Crime Immemorial

Forty-seven-year-old mother of three Vera Holland lived with her third husband Brian on St. Barnabas Road, Shinfield Rise, south Reading, England. The couple ran a milk delivery route in Wokingham.

At about ten minutes past six p.m. on Thursday, November 14th, 1996, Vera set out to walk to the KFC restaurant about three minutes away from her home. According to CCTV cameras in the area, she never made it there. More than four hours later, her concerned husband phoned the police to report her missing.

Her whereabouts were not determined until early on the morning of Saturday, November 16th, when drivers on the A327 reported a fire burning on the side of the road. Once the blaze was put out, authorities discovered the body of Vera Holland lying face down in a pile of old tires and logs, wrapped in a fawn-colored, bloodstained carpet. The site where her remains were found lay about three miles south of her home. Though she was found partially clothed, there was no evidence of sexual assault, and her clothing was found in the same pile as her body. She had been beaten in the face and strangled.

Police thought it likely that Vera had been killed and wrapped in the carpet elsewhere, then dumped on the rubbish pile on Friday evening.

Investigators conducted hundreds of interviews and reenacted Vera’s last walk to the restaurant with a female officer in an attempt to jog people’s memories. Several witness statements attested to the sighting of a white or beige Ford Fiesta seen in the area where the body was dumped, about half an hour before the fire was reported. Other witnesses claimed to have seen a white Transit van several times in the same area on Friday, while there were also accounts of a black Ford Granada near the location where Vera likely disappeared from on Thursday evening.

In 1996, detectives arrested Vera’s second husband Richard Stevens, and his wife Kaye, who only lived a few doors down from Vera and Brian. The couple was held in connection with the murder but released after only thirteen hours. Vera’s current husband Brian was also briefly arrested for the crime in 1997, but was quickly released. There have been no other arrests.

In 2016, Vera’s grown children made a new plea in the media for information, also asking police to look into the possibility that Vera had been murdered by serial killer Christopher Halliwell, a taxi driver who was ultimately convicted of two murders but is suspected in dozens more. Authorities stated they were keeping that possibility open, but as of 2024, there have been no further updates.