, based in the nearby barracks, 17-year-old Andrew Evans, walked into a police station and confessed to the killing. Relentlessly interviewed for hours on end without representation or an appropriate adult present, Andrew was swiftly charged with Judith's murder. Despite attempting to recount his statement and a legal defense at trial that defied the prosecution's arguments that Andrew Evans was guilty, a judge sentenced him to life behind bars. He was eventually acquitted in 1997 in what was, at the time, Britain's longest miscarriage of justice. While Andrew Evans fought for his freedom, another man drove up and down England undetected: Peter William Sutcliffe. Eventually proven capable of inflicting unimaginable horror at any given opportunity, an independent inquiry dubbed him likely responsible for more murders than the 13 he was convicted of and the seven others he attempted between 1975 and 1980. In The Murder of Judith Roberts, Chris Clark and Tanita Matthews examine evidence that concludes that Sutcliffe, whose violent criminal history dates back as far as 1969, was the real culprit responsible for Judith's murder. With never before-published dialogue from Andrew Evans' police interviews showing the grave miscarriage of justice, the case file of the five-decade cold case is examined under a new light.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Abbreviations
• Authors’ Forewords
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter One Staffordshire, Tamworth and Wigginton
• Chapter Two A Murder Most Foul
• Chapter Three The Mark of a Serial Killer
• Chapter Four Viewed in the Most Serious Light
• Chapter Five Connecting the Dots
• Chapter Six A Scapegoat
• Chapter Seven The Police Interviews
• Chapter Eight The Trial
• Chapter Nine The Secret Years
• Chapter Ten The Appeal
• Chapter Eleven Other Murders Involving a Walling Hammer
• Chapter Twelve Friday, 13th
• Appendix I
• Bibliography
• Plates