Sixty-six-year-old grandfather John Wortley was described by friends and colleagues as a “lovely” man; friendly, honest and caring. He was retired but still worked as a parking attendant in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England for extra money.
On June 5th, 1975, John wasn’t scheduled to work but agreed to take a shift for one of his colleagues. Sadly, this would prove to be a fatal decision.
A short time before eight-thirty p.m., John’s body was found inside a kiosk on the lower level of the National Car Park in Arundel Gate. His head had been bashed in with a fire extinguisher, and it was believed that between £50 and £70 in cash was missing from the till, leading authorities to suspect the crime was a robbery gone violently wrong.
Unfortunately, there had been no CCTV cameras in the area in 1975, but a handful of witnesses came forward and described a man they’d seen speaking to John Wortley not long before he turned up dead. The descriptions of the suspect were frustratingly inconsistent, but police put together a photofit showing a man aged between thirty and forty years old, with tanned skin and an unshaven face, standing around five-foot-eight. He was also described as having broad shoulders and dark, wavy hair.
A reward was offered for information leading to the conviction of the person who killed John Wortley, but to this day, nearly fifty years later, the brutal slaying remains unsolved.
Crime Immemorial 