Winifred Locke was an eighty-year-old widow who was originally from Cannington, Somerset, England, but in 1982 moved to North Petherton to an assisted living facility, as she was suffering from Parkinson’s disease.
On October 21st, 1983, Winifred’s daughter-in-law Eva visited as she often did, doing some shopping for Winifred and picking up her pension. Eva left at around two p.m., not knowing that it would be the last time she saw her mother-in-law alive.
The following morning at around nine a.m., a staff member at the Baymead Meadow assisted living facility became concerned when she couldn’t reach Winifred over the intercom system. Upon heading over to the elderly woman’s bungalow, the staff member noticed that a window in the rear of the residence was open, and when she looked inside, she saw Winifred lying across her bed, clearly deceased.
When police arrived, they quickly determined that the victim had been sexually assaulted and then asphyxiated.
Authorities conducted more than a thousand interviews in the wake of Winifred Locke’s brutal murder, but no compelling leads came to the fore, and no arrests were ever made. The case is periodically reviewed and new pleas for information are released to the public, but as of 2024, the rape and murder of the eighty-year-old widow remains unsolved.
Crime Immemorial 