The kidnapping and murder of Lesley Whittle occurred on 14 January 1975. Whittle, a teenage heiress, was kidnapped at gunpoint from her home in Highley, Shropshire, by Donald Neilson, a notorious burglar and murderer known as the Black Panther.
Whittle was driven 65 miles from her home to an underground drainage shaft of a reservoir at Bathpool Park in Kidsgrove, Staffordshire, where she was tethered, naked, upon a narrow platform below ground by a wire noose affixed around her neck and with a hood placed over her head as Neilson made several unsuccessful attempts to collect a £50,000 ransom from her family over the following days. She is believed to have either fallen to her death from this shaft, or been pushed to her death by Neilson, on or about 17 January, causing her to die of vagal inhibition. Her emaciated body was discovered hanging from this shaft on 7 March 1975.
The kidnapping and murder of Lesley Whittle dominated national headlines for eleven months; the investigation into her kidnapping and—ultimately—murder, involved more than 400 officers from three separate police forces in addition to the Metropolitan Police.
Donald Neilson was arrested in Mansfield in December 1975 on unrelated charges; he was convicted of Whittle's kidnapping and murder in July 1976 at Oxford Crown Court and sentenced to life imprisonment. He was later convicted of the shooting murders of three post office workers and given three further life sentences.
Background
Lesley Whittle Lesley Ann Whittle was born on 3 May 1957. She was the younger of two children and only daughter born to George Whittle, a co-owner of Whittle Coaches, and his common-law wife, Dorothy. George was a self-made businessman who had begun his career as a bus driver but had established a haulage company in the 1930s,British Serial Killers p. 245 which he evolved into a coach firm and which gradually became one of the most successful coach businesses in the Midlands, with a fleet of seventy vehicles by the 1960s. As such, the Whittle family were wealthy and lived in the largest house in the mining village of Highley, Shropshire. This property was a six-bedroom detached house named Beechcroft.
Although from a wealthy family, Lesley did not live an affluent lifestyle, with her inheritance held in trust and Dorothy giving her £20 a week in spending money (the equivalent of approximately £190 ).Chronicle of 20th Century Murder p. 253 She has been described as a studious, intelligent and compassionate individual who enjoyed tap dancing as a child.
At the time of her kidnapping, Lesley was in her second year at Wulfrun College, Wolverhampton, studying for her A-levels in pure and applied mathematics. She did not own a car, and commuted to her studies via public transport on a daily basis. Lesley's boyfriend, Richard Forder (19), studied at the University of Sheffield, and she held aspirations to transfer to this university upon completion of her studies at Wulfrun in order that she could be closer to him.
Inheritance To avoid estate taxes, George Whittle gave three houses plus £70,000 in cash to Dorothy, £107,000 to his son Ronald, and £82,500 to Lesley during his life. He died of natural causes in September 1970, aged 65, bequeathing the coach firm to his son. His will left nothing to his estranged wife, Selina Whittle (69), to whom he had been married since 1926 but whom he had never divorced following their separation in the 1940s. In 1972, two years after George's death, Selina began legal proceedings to obtain money from her husband's estate; she would later be awarded £1,500, plus weekly payments of £30. The story was reported extensively in the Daily Express on 17 May 1972 and included the information that the family assets totalled more than £250,000 (the equivalent of approximately £2.98 million ).
Kidnapping
Planning
Police subsequently discovered that Whittle's kidnapper had devoted almost three years of planning, researching and rehearsing the crime after reading the 1972 Daily Express news article regarding the financial dispute between Dorothy and Selina Whittle and the sums bequeathed to his children.A History of Policing in England and Wales from 1974: A Turbulent Journey p. 44 Neilson had estimated that the Whittles could easily afford a sum of £50,000, and his preparations had included discreetly entering the Whittles' home at night on several occasions without awakening Lesley or her mother to familiarise himself with the layout of the home and select the most secure route to remove his hostage.The Murder Guide to Great Britain pp. 164-165
Neilson had originally decided to kidnap either Ronald or Dorothy Whittle and hold them until his demanded ransom had been paid. He had originally planned the kidnap to occur in January 1974, but delayed his plans by twelve months until January 1975 due to the nationwide petrol shortages of the three-day week; he feared potentially drawing attention to himself on crucial dates by driving the considerable distances necessary from his home in West Yorkshire to Shropshire and, ultimately, Staffordshire, without a plausible explanation.
Enactment In the early hours of 14 January 1975, Dorothy Whittle returned from an evening social visit to her home in Highley, Shropshire.Encyclopedia of Modern Murder: 1962-1982 p. 169 At approximately 1:45 a.m. she checked on her daughter, only to find Lesley asleep in her first-floor bedroom. Dorothy then took two sleeping tablets and went to bed herself. Shortly after Dorothy retired to bed, Neilson cut the telephone line to the house (suspecting a burglar alarm), then entered the Whittles' home through the garage; he placed a box of Turkish delight atop a large flower vase upon a hearth rug in the lounge, then placed three coiled Dymotape messages upon this confectionery box. Neilson then ascended the stairs to Lesley's bedroom.
Encountering Lesley asleep in her bed, Neilson shook the teenager's shoulder until she began to awake before placing his hand over her mouth as she opened her eyes to see him pointing a gun at her face. Gagging the teenager, who was allowed to dress only in her dressing gown and slippers, he ordered her at gunpoint out of the house and into his green Morris 1300, where he bound her wrists and ankles before blindfolding her and ordering her to lie on the back seat beneath a foam mattress.
Neilson then briefly retrieved approximately £200 in cash from the home before driving Lesley sixty-five miles to Bathpool Park in Kidsgrove, Staffordshire.The Black Panther: The Trials and Abductions of Donald Neilson p. 14 At this location, he removed the blindfold from her eyes and the bindings from her ankles before forcing her down an iron ladder into the narrow drainage shaft of a nearby reservoir. The two navigated several obstacles, including an underground waterfall, until they reached a narrow ledge beneath ground. This ledge was just sixty centimetres in width.
At this location, Neilson removed Lesley's gag after telling her to remain quiet and that nobody could hear her scream; he then cut the bindings on her wrists, then told her to remove her dressing gown to dry herself. He then placed a hood over her head and tethered her by the neck to the side of the shaft via a wire noose attached to cord in length. A mattress, torch and a sleeping bag were already upon the ledge and according to some sources, Neilson gave the naked teenager a flask of soup, a bottle of brandy, a small puzzle, and six paperback books to occupy her time and insulate her against the frigid temperature.The Black Panther: The Trials and Abductions of Donald Neilson p. 17
According to Neilson, Lesley then asked for her dressing gown before he replied in a fake West Indies accent: "Dressing gown still wet." Lesley then pleaded, "When can I go home?" to which Neilson explained she would only be released upon payment of the ransom he had demanded. He then returned to his home in Bradford, where that morning and afternoon, he made a point of being seen by neighbours.
Ransom discovery
At 6:50 a.m. the following day, after her daughter failed to come for breakfast, Dorothy entered her daughter's bedroom only to find Lesley missing and the clothes she intended to wear at college that day still neatly folded upon a chair. After searching the house for her daughter and discovering a door to the lounge connecting to the adjoining garage ajar,Crimes That Shocked The World: The Most Chilling True-Life Stories From the Last 40 Years p. 104 Dorothy picked up her telephone to ring Lesley's 28-year-old brother Ronald in the hope she was at his home, only to find it dead; she then rushed in her dressing gown to her car and drove to Ronald's house, where she learned from Ronald and his wife, Gaynor, that they had not seen Lesley that morning. The trio immediately drove back to her home.
Upon their return, the trio discovered the phone lines had been cut and that only Lesley's dressing gown and slippers were missing. Gaynor then discovered the three coiled Dymotape ransom notes Neilson had placed in the lounge.The Black Panther: The Trials and Abductions of Donald Neilson p. 3 The ransom notes were typed upon strips of red Dymotape in capital letters. These notes demanded a £50,000 ransom (the equivalent of approximately £390,000 ) for Lesley's safe return and instructed the family not to contact the police, but to wait for a telephone call at a phone box at the Swan shopping centre in Kidderminster that evening. Despite the kidnapper's threats of death if police became involved, Ronald immediately notified West Mercia Police of the kidnapping.
Investigation The investigation into Lesley's kidnapping was led by Detective Chief Superintendent Robert Booth of West Mercia Police,The Black Panther: The Trials and Abductions of Donald Neilson p. 20 with assistance from Scotland Yard, who assigned twelve individuals trained to deal with kidnapping to the case, including DCI Walter Boreham. All agreed the kidnapping was not the work of an amateur and that Ronald should follow the kidnapper's outlined demands without disclosing police involvement. Booth also forbade any details of the kidnapping to be released to the media and ordered the phone to the Whittles' home and the phone box in Kidderminster the kidnapper intended to contact tapped as Ronald contacted his bank in Bridgnorth to arrange to collect £50,000 in used banknotes as instructed upon one of the Dymotape messages.The Murder Guide to Great Britain p. 164
Press leak Within fifteen hours of Lesley's kidnapping, the efforts of investigators to ensure her recovery were severely compromised when an unknown person informed a freelance journalist of the kidnapping. The journalist sold details of the ongoing investigation to a Birmingham-based newspaper and the BBC, who broadcast it on the Nine O'Clock News.Life Means Life: True Stories of Britain's Most Evil Killers p. 247 As such, Lesley's kidnapping became nationwide news before Neilson had initiated contact with her family.
Initial contact efforts Neilson did not attempt to initiate contact at the Swan shopping centre telephone box until 1 a.m. on 15 January; although police were aware of the press leak by mid-afternoon on the date of the kidnapping and the resultant media intrusion, detectives were anxious for the kidnapper(s) not to discover the Whittles had informed the police of Lesley's kidnapping. As such, police had decided to withdraw Ronald from the vicinity of the phone box four hours before Neilson attempted to initiate contact. (Neilson had been unaware of the news leak at this stage.)