Joan Macan was an extraordinary woman, having served as a French resistance fighter during World War II and helping more than eighty Allied airmen escape across enemy lines. Later on, she became quite well-known as a dog breeder as well as a judge for the prestigious Crufts dog show.
Thursday, May 5th, 1988 was the day before Joan’s eighty-first birthday, and she had spent it sixty miles away from her home near Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, at a meeting of the Kent, Sussex, and Surrey Labrador Association. She left the meeting for the drive back at approximately eleven p.m.
About two hours later, she arrived home in her estate car; witnesses saw her vehicle driving up the long path to her property. Ominously, these same witnesses later stated that prior to Joan’s arrival, they had also seen an unidentified saloon car driving around the property in a suspicious manner, as if waiting around for something.
At approximately one-thirty p.m., Joan’s car was seen leaving the property, but it’s believed she was no longer driving it.
Shortly afterward, Joan’s body was discovered on the garden path of her cottage. She had been beaten to death, and her house had been robbed.
Because the killer or killers had stolen a number of unique and particularly distinctive items from the home, police hoped that the crime would soon be solved, but their optimism was sorely misplaced. There was little movement in the investigation for six long years.
Then, in 1994, a forty-seven-year-old man named John Parker was arrested and appeared before Hemel Hempstead magistrates, accused of killing Joan Macan. Though Parker was kept in custody for a week, no charges ultimately resulted from his arrest, and he was subsequently released.
Since then, there have been no updates, and the tragic murder of Joan Macan on her eighty-first birthday has never been resolved.
Crime Immemorial 