Fifty-six-year-old June Thrussell lived alone in a one-bedroom house in Chadwell Heath, East London, England. She had separated from her husband in the late 1980s, and had dated several men since that time, but none of the relationships appeared all that serious. By all accounts, June was a friendly, well-liked woman, but kept somewhat to herself.
June worked as a secretary at an insurance firm in Valentine House, Ilford. It was her habit after leaving work at five p.m. to catch a train from Ilford to Chadwell Heath, and then walk home from the train station. It seems she did exactly this on Tuesday, June 14th, 2005, but after that time, a grim and mysterious fate befell her.
On Friday, June 17th, a concerned work colleague called the police and reported that June hadn’t shown up for work for several days and wasn’t answering phone calls. When officers entered June’s home, they found her lifeless body on the floor. She had been strangled to death.
Authorities reported no immediate evidence of sexual assault, and there didn’t appear to be anything stolen from the home, leading investigators to believe that June may have been murdered by someone she knew. To this end, her ex-husband and boyfriends were questioned, but none of them seemed a viable suspect.
Not long after the crime, though, a man named Gary Allen was arrested for the slaying. Allen had been imprisoned in 1976 for stabbing his neighbor, thirty-six-year-old Anne Rosenwold, to death, but had been released on probation in 1992. He had also been involved in a domestic violence incident in 2001.
Allen did stand trial for the murder of June Thrussell, but was ultimately found not guilty. Despite his acquittal, however, the Parole Board chose to revoke his probation and return him to prison, arguing that he had shown a willingness to commit violence and that much more was known about his proclivities than had been known in 1976, demonstrating that he was a risk to the public.
The seemingly motiveless killing of June Thrussell, then, remains officially unsolved.
Crime Immemorial 