Sixty-six-year-old Stanley Blackmore lived with his wife in Bradford Abbas, Dorset, England. He had retired from his job at the Yeovil Corporation Waterworks sometime before and now drove a taxi to keep himself busy.
On the afternoon of August 2nd, 1963, he was feeling somewhat ill, but he told colleagues that he was well enough to continue working.
He was last seen alive at around five p.m., dropping off his last fare at Pen Mill Station and then driving alone along Newton Road. He disappeared shortly thereafter.
His family and friends were worried when he didn’t come home that night as usual, as Stanley was an asthma sufferer, and it was feared that he may have had some kind of medical emergency, given that he hadn’t been feeling well that day.
In short order, though, his car was found abandoned, parked next to a path leading to Newton Copse. The car didn’t appear to contain any hint that anything violent had befallen the missing man, but ominously, his watch, hat, neatly folded coat, and a set of ignition keys were discovered inside, as was a paisley scarf that didn’t belong to Stanley.
No trace of Stanley could be found for more than a week, despite a thorough search of the area. But then, on August 10th, an off-duty police officer and his wife, who were on a fishing trip, made the grim discovery of Stanley’s body, lying face down in a ditch about five miles from where his vehicle had been abandoned. He had been stabbed once in the heart. A foot-long knife, presumed to be the murder weapon, was found not far from the remains.
A witness came forward and told police that they had seen a man in the back seat of Stanley’s taxi near the spot where his body was eventually found; this was not the same person he had dropped off at Pen Hill Station earlier that evening, who was later located and cleared. This mystery man was described as being in his twenties, of average height, with long blond or brown hair, wearing jeans and a blue or gray jacket.
Authorities were baffled as to who would want to kill the so-called “placid, inoffensive” man, and the case very quickly went cold. Despite periodic pleas for new information in the media, the seemingly random murder of Stanley Blackmore remains unsolved.
Crime Immemorial 