Twenty-three-year-old Gail Whitehouse was a mother of two who made her living as a sex worker in Wolverhampton, West Midlands, England. An outgoing, fun-loving young woman, Gail was popular with clients and locals, as well as with the other women who worked in the area.
It seems, though, that on September 3rd, 1990, she ran across the wrong client. She was last seen alive at around ten p.m., getting into a gray or silver semi-truck.
Three days later, on September 6th, a pair of teenagers found her body in the bushes beside Steelhouse Lane, less than a hundred yards from where she was last seen. She had been strangled to death.
Because of the nature of her profession, police found it difficult to glean information from her regular clients, nearly all of whom refused to talk to authorities for fear of being exposed. Although Gail was still wearing her jewelry, her Sekonda wristwatch was missing, leading detectives to conclude that robbery might have been a partial motive. They considered it more likely, however, that an angry client had killed her.
Only months later, in February 1991, a fellow sex worker and friend of Gail’s named Janine Downes was also murdered in Shropshire, and investigators speculated that she was killed because she knew who had murdered Gail. This information was followed up on, but sadly turned up no new leads.
In 1993, a man named David Williams was arrested and charged with Gail’s murder but was eventually acquitted. He was, however, found guilty of six rapes, one attempted rape, and two indecent assaults.
The identity of the person who killed Gail Whitehouse remains a mystery, nearly thirty-five years later.
Crime Immemorial 