Twenty-year-old Barbara Forrest was a devoutly religious young woman, heavily involved with St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in Birmingham, England, even acting as national secretary for their youth group. Her twenty-one-year-old boyfriend Simon Belcher was just as active, and in fact his father Peter Belcher was the pastor at St. Mark’s.
On May 27th, 1974, Barbara and Simon held a service at St. Mark’s, with Simon filling in for his father, then the couple spent the bank holiday evening visiting a couple of pubs around the area. At around one in the morning, Simon accompanied Barbara to Colmore Circus, where she was supposed to catch the number 67 bus back home. Sadly, however, she would never make it there.
Several days later, on June 4th, her lifeless body was discovered in a ditch near Pype Hayes Park. The location was only about five hundred yards from her residence and also very close to her workplace, the Pype Hayes Children’s Home. Barbara had been raped and strangled.
Because Barbara was a clean-cut, churchgoing young woman, there was widespread outrage at the horrific crime, and police poured copious amounts of time and resources into investigating it. And in September of 1974, it looked as though they might have cracked the case: Barbara’s thirty-eight-year-old co-worker Michael Thornton was arrested and charged with her murder.
But only a week into the proceedings, the judge determined that there was no evidence linking Thornton to the crime, and advised the jury to return a not-guilty verdict. The jury complied, and Thornton was released. No further arrests were ever made.
The family made public pleas in the media in 2012 to reopen the cold case and examine the DNA collected from the scene if possible, but as of this writing in 2024, there have been no further updates, and the rape and murder of Barbara Forrest remains unsolved.
Crime Immemorial 
I’ve never heard of this case before, but last night I had a lucid dream about a woman named Barbara. I was told in my dream, ” it sounds like the Barbara turington case”. This is the only case that has a resembling name. Not perfect and like I said this was only a dream. But in this dream I was Barbara before she was murdered . In my dream I was being lead my someone from a church. He was tall with blue eyes. Wearing a suit and tie. He was a religious man who said he needed to bring me to the church but he was leading me somewhere dark. I panicked and when I tried to get away he grabbed my arm and started to strangle me , behind a dark building. Not sure why I’m writing this but that was my dream.
That is very eerie. Did you actually have this dream, or did you just do research?