It was one of those crimes the people of the West Midlands will never forget.
Lesley Whittle from Highley near Bridgnorth, was Donald Neilson’s fourth murder victom and just 17 when killed by Neilson. She was taken from her home on 14 January 1975.
Lesley was snatched from her bed in the small Shropshire village and was the daughter of a private coach company owner. A ransom was demanded of £50,000, but she was found on March 7 1975, in Bathpool Park, Kidsgrove in Staffordshire, where she was tethered.
Neilson was originally from Bradford and was given four life sentences in July 1976 and told in 2008 he would spend the rest of his life in jail after a failed appeal. He murdered three sub-postmasters in armed raids in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, Accrington, Lancashire and Langley in the West Midlands.
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Dubbed the Black Panther, he struck at Langley Telegraph Post Office, near Oldbury, on November 11, 1974. Sub-postmistress’ Margaret Grayland’s skull was smashed, her husband Sidney shot dead.
Neilson’s reign of terror ended in December, 1975, when two police officers stopped a small, wiry, suspicious character near Mansfield. The killer reacted with typical violence, producing a sawn-off shotgun, clambering into the panda car and ordering the officers to drive.
Britain’s most wanted man was eventually subdued with the help of customers at a chippie where the squad car had screeched to a halt. Neilson died in 2011, aged 75, from motor neurone disease.