The 1970 murders of English women Jacqueline Susan Ansell-Lamb and Barbara Janet Mayo.
Jacqueline (18) and Barbara (24) were murdered seven months apart, and their bodies were found in two different counties, Cheshire and Derbyshire.
Both had been hitchhiking along motorways before meeting the same fate: Sexual assault and murder by strangulation.
Women came forward claiming they had been sexually assaulted in the area where Barbara’s body was found, both shortly before and after her murder.
In the following decades, the lead investigators—Cheshire Police and Derbyshire Police—suggested both murders were strikingly similar, and that the same killer (or killers) was behind them, whom they referred to as the Motorway Monster.
Jacqueline had been with different men before her disappearance. She met a young man at a party, then hitchhiked and took two separate lifts. She was also seen entering a car with a smartly dressed man. Barbara was also seen hitchhiking before she disappeared.
DNA was successfully retrieved from Barbara’s clothing, but not from Jacqueline’s.
Serial killer Peter Sutcliffe was a suspect, but he was ruled out through DNA evidence in 1997. At the same time, DNA profiling eliminated several other suspects. Serial killer Peter Tobin was ruled out, too.
Another man was discovered to have kept newspaper clippings about Jacqueline’s murder, but attempts to link him to the killings ultimately failed.
Some believe the killer may have died or ended up in jail for an unrelated crime.
Despite extensive investigations, the questioning of countless individuals, DNA collection, and the shortlisting of suspects, nobody was ever charged. Continue reading

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