With marks on her face, ruffled clothing, and clear signs of strangulation, the discovery of 39-year-old Caroline Evans' body made headlines across the UK as Scotland Yard detectives and Welsh police scrambled to find the killer.
But the culprit would never be found and the identity of her murderer remains a mystery to this day, making it one of Wales' oldest cold cases, still unsolved more than 75 years on. You can see Wales' other cold cases, where the killers have never been found, here.
Caroline was married to a clerk, Daniel Evans, working as a school mistress and living a full life in 1945. World War Two had come to a halt in May that year, she was married to the love of her life, and she had a stable job. Aged 39, she was one of the pillars of her community and living in a safe, rural and idyllic part of Wales.
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She felt safe enough in her village home to walk through a forested shortcut that took her along a footpath known as Dark Vale, on the night of Saturday, October 6, 1945, heading towards her mother's. It was a weekly routine of Caroline's who often spent time with her mum, Harriett Williams, the then licensee of the City Arms pub in Minera. She had left her home, wishing her husband goodnight at 10.30pm before starting out on the mile-long walk that was such a habit that neither she nor her husband felt any qualms about her safety.
Daniel and his wife agreed that he would meet her the following day at the City Arms pub and Caroline set off into the night. But the couple would never see each other again.
Her path skirted a cemetery that was fenced off with iron railings before descending steeply into a valley before rising towards the City Arms on the opposite side. Caroline's body was found on the Sunday morning, not three hundred yards from her home in the village of Coedpoeth, Wrexham. It was discovered laid out in a thicket which bordered on to the pathway by the side of the cemetery by a farm worker who had been bringing home cattle for milking.
Considering her injuries, two welts on her face plus the marks on her neck, it was believed that she had been attacked on the path and then dragged into the bushes where she was then strangled.
A later post-mortem would confirm the original thesis that Caroline had been strangled, North Wales Live reports, but ever more disturbing theories materialised when it was found that her clothes were disarranged with police believing that she had been the victim of a sexual assault before her death.
Whilst searching the thicket where she was found, the police found her attache case which had apparently been opened by her murderer. It was noted that the attache case had a catch and that although it was shut when found, it was caught up in the brambles, and there was some bramble inside of it, indicating that it had been closed where it was discovered.
Daniel was not initially told about his wife's untimely death. In fact, he had had a conversation with a neighbour at the back of their houses at about 10.30am during which the neighbour mentioned to him that an unknown woman's body had been found. The two had speculated as to the identity of the lady in question, assuming that she might have been coming back from a dance. It wasn't until later that day that police officers broke the news to Daniel.
Police initially thought that Caroline had been the victim of a robbery. She had just cashed her salary cheque for the previous month at her bank the day before her murder, taking some of the balance away in £1 notes. Confusion over these notes at first led police to suspect a member of the RAF who was found to have seven or eight crisp new one pound notes in his possession. He said that he had been issued with them officially after he had come home from abroad, an explanation later proved right through rigorous police investigations.
From the beginning, the case was considered big enough to be handled by top detectives at Scotland Yard, with Inspector Philpott and Sergeant Hislop heading up the investigation.
The idea that it was an RAF man who had done the terrible deed stuck in the minds of both investigators, even after their £1 note theory was scuppered.
Three days after Caroline's body was discovered, an anonymous motorist called the police stating that he had given a lift to an RAF serviceman, dropping him off close to where Caroline had died.
The motorist would never reveal himself or emerge again throughout the investigation but further reports stated that eyewitnesses had spotted an airman kneeling on the ground near the spot where Caroline's body had been discovered on the night of her death.
This pursuit of a mystery airman killer saw another serviceman surface as a prime suspect after he told police that he "may" be the murderer. Having come back from the war with serious psychological issues, the former soldier believed he may have experienced a mental blackout on the night of the murder and attacked Caroline. However, the police quickly ruled him out.
Police put out messages at local cinemas, in English then Welsh, calling for eyewitness reports. They later handed out "murder forms" asking all Coedpoeth residents to write down their whereabouts on the night of the murder. As the Daily Mirror aptly put it, the police were just met with a "stack of alibis".
At her inquest on January 15, 1946, a verdict of murder by some person unknown was returned for Caroline and the case closed soon after with no new leads emerging.
Five years later, in 1950, an 18-year-old soldier called John Lionel Raymond Rusdell was convicted of shooting Dilys Myfanwy Scott in Marchwiel, Wrexham, killing her outright. At the time he also claimed responsibility for the murder of Caroline Evans. However, the police said that they examined his claim and dismissed it outright, Rusdell would have been just 13 years old at the time.
The police reopened the case in May 1951 but have had no new developments ever since. Caroline's killer has remained elusive ever since.
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