Twelve-year-old John Rogers lived with his mother near a golf course in Wishaw, North Lanarkshire, England, and the boy often searched the course for golf balls in his idle hours.
He was engaged in just this endeavor on the night of July 4th, 1996, but on this particular hunt, he found a killer instead.
Nearly twenty-four hours after he was last seen, John’s body was found in the River Calder, about half a mile from his home. He had been beaten with his own golf club, and his body had been weighted down with a large truck tire. His cause of death was determined to be drowning.
Not long after the murder, a forty-two-year-old local man named Peter Quigley was arrested and charged with the crime. Quigley admitted to being in the area on the night of the murder and admitted to chasing and slapping a boy, but he claimed it was not John. He also stated that he saw John lying unconscious, but that he only touched the boy’s head before leaving the scene.
Because Quigley was mentally disabled, having the intellectual capacity of an eight-year-old, his testimony was considered inadmissible, and the murder charge was withdrawn.
Four years after his release, John Rogers’s mother attempted to raise money for a private prosecution against Quigley but was unable to secure sufficient funds.
A new plea for information was made in 2017, but as of this writing in December 2024, the murder of the twelve-year-old remains unresolved.
Crime Immemorial 