Crime Immemorial

In England in October of 1970, there would be another brutal rape and murder of a young hitchhiker near the M1 that hearkened back to the slaying of Jackie Ansell-Lamb from the previous March.

Twenty-four-year-old teacher trainee Barbara Mayo had been taking a road trip with her boyfriend David Pollard on Sunday, October 11th when his car broke down in Catterick, North Yorkshire. The pair had left the vehicle at a garage there to be repaired, with Barbara telling her boyfriend that she would go back the following day and pick it up for him.

On the morning of October 12th, she set out to do just that. Witnesses spotted her in Hendon, at the start of the A1, presumably trying to hitch a ride northward.

David Pollard became concerned when Barbara had not returned home to their flat in Shepherd’s Bush, London, by that evening, and immediately reported her missing. Shortly afterward, the reason for her failure to return would become dreadfully obvious.

The body of Barbara Mayo was discovered by passersby in the woods near Glapwell in Derbyshire. She had been raped and strangled, just as Jackie Ansell-Lamb had been.

After the murder went public, various people came forward to report sightings of Barbara Mayo on the day she died. One witness claimed they had seen her at a service station in Trowell, while another stated they had spotted a woman matching Barbara’s description at around four p.m. on October 12th, and that she was getting into a white Morris 1000 Traveller van on the A610 in Nottinghamshire.

Just as in the case of Jackie Ansell-Lamb, some sources reported that not only was Barbara Mayo strangled, but that the ligature used to kill her was still wrapped around her throat. Additionally, she may have had a wound on the back of her skull, much like the one sometimes reported on the skull of Jackie Ansell-Lamb. Because of these similarities, some researchers have attributed the murders of both young women to serial killer Peter Sutcliffe, also known as the Yorkshire Ripper.

However, the oft-reported detail of DNA found on both bodies suggesting that the crimes were committed by the same man appear to be either erroneous or premature.

The slaying of Barbara Mayo, it should be noted, is also one of the nine murders that are still the focus of Operation Anagram, which sought to tie known Scottish serial killer Peter Tobin to unsolved homicides in the area. One of the murders for which Tobin was convicted, that of Dinah McNichol in 1991, also involved a young woman who had been hitchhiking.

It remains to be seen whether Peter Tobin will ultimately be charged with Barbara Mayo’s 1970 rape and murder, and in the meantime, the investigation into her case continues.