True Crime With Caledonian Kitty

Four years after Eve and Lynne's deaths, a pregnant mother of two Lynda Farrow had been savagely murdered in the home she was staying in with her boyfriend. Again, there was some similarities with Eve's murder. The perpetrator didn't break into the house, there was no weapon left at the scene and the gruesome way in which Lynda was murdered is the stuff of nightmares. 

The 29 year old was also horrifically stabbed to the point that she was almost decapitated. Police found similarities with Eve Straford's murder but also suspected that she could have been a victim of The Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe. Two schoolgirls walking passed the house that day heard a scream followed by a door slamming shut. 

Lynda was found by her two daughters who had returned home early from school that day in January 1979. The poor girls had to see their mother lying face down with blood all over the place. 

Footprints that matched Size 7 wellington boots were found outside the door to the house. The police believed that Lynda knew her killer due to the fact that there was no forced entry into the house. She had just recently left her husband to be with her boyfriend and both men were investigated and let go without charge.

Lynda was said to have been a lovely, outgoing woman and caring mother who worked as a Croupier. 

The only clue that the police had to go on was a description of a man seen running from the scene. This man was estimated to be in his 30s. He had an afro hairstyle and was wearing a donkey jacket.

Lynne's case, which was now considered a ''cold case'' was reopened in 2004. 

In 2007, the police were proved right about the connection between Eve and Lynne's murders. DNA had shown that they were murdered by the same man. Both Eve and Lynne were featured on Crimewatch with the police making a fresh appeal, they believed that both murders were sexually motivated. 

Unfortunately in Lynda's case, evidence was lost so they could not carry out the same investigation. 

As of 2020, all three cases remain unsolved and there is no certainty that Lynda's murder was carried out by the same person who killed Eve and Lynne but it's still a theory along with The Yorkshire Ripper theory. Without the evidence all there is, is speculation.

I find it heartbreaking that these three young women, all living in the London area in the mid to late 70s had their lives so cruelly wiped out and the fact that this person or persons could be still out there right now. They could be abroad, they could be dead. The police believe them to be at least into their late 60s or 70s by now. 

Eve's family have all gone now, they never lived to see justice for Eve. Lynne's mother still lives with the heartache of what happened to her daughter, she said in an interview in 2015 ''1975 seems so long ago and it is. 40 years without her. We have missed out on so much. We are well aware that whoever murdered Lynne also murdered Eve Stratford. That young lady also had her life snubbed out.''

If you or anyone you know has any information about any of the cases shared in these two posts, no matter how small, please call the Police Incident Room on 020 8785 8099 or contact Crimestoppers (Anon) on 0800 555 111.

RIP Eve, Lynne & Lynda. I pray that one day justice will be done for you x

- Eve Stratford Article | My London News

- Unsolved Murders Article Ft Eve | Daily Mail

- Eve and Lynne | Wikipedia 

- Eve Stratford | Find A Grave Memorial 

- Eve & Lynne Article | The Standard

- Lynda Farrow Article | Town Hall Online

- Peter Sutcliffe | Wikipedia 

Thank you so much for checking out my two part series on these 3 cases. I hope you found them informative and hopefully one day all three of these cases will be solved and I'll be able to update this post with some positive news x

When I first started my research into the Eve Stratford case, I had no idea that I was going to be led down a rabbit hole and end up researching two other shocking murder cases. All three victims couldn't have been more different but they were all bruitally murdered in the 1970s in London, all three were beautiful women and the police believe that they lost their lives at the hands of one evil man but who is this man? is he alive now? Nobody knows the answers to these questions decades later. All we can do is look at the facts we do know and hopefully somehow, someday someone will come forward and either hand themselves in, even at the age they are now (60's, 70s) or someone who knows something and will contact the police. 

I stumbled across Eve's story a few months back when I was putting a list of unsolved cases together. I'd never heard of this case before but it was a huge headline story in the 1970s in the UK. A beautiful model had been murdered in her own home and nobody knew who did it. Rumours flew around and judgements were made about her lifestyle and the company she kept. Fingers were pointed in all directions, celebrities were questioned, customers at her place of employment were questioned and the police even had a number one suspect that they believed had been the murderer for years, a well known pimp and underground figure who passed away in 2009. His family provided a DNA sample which ended up clearing his name.

So I want to share a little bit of background about Eve, Lynne and Lynda and talk about what happened to them. Some of the details in this post may be disturbing to read but I will try to be as sensitive as possible. 

Eve was born in Dortmund, Germany in 1953. Her mother, Liza who was a German native, met her father Albert in the 1940s when he was working as a medic in the Royal Army Medical Corps, they fell in love and then Eve came into their lives and they adored her. Despite having to move around a lot and travel from country to country, Eve had quite a happy childhood, she had dreams of one day being famous and as she got older she was fixated on becoming a glamour model. She moved with her parents all over the world before finally settling in England.

In the early 1970s she moved to London, it was the place to be at that time and it was there that Eve thought that all of her dreams would come true. In 1973 she started working as a Playboy Bunny at the Playboy Club in Park Lane. Eve loved this job, she would meet a lot of celebrities and would often pose for photographs with them and send the pictures to her parents beaming with pride. 

Eve was a striking looking girl with sparkling eyes, perfect skin, long blonde hair and a lovely slim figure, it was no surprise that she was popular with the customers and with members of the opposite sex as well as women. It was no secret that Eve was a party girl and was rumoured to have enjoyed a bit of a wild lifestyle, attending various parties and sipping champagne with well known faces. Everyone around her thought that she had what it took to make it really big in the entertainment industry but when she failed to be chosen as a naked centrefold for Playboy magazine, she became frustrated and took another offer from a famous rival magazine called Mayfair. 

When the manager of the club found out about this he suspended her and so she spend her days back at the flat she shared with her boyfriend, Tony Priest who was in a band called The Onyx, His band had been a former support act for Queen and Thin Lizzy but nothing was really going on with the band at that time so Tony took a day job as a forklift driver. Eve would often spend time at the flat when her boyfriend was home from work and he would have his friends over. She also liked to do some shopping in London and was always coming back and forth. Nobody knows for sure what she did every single day or who she met or spoke to. This was the days before mobile phones so there was no way of tracking where she had been in the days leading up to her murder.

On the evening of March the 18th 1975, Tony had just finished his shift and made his way home after a long day. What he was to discover as he walked through the door of the flat, nobody could have predicted. He couldn't find Eve in the livingroom or kitchen so figured she must have been asleep. He opened the door to the bedroom to find her lying face down on a mattress beside the bed, there was blood everywhere, she was wearing a dressing gown, bra, pants (panties), both her wrists were tied behind her back with a scarf and one nylon stocking hung from her right ankle. There was a cheap bouquet of flowers next to the body and when her body was later examined, it was discovered that her throat had been slashed 8 to 12 times. They couldn't say for sure if she had been sexually assaulted but they believed the motive for the murder to be sexual. The neighbours said they saw her that afternoon going into the flat and she seemed fine and nobody was with her or appeared to be following her. They did hear a mumbled ''calm'' conversation between a male and a female coming from her flat which was followed by a loud thud. The police tried to find out what Eve had done that day and they found out that she had done some shopping in Camden and Bayswater but that was all the information they had. 

There was no sign of forced entry in the flat, nothing had been stolen and there was no sign of the weapon used to kill Eve. 

The news of Eve's death hit the headlines and everyone was shocked at what had happened to this beautiful young woman in her own flat. Sympathy was soon in short supply when details of Eve's private life was printed in the tabloids. There was some people who believed that she deserved what had happened to her because of the life she led and the company she kept. Her grave was constantly targetted and desecrated and her parents suffered constant harassment with obscene phonecalls to their house, morning, noon and night, it all caused Liza to have a nervous breakdown.

As I mentioned before, a lot of people were questioned after the murder, from celebrities to customers and there was one man that the police believed was the number one suspect at that time, a man who was known to be a pimp and an underworld fixer. For years the police had him in their sights but in 2009 when he passed away, his family provided a DNA sample that cleared his name so the police were back to square one. Her boyfriend Tony was quickly eliminated in the early stages of the investigation, he had an alibi for that day and his DNA didn't match those found at the scene. 

Continued in part two.....