Thirty-three-year-old Norah Bartlett worked in a cafeteria and lived with her widowed mother in a house on Rhydings Park Road in Brynmill, Swansea, Wales.
On the night of Thursday, November 18th, 1943, Norah was reportedly seen walking with an American soldier along Rhydings Park Road. Since it was during World War II and German bombing raids were not out of the question, the streets were kept dark as a precaution.
A short time later, Norah was found dead in a nearby lane. She had been raped and strangled, though her body bore no other obvious signs of violence save for a few minor scratches on her face.
During the course of the investigation, police discovered that a handful of people who had been walking in the area that same night had encountered a young woman, who approached them and asked them to look into the garden of a nearby house. When shone flashlights into the garden as she asked, they spotted a man lying in the garden for some strange reason. One witness even reported that the man he saw lying there was an American soldier. The situation was so odd that police begged more witnesses to come forward so they could try to establish if this bizarre incident had anything to do with Norah’s murder.
The crime is now more than eighty years old and the perpetrator is almost certainly dead, but South Wales Police still periodically revisit the case to see if it can finally be solved.
Crime Immemorial 