Thirty-seven-year-old Kay O’Connor worked as a shorthand typist and lived with her husband Tony on Wickham Road, Colchester, England. On March 1st, 1974, she was off work for the day and had gone shopping on nearby Butt Road. Afterward, she stopped by to visit her mother, who lived two doors down from her, and then went to the post office to pick up her mother’s pension.
She returned home at some point around two-thirty p.m., but unfortunately, her killer was already in the vicinity, though it remains unknown whether he broke in after she got home, or was already in the house waiting for her.
Whichever the case, between two-thirty and four-ten, Kay was beaten and strangled to death, then stabbed two times. Though some of her clothes were removed, it’s not clear whether she was sexually assaulted.
Neighbors heard a commotion coming from the residence that afternoon and went over to check on her, at which point they found her body. The assailant had already fled.
Police were able to determine that the attacker had approached the house from a back alley and had broken a window to gain entry.
Kay’s husband Tony was initially considered a suspect, but he had been working in London at the time of the slaying and was summarily cleared. More than three hundred other people were likewise brought in for questioning, but all were dismissed.
The case went nowhere for decades, but in 2018, a woman came forward and told authorities that when she had worked as a ward sister back in the 1970s, one of her co-workers, a charge nurse named Patrick Marran, had confessed to her that he had killed Kay O’Connor. The woman stated that she had no idea why Marran, then in his fifties, had confessed to her particularly, as the two weren’t close friends, and she further asserted that she hadn’t reported his confession at the time because she feared that she wouldn’t be believed and that she would likely lose her job. Guilt, she said, finally compelled her to come forward.
Patrick Marran had been questioned at the time of the murder, and according to the woman, there had been rumors that the killing of Kay O’Connor was the reason Marran had been talking to the police. However, Patrick Marran had subsequently died and was therefore beyond prosecution.
Whether Patrick Marran was the culprit or not may never be known, and the case remains unsolved.
Crime Immemorial 