Nineteen-year-old Ashley Dighton was spotted on CCTV cameras on the afternoon of June 11th, 2007 entering a Sainsbury’s supermarket on Simone Weil Avenue in Ashford, Kent, England. At some point after this sighting, he mysteriously vanished.
A month later, his horribly decomposed remains, minus his head and sections of his arms, were discovered dumped in a bush not far from the store; it appeared the killer had attempted to hide the corpse beneath several scattered tree branches. The victim had been partially stripped of his clothing, and a nearby plastic bag contained the young man’s T-shirt, as well as one of his ribs. His shoes were found nearby, though his trousers were never located. Because of the state of the body, a definitive cause of death could not be determined, though it was clear that the man had met with foul play.
Ashley’s family admitted that the young man had fallen in with a bad crowd because of a difficult childhood, but was a very kind and helpful individual. Because he often stayed away from home, usually with his sister Amanda, his father didn’t report him missing for ten days after he was last seen at the supermarket. His relatives are convinced that whoever killed him must have known him personally.
According to Amanda, Ashley had left the store because he didn’t have enough money for another crate of liquor. Ashley’s then-boyfriend Liam had gone into Sainsbury’s to buy beer. A security guard later told police that Ashley appeared to be quite drunk at the time he was in the store, and that he seemed to be drinking vodka out of a paper bag, but was not disruptive or belligerent. After he left the store, according to witnesses, he sat on a bench for a few minutes, and told the security guard who approached him that he was all right and was going to take the nearby footpath home. He thereafter staggered off and was never seen alive again.
At the time of the murder, four men were arrested and questioned, but released without charge. The case went cold not long afterward, though a renewed plea for information was announced in the media in July of 2023.
As of this writing, Ashley’s head has never been found, and his killer remains unknown.
Crime Immemorial 