Hi, and welcome back to The Unseen Podcast, a podcast dedicated to missing people, unresolved cases, and UK true crime.

Today we're going to be exploring the case of Jacqueline Thomas in nineteen sixty one.

This case has taken me longer to research and write as it has many interesting nuances and connections to other cases which I believe are important to highlight.

This will also be one of the few times that I cover a case that, while technically unsolved, is also closed.

This murder of a fifteen year old girl caused a large police response at the time and uncovered some important evidence.

This episode contains descriptions that, while nevergraphic, may contain details that some listeners find distressing.

This episode discusses the murder of two children, and so listener discretion is always advised.

On Friday, August twenty fifth, nineteen sixty one, eighteen year old James Ponting was out walking his dog called Mick, in the inner city suburb of Bardsley Green, around two miles from the city of Birmingham.

It was around five thirty p m.

Ponting later explained that he'd been walking along the path and had decided to take a side path as he saw a man with a dog up ahead and wanted to avoid any confrontation.

He said, as I walked down the main path, I saw a man with a dog further up the path.

To avoid any dog fight, I took a small side path.

Mick ran into the long grass, and although I called him twice, he would not return.

I thought that he was after a rat, so I went into the long grass to fetch him.

Then I saw a head.

I thought at first it was a young man.

I looked closer and saw that there was a body sprawled there in the waist high grass in an area known as the Allotments, James Ponting had found the body of a young woman.

He quickly informed the Badsley Green Police station of his discovery and Superintendent Nick Brennan responded to the scene.

This scene was clearly distressing for those that witnessed it.

However, fact finding was the most important part of this initial investigation.

Upon close inspection, police were able to establish that this was the body of a young woman dressed in a black sweater, white jeans and a suede at jacket.

She was found with a floral piece of multicolored material wrapped around her neck.

It was initially thought that this was a multicolored scarf.

However, it was later found that it was the young woman's floral slip which had been worn underneath her clothes.

This detail raised some flags about whether a sexual assault had taken place, and it would later be confirmed that the young woman had indeed been assaulted at some point during her attack and murder.

There was no handbag found with the young woman, and all they recovered from her body was some matches in her jean's pocket.

It was clear that her clothing had been disarranged.

However, officers could find no evidence of a struggle taking place or any defensive injuries on her body.

Her cause of death would later be established as strangulation.

Whatever had happened to this young woman, there were not many clues as to her identity at the scene or on her person.

However, looking through missing person reports from the local area gave the police a name, Jacqueline Thomas.

Fifteen year old Jacqueline Thomas lived on Everton Road in their area of Alan Rock, less than a mile away from Bardsley Green.

Jacqueline, who went by Jackie, lived with her very large family.

Her mother and her seven sisters, who were both older and younger than her.

Her father also lived with them, However, it appears that he had had significant health issues and had been in and out of Winston Green Hospital as a patient since nineteen forty nine.

Growing up, Jackie's mother explained that she'd been a good girl and was always helpful with her sisters.

As she reached young adulthood, she got a job at the local Hughes biscuit factory.

She enjoyed doing things that many teenagers liked during the early nineteen sixties.

She enjoyed socializing with her friends, going out to cafes, and meeting people.

Jackie was interested in any event that was going on in that area and could be found chatting and having fun.

On the evening of the eighteenth of August nineteen sixty one, Jackie and her younger sister, Dorothy, who was thirteen, were very excited to go and have a look at the Bob Wilson's Funfair, which was taking place at ward End Park.

Wardend Park was less than a mile from Everton Road, where the sisters lived.

The pair left shortly after tea time at around six thirty pm, and headed out to the fair This seemed to be a routine Friday night, and it was not unusual for Jackie, her sisters, or her friends to go out together in the evening.

At some point during the night, however, thirteen year old Dorothy turned to look for Jackie, but reportedly couldn't find her anywhere in the crowd or at the park.

As she couldn't find her, Dorothy decided to go home.

She arrived home and told her family that she couldn't find Jackie.

However, is the evening had not yet ended, this was not necessarily a concern straight away, her sister Carol said about the evening, they went to the fairground at ward End together.

After they had been there a bit, Dorothy turned around and Jacqueline had gone.

I waited up until eleven thirty, but she didn't come home.

Jackie's disappearance that evening did alarm her family, and they reported her missing to the police that night when she still had not come back.

When she had still not come home by the next morning, they went out to look for her.

Dorothy put on Jackie's coat and went out to look for her on the Saturday and then again on the Sunday when she still hadn't returned.

She hoped that she would be able to find Jackie somewhere.

However, she didn't, and she even came across some of Jackie's friends, who all said that they didn't know where she was.

It was strange to her family that nobody knew where Jackie was or what she might have been doing.

In articles would appear during later reporting that Jackie had been frequenting cafes in the area of Alan Rock More and More in recent months, and that her family had noticed that this had been having an impact on her behavior.

Her mum told a newspaper she was going out every day as I thought to go to work and returning home in the evening.

I've since found out that she had not been going to work, but she'd been spending her days hanging around the cafes.

Police were also aware that Jackie had been reported missing once before, a few weeks previously.

She had returned the next day, and police labeled this as a one off, saying she was missing for one night and after she returned, the matter was treated as an escapade.

This was clearly not the same situation, however, given that as the week passed, Jackie had still not been heard from or seen by anyone that knew her.

The discovery that was then made on Friday the twenty fifth, a week after she'd last been seen, was an immediate worry for both the police and her family.

Sadly, it wouldn't be long before she was identified as the young woman that had been found murdered at the allotments.

She was officially identified by her family and a murder investigation was launched.

There was a huge gap in information about Jackie's whereabouts after she arrived at the fair that night.

There was also the task of trying to narrow down when Jackie had been killed and her body left in the site where it was discovered.

A week had gone by since she disappeared, and it wasn't clear what exactly had happened during this time.

Doctor Benjamin Tillott Davis, lecturer in pathology at Birmingham Union, later stated at the inquest into Jackie's death that he believed that she'd died between four days and a week before the discovery.

However, he believed that it had been around the eighteenth or nineteenth of August, very soon after her disappearance.

Dr Ernest George Gregory The police divisional surgeon who attended the scene after the discovery of Jackie's body, agreed that there had been some time elapsed between the murder and the discovery, saying that she had been dead for three days, before correcting himself and saying by that, I mean she's been at dead at least three days.

The common theory was that Jackie had been murdered either on the evening that she went missing or very soon afterwards, with doctor Benjamin Tillett saying that he believed it was an estimate of forty eight hours.

Another clue as to what Jackie may have been doing during her time at the fair was the toxicology analysis that was conducted.

They found that Jackie had consumed the equivalent of a pint of beer or two measures of whiskey or three measures of port before her death.

Police began to conduct interviews with people who knew Jackie had been at the fair that night or that lived in the general vicinity of Wardend Park or of Badsley Green, where the allotments were located.

Chief Detective Superintendent Gerald Bomber Head of Birmingham CID was in charge of the investigation and began to trace Jackie's friends and peers in the area.

He was very open about who he believed would have the key to their case, telling the press, I feel that the answer to this murder can be supplied by teenagers in the city.

The issue was speaking to teenagers who were out most weekends and socialized with many people each evening, was that information was not always consistent, and there was also another problem.

As Jackie had been missing for a week before her discovery, many people didn't realize that that Friday was so significant and so did not remember exact times.

There were several people who came forward with information about Jackie on Friday the eighteenth.

However, these are contradictory at times and clearly cannot have taken place at some of the times that were stated.

They do give some idea of a timeline of where Jackie may have been or what her evening had been like.

The earliest witness in the evening that I have been able to find is Nellie Beale.

She said at around eight forty pm, she saw Jackie sitting on the floor in the doorway of the Pelham Arms with another girl and two boys.

Jackie left at nine pm.

She then added that She saw her again at eleven twenty pm, hurrying home, and she came from the direction of the allotments.

Another teenager, mag Maureen Stewart, aged fourteen, then explained that she was with Jackie at the fair and they left together at around nine to fifteen pm.

She stated, as they went down slade Field Road with her younger brother, they met a big gang of teddy boys.

The boys chased them and her and her brother ran across the road.

Maureen said that they quote got Jacqueline by the railings, but she caught up with them in a few minutes.

She asked her and her friend Yvonne if they would go back to the fair with her, and they said no.

She was last seen at around nine thirty five pm, heading down Pelham Road as though back to her home.

Her friend Olive Rhodes then added on some more detail about the evening.

She said that she'd been with Jackie that Friday night and they were with three boys and three girls.

She said, we had a drink at a public house and then they dropped me at home.

Jackie pans a boy called Tony, but I don't know his other name.

We went to a public house on Hodgehill Common, halfway between Wardend and Castle Bromwich, where we had a drink.

We left about closing time and came back home.

Jackie was her usual self, but did tell me that she was not going to go home that night.

She was friendly with a number of boys, but there was nothing serious about any of the affairs.

They dropped me near my home at around half ten and I never saw Jackie again.

This information was interesting given that they knew from the toxicology report that Jackie had been drinking on the evening that she went missing, and this may well have been the time that this happened.

It's also interesting as she'd made the comment that she didn't plan on returning to her home that night.

Two further witnesses who claim to have seen are spoken to Jackie that night both confirmed that she was not alone.

In fact, they both said that she was with a man.

Jackie's friend June Frank, said that she'd last seen Jackie at ten pm that night and had seen her walking with a man from the park.

The man had either blonde or ginger hair, however, she didn't know him directly.

She said she did later see the same man about a week later, going through the gate at Wardend Park.

She said that when she told police about this sighting, she attended an identity parade but did not recognize the boy from the line up.

Twenty three year old Malcolm Perry also said that he saw Jackie twice that evening.

He stated that he had met her at the fair on the day she disappeared.

He said that he'd taken his dog to the fair and he remembered that Jackie had started to make a fuss of it.

He said he was sure that it was her.

At about ten twenty five to ten forty five pm that night, he saw her again with a man on the corner of Belcher's Lane and Cotterill's Lane.

He said she was coming from Pelhams accompanied by a chap.

It appeared to me that the chap was a yard or two in front of her.

They appeared to be shouting at each other.

It was a loud conversation.

They were bawling at each other.

The man looked as if he had a scar on his cheek.

He described the man as five feet ten, maybe touching six feet.

He looked a adverage build and had on a suit or sports jacket and was carrying a coat or something over his arm.

He said that the name that he heard Jackie shout sounded something like Johnny.

This man called Johnny was a line of inquiry for the police, and they issued a description of him to the public in the hope that someone would recognize him and they could eliminate him.

He was described as about seventeen years old, with crew cup blonde hair, a leather jacket, tight blue jeans, black pointed shoes, and a light colored shirt.

The jacket may have had an animal's head or flashes on the back.

He was sometimes referred to as Johnny and frequented the funfair, who was thought that he might have been irish.

It appears that they did eventually find Johnny, and there does not seem to be much in more information about him, aside from the fact that there were two young men called Johnny who frequented the funfair regularly.

It appears at by eleven pm Jackie had been spotted in several different locations, and some people even believed that they spotted her after Friday night.

Jannis Gloria Robinson said she saw her on a bus on the Tuesday after she disappeared.

She was sat with a man.

Police believed that this couldn't be true, but the public were being cooperative and people were coming forward with information.

One person was certainly on their radar as being an important part of the puzzle, and that was a young girl between the ages of fourteen and sixteen who had been seen speaking to Jackie at the fair on that Friday night.

The girl described as being freckled and wearing heavy makeup.

She was also thought to have had an issue with one eye.

This girl would come to be known as bubble cut Girl in the papers due to her haircut.

This girl was of interest to the police because she'd been seen speaking to Jacqueline at the fair not long before she disappeared.

She seemed to be one of the last people who had been seen speaking to her that night.

Police made significant inroads in trying to locate her, and they created an e fit of the girl they wanted to speak to.

They also went to all the schools in the city in order to try and find out where she might have attended school or anyone who knew her.

There were many appeals in the newspapers to try and find her, with detectives reaching out to ask her to come forward.

Several months passed in the case, with investigations ongoing.

Police stated that the public had been a great help and there had been several people who had come forward to speak with them.

On September thirteenth, Jackie's funeral took place at Saint Matthew's Church, where Jackie and her family had attended and Jackie attended the Sunday School before they moved due to redevelopment plans in the city.

It was reported that hundreds of people attended to mourn Jackie's death and celebrating her life.

It was a tragedy for many people who lived in the city, and the community as a whole was mourning the loss of such a young life.

Despite the huge loss at the community felt there was a sense that Jackie had recently begun to be a part of the lifestyle that had put her at risk.

This idea that Jackie had been engaging with risky lifestyle choices before her murder permeates into the narrative in the newspapers, with Jackie's father telling a newspaper at the time, I blamed myself.

Jackie had become a good time girl.

I gave up my job to try and save her, but it was too late.

The idea that Jackie had somehow played a part in the murder and became a good time girl is very much representative of the time that this took place in the early sixties.

The police had been diligently following up leeds into the murder throughout this time, and it was only in December of nineteen sixty one that more information became available about the investigation.

This is when the inquest took place in front of the coroner, mister George Billingham, and they could piece together all of the known events of August eighteenth, including many of the witnesses such as her friends June Franks and Malcolm Perry.

There were two very noticeable and important witnesses.

One of them was fifteen year old Annie Broughton.

This was the girl known as Bubble Cup, who the police had been trying to locate during the investigation.

She had eventually been found through their inquiries at local schools.

Annie testified at the inquest, stating that she had seen Jackie at the fair that night and that she did not come forward sooner as she didn't know that Jackie was actually missing.

She dismissed a question asking whether she'd been too scared to come forward and said this wasn't the case.

She just didn't know that she knew anything important.

She stated that she thought she had also spotted Jacket on the Monday evening as well as the Friday evening.

This seemed to be at odds with the medical testimony from the experts, and there was also something else that the coroner wanted to take into consideration.

If this Monday sighting was incorrect based on the medical evidence, then there was someone else who was seen with Jackie after Annie Broughton.

A twenty four year old man named Anthony Ian Hall.

Hall testified that he had been with Jackie that evening.

He said that he'd met her at the fair, but did not know her name at the time, so he called her Sugar.

He said that he asked her to go for a walk and they went to some grass next to the boat in lake.

He said he kissed her and admitted to trying to have sex with her.

He said, I'd been drinking, I saw her there among the bright lights and bustle of the fair, and on the spur of the moment, I asked her to go for a walk.

Jackie didn't speak much.

We both just sat there in the warm night.

I began thinking about my wife.

Then suddenly Jackie jumped up and she must be off as she had someone to meet at the fair.

The last I saw of her was the flash of her white jeans as she hurried back towards the lights and the music.

Hall had representation in the form of a solicitor at the inquest, who said Hall wanted to give evidence to prove that he had nothing to do with this murder and wanted to clear his name.

He said, his instructions to me have been that he wants to give evidence that though he may not be an angel, the finger of suspicion over him can be cleared up.

The coroner responded by saying that he didn't need to give evidence, as this was just to prove how Jackie had died.

Hall stated that he left Jackie at the fair around ten thirty pm and then went to break into some shops afterwards, arriving home at around two am.

It's evident during his testimony at the inquest that police had spoken to Hall quite soon into the investigation, and that he had been questioned and had three small, superficial abrasions on his hands, looked at only a day after Jackie's body had been discovered.

At the inquest, he explained that he'd given a false alibi to police.

During this questioning.

He told them that he'd been at his mother's house at eleven thirty PM speaking to a friend outside of the home.

He later admitted that this had not been true, and that he'd asked his mother to tell police he'd been there talking to the friend.

He said he lied initially quote jokingly and out of bravado, and because he didn't want his wife, who had just had his baby, to know what he'd been up to.

Is Jackie at the fair.

He said he didn't make up the alibi because he'd murdered Jackie.

He stated, when I left that girl that night, she was alive and well, I never saw her again.

The coroner explained that, as far as he was aware, Paul had been the last person to see her alive.

He said, it may be a very important matter for us to ascertain if we can the day she actually came to her death, whether it was Friday or some other time.

You may hear some teenage girls saying that they think they saw her on the Saturday, the Sunday, or even on the Monday or the Tuesday.

The last person who can definitely be identified as being with her is a young man aged twenty four, Anthony Ian Hall explain this could not be confirmed as Annie Broughton had said that she had seen her on the Monday and this could not be ruled out.

The coroner corrected himself and replied, what I should have said was Anthony Hall was the last person seen with her on the night in question, Friday, the eighteenth of August.

Paul later gave an interview at home with his wife and his baby, saying, the mental torture of the past weeks has made me ill.

Only the knowledge that I was innocent and that my wife fully believed in my innocence kept me going.

Powells and neighbors have been wonderful.

They assured me right from the start that they were behind me.

But there are still a few people who think I'm the killer, and for them I have a message.

You can tell these people that all I am waiting for is the day when the killer is caught.

I will do all I can to speed that day.

When it comes, I will have the last laugh.

The inquest was not a criminal case and was merely to a stab what may have happened to Jacket to have caused her death.

A verdict was reached which was murdered by person or persons unknown.

This will have been a fact already well known to the police, who from the outset knew that this was a murder case.

The inquest, however, had brought out some very interesting facts.

Police had investigated many angles and had tracked down as many leads as they could, even sending papers to the Crown Prosecution Service in November nineteen sixty one, shortly before the inquest.

This meant that they sent evidence they had to the CPS to assess whether an arrest could be made.

However, the decision was made that they did not have enough evidence and so could not proceed with any charges.

Jackie's case was far from being an unsolved case.

However, having evidence and having enough evidence was something completely different, and it appears in this case there was simply not enough for a conviction.

This would normally be where I would leave a case on the unseen with little coverage over the years and the case remaining unsolved.

However, this is where Jacqueline's case differs to many others that I have covered.

In two thousand and seven, there was an interesting and surprising development.

Having been reinvestigated by Glenn Moss at the West Midland's Major Crime Review Team, a seventy year old man was arrested for Jacqueline's murder.

The man's name was also well known to anyone who read about the case at the time.

The man arrested was antony Ian Hall.

Hall had been extensively investigated during nineteen sixty one, and while an arrest was not made, he had been the last person to see Jacqueline alive and had admitted to trying to have sex with her that night.

Following this reinvestigation into the circumstances surrounding Jackie's murder, police believed that Hall was responsible.

In two thousand and eight, the case went before Judge Frank Chapman at Birmingham Crown Court.

He came to a conclusion which no doubt was a disappointment to the police who investigated it and Jackie's family.

He stated that the case was just too long ago to give Hall a fair and balanced trial.

As twenty one witnesses from the original investigation had since died and others were too ill or could not be traced.

As well as this, he said that although these witnesses gave statements at the time, it was too long ago for any of them to realistically recollect it now.

He also stated that the prosecution had not brought forward any new evidence in the case, and this would have made all the difference, as well as the poor record keeping that meant that the defense in a new trial would not be able to investigate properly.

He stated, I'm aware of the strong public interest in bringing a killer to justice.

I'm aware that this must be the very last chance to bring someone before a court for the death of Jacqueline Thomas.

But I must not let these pressures compound one injustice on another.

In my view, any trial which was to follow in this case would not be balanced unfair.

The prosecution said that they were not looking to charge anyone else with the murder and were not looking for any other suspects for the crime.

Glenn Moss from the Major Crime Review Team said, clearly, we are not looking for anyone else, but we respect the decision of the court.

This must have been a blow to the police, who liked the officers back in nineteen sixty one believed that Anthony Hall had committed this crime.

There were now other reasons for West Midland's police to believe this.

In two thousand and seven, at the time of his arrest for Jacqueline's murder, Hall was already in prison serving a life sentence for the murder of another teenager in nineteen sixty seven, a murder for which he had remained in prison for since nineteen sixty eight.

While Hall could not be convicted for the murder of Jacqueline Thomas, he had been successfully convicted of the murder of sixteen year old Sylvia white House in Marston Green in Warwickshire in December nineteen sixty seven.

Sylvia white House was working as a shop assistant in the area of Great Bar in the northwest of Birmingham.

As she was working in that area, Sylvia was staying with her married sister, who lived closer to work.

This seemed to work out well for both of them, as Sylvia was closer to her job, but she also helped her sister out with babysitting.

During that time, Sylvia's brother in law was in the hospital and so she babysat for her sister on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

While her sister visited her her husband.

Tuesday evenings were for Sylvia, and she often chose to head down to the Tangent Club in Small Heath to meet her friends and go for a dance.

This was Sylvia's night to let her hair down and enjoy herself.

On Tuesday, December twelfth, Sylvia did as she usually did and headed out to the Tangent Club.

She met up with some friends and one of them, her friend, Kenny, later testified about what happened that night.

He said, I did not arrange to meet her there, but I go to the club nearly every night, and so does Sylvia whenever she can.

She came into the club on her own and I knew her well.

We had been classmates since the second year at Oakley Road Secondary School.

We got talking and we spent most of the evening at the dance together.

She danced either with me or her friend Jenny Peacock.

The group danced for most of the night together, and Kenny stated that the dance ended at ten thirty and the friends left the club at around ten forty pm.

Kenny said that there around three of his mates and a couple of other girls who walked out of the club together.

He said that some of the rest of the group left to get their own buses, and he walked up to the bus stop with Sylvia.

It turned out that Sylvia had missed the earlier boss that she wanted to get and so had to get on the midnight service instead.

Kenny said that he walked up to the depot with her between eleven and eleven thirty pm.

He said that when they approached the depot it was well lit and there were lots of other people stood there waiting for the same bus.

He later said, I thought she would be okay.

Kenny then returned home, and his mother confirmed that he walked into the house at around eleven thirty as a TV program called The Court Martial was just coming on.

Sylvia did not return home on that midnight service, and the next day, Ali d named John Swain, who was going to pick up some supplies from a scaffolding company, had stopped just off the road in Bickenhill Lane in Marston Green, just off the A forty five.

As he stopped, he spotted what looked like a body hidden behind a hedge.

This would turn out to be sylvia White house, and she was partly clothed and hidden under her coat.

This area has been described as a lover's lane and appears to be somewhat secluded.

Sylvia had multiple stab wounds, forty five in total, and it appeared that she'd been viciously attacked with what looked to be a screwdriver.

There seemed to be several items missing which had been with Sylvia when she'd been waiting at the bus stop.

These included a black patent barrel handbag, a square pink scarf, beige high heel shoes, and black framed glasses.

These items would have been with Sylvia that night, so it would appear that the killer had taken them with him.

A large investigation was launched into what might have happened to Sylvia, including interviewing other people who were at the bus stop that night and examining the bus route.

Sylvia was known as a responsible girl who cared deeply for other people, even being called the good little Samaritan, given that she would help the elderly people who lived on her street.

Nobody who knew her thought she would willingly get into someone's car of their own accord and thought this would be very out of character.

She had a loving family who would deeply upset by her murder and could not believe what had happened.

Police were very vigilant of any cars that had been seen in the area, as during that time they had around twenty reports of women being accosted by a man in the small Heath area.

This man was known to be a curb crawler who had try to pick up women once the dance halls closed and women who were waiting for a bus or a lift from someone.

A witness had spotted a green Morris Oxford type car with a white roof.

This car had been spotted at around three thirty am on December thirteenth, traveling from Birmingham City Centre to Coventry Road.

Another witness saw a man in an Austin Cambridge or Morris Oxford car looking over at people who were stood at the bus stop.

This lead about the Morris type car would prove to be the key to the case.

When police managed to track its movements, they found that a car matching the description had been stolen from Manchester on December the eleventh.

This car was a Morris Farina with two odd wheels at the front.

When analyzed, these matched tire tracks that were found at the crime scene.

Police were able to trace the car to a house in Olroy Was in Staffordshire, where at five point thirty am on December thirteenth, a fire broke out inside and woke up the neighbors.

When firemen attended the scene, they found a fresh trail of blood from the house, as well as a number of items in the grate that had been burnt, the handle of a handbag, some cosmetics and a pair of shoes similar to that that Sylvia was wearing.

As well as this, they found antony Ian Hall inside the house that he had been allowed to stay in by some of his friends.

Police were able to match fibers from underneath Sylvia's fingernails and on her body to the carpet that was in the stolen Morris Farina.

Sylvia also had an unusual blood group, and this same blood type was found inside the car.

From the police's perspective, Hall had access to the Morris Varina, which has been shown to have Sylvia inside, and had been found burning objects that looked like they belonged to her.

This appeared to be an open and shut case.

Haul, on his part, stated he did have access to the Morris Farina, however he had not been driving it.

He said he lent the car to his friend Dobie on December twelfth.

However, when he got the car back, he found the blood and the blood stained bag inside.

He then put the objects on the fire to get rid of them.

This did not convince investigators, who charged him with Sylvia's murder.

Just over a week after her murder.

Paul pled not guilty.

However, at trial, the jury heard about the evidence that police had collated against him during the investigation.

The jury found him guilty of murder and sentenced him to life in prison.

Just as Stable said, you have been convicted of the murder of this nice sixteen year old child standing on the threshold of life.

The sentence imposed by law is that you will be imprisoned for life.

I think that sentence in your case means what it says.

As Hall was led out of the courtroom, Sylvia's dad shouted, may your black soul rot in hell.

Hall appealed his sentence.

However, Lord Justice Fenton, who was asked to consider this appeal, said there was overwhelming forensic evidence that the murder had taken place in a car that Hall himself said that he had access to, and so he would not consider an appeal.

Hal's background in Jacqueline's case becomes all the more sinister when looking at what happened to Sylvia just six years later.

It's clear that the large amount of forensic evidence collected in Sylvia's case was at odds with the lack of evidence that could be collected in Jacqueline's, and as a result, Jacqueline's case remains unsolved, although officially now a closed case.

The difference in the way that both cases were discussed in the press is very noticeable, given that Jacqueline seems to have been portrayed as a good time girl and almost as though her behaviour contributed to her death, while Sylvia has been portrayed as a good girl who helped the elderly.

Both women were deserving of having their stories told, but it's always interesting to see how and why women are portrayed as so in the media and how this affects the progress made on the case and the care that the public has for them.

Did Jacqueline's image in the media have an impact on the evidence collected or the people who came forward with information.

We don't know.

And it's important to say that antony Ian Hall was never convicted of Jacqueline's murder.

The police, however, have never looked at any other suspects since their attempt to convict him.

Hall died in twenty twelve in custody from a long illness, and so it seems this chapter for both Jacqueline and Sila's family's over.

However, the devastation that's left behind will never leave them.

The question of what really happened to Jacqueline Thomas that night remains a mystery.

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As always, I'm Caprice and this has been unseen