Thirty-three-year-old Karen Reed lived on Willow Way in Woking, Surrey, England. On the evening of April 30th, 1994, Karen’s friend Anne Smith had come over to visit.
At approximately nine-fifteen p.m., there was a knock at the front door. Karen got up and opened the door partway, asking who was there. The man on the doorstep was tall with dark hair, wore glasses, and was holding a blue and white pizza box. He asked Karen if she’d ordered a pizza. When she said no, he asked, “Is this 31 Willow Way?” Karen said yes, and then the man started shooting.
Anne Smith later told police that she heard three bangs, and after realizing the sound was gunshots, she quickly phoned an ambulance. By the time it arrived, however, Karen was already dead.
During the course of the investigation, detectives discovered that two weeks prior to the murder, officers had chased a suspicious red Vauxhall Cavalier which was seen in the area. The driver of the car had pulled the car over and fled on foot, after which the vehicle was searched. Inside was a map to the Barnsbury Estate where Karen lived, an automatic pistol with a suppressor, and a commando knife in a black leather sheath. Authorities also found an unusual Olney blue tartan cap and a Delsey brand bag.
In light of the events of April 30th, police began to speculate that Karen’s murder was a contract hit and that an attempt had been made two weeks before, but aborted following the police chase.
The only problem with this theory was that Karen Reed was not found to be involved in any type of criminal activity that might have made her a target. However, her sister Alison Ponting was married to an Armenian man named Gagic Ter-Ogannsyan, who had been convicted of the double murder of two brothers who had come to the UK to establish a Chechen embassy. Alison herself stated that she believed she had been the intended victim of the assassination.
While police didn’t rule out the mistaken identity theory, they stressed that there wasn’t enough evidence to definitively posit this as a motive, and were open to other avenues of inquiry.
The case was featured on Crimewatch and was given a renewed push in the media as recently as April of 2024, but as of this writing, it remains stubbornly unsolved.
Crime Immemorial 