On Thursday, 22 June, 1995, Christine McGovern was found strangled in her flat in Walthamstow, east London.
The 47 year-old lived alone with her Rottweiler dog at a flat at 53a Hamilton Road and was a known sex worker.
She was last seen alive at around 6.30pm on June 21, 1995, in the street outside and at 11pm neighbours heard a dog barking.
At 12pm the next day a friend found her lying naked in her flat. She had suffered a broken spine and nose and severe bruising and a pathologist gave the cause of death as asphyxiation.
There was no sign of forced entry to her home but it had been ransacked and a video recorder, a satellite decoder, four gold rings and a gold necklace with a St Christopher’s pendant had been stolen.
Christine McGovern
Detectives believe she was murdered by someone she knew and issued a new appeal for witnesses and information in 2011.
Detective Inspector Ken Hughes, of the Homicide and Serious Crime Command, said: “We are appealing for anyone who didn’t originally come forward to contact us.
“Circumstances change over the years and it may be someone now feels they can approach us in confidence and anonymously if they wish.
“Even if you just have a hunch or had suspicions about someone at the time we would like to hear from you – we can quickly eliminate people from the enquiry from the evidence we have recovered from the scene but a piece of information you may think is useless could be crucial.”
Contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
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Wilbert Anthony Dyce got away with the murders of a mother and her two children for nearly three decades.
He was 26 when he raped and stabbed Norma Richards, 27, to death after following her home from a nightclub on July 17, 1982.
He then stabbed her nine year-old daughter Samantha to death and drowned seven year-old Syretta in the bath at their flat at 54 Kingsgate Estate, Dalston, east London.
Norma RichardsSamantha RichardsSyretta Richards
Dyce, whose mother lived just a few hundred yards away, left the scene after daubing the National Front NF symbol on the walls in an attempt to make it look like a racist murder.
The bodies of all three were found two days later on July 19 by their grandmother Myra and step-sister Rhodene. The murder weapon may have been a 19th century bayonet which was kept in the flat as a bayonet.
Nobody suspected Dyce’s involvement, his name was never given to police and he was never interviewed.
It was only during a review in 2009 – sparked by a query from a journalist researching a book about footballer Laurie Cunningham, the brother of Norma’s partner – that his DNA was matched to semen samples found at the scene.
Confronted with the damning evidence, he claimed that he had sex with Norma Richards in the toilets of a nearby club hours before her death.
But he was convicted of all three murders on December 17, 2010, after a trial at the Old Bailey. The court heard he had also sexually attacked two other women in their own homes and stabbed his ex-wife
At the age of 54 Dyce was jailed for life with no chance of parole.
Wilbert Dyce in 2010Wilbert Dyce in 1982The bayonet used as a murder weapon
Detective Chief Inspector Steven Lawrence, of the Homicide and Serious Crime Command, said: “This was a truly appalling crime, with the lives of a young woman and her two children, aged just nine and seven, tragically taken.
“It has been the prosecution case that Norma Richards was murdered as part of a sexual attack; her attacker then killed her in her own home and went on to murder the children in cold blood to prevent his identification.
“Wilbert Dyce is an evil, violent man who preys on the weak and vulnerable. He has never accepted responsibility for these terrible crimes nor at any stage shown remorse. He lied and denigrated the victim’s reputation by giving evidence that he and Norma had sex in the toilets of a club prior to the murder.
“I would like to pay tribute to those members of the local community who came forward to give information about this case. I would also like to thank those who have shown such courage in giving evidence at the trial. It is a tribute to all concerned that members of the community in east London now have the confidence in police to come forward and assist.
“This case highlights the determination of the Met Police to solve every murder and bring those responsible to justice. A case is never closed.”
The police also issued a statement from surviving daughter Rhodene, 32. It read: “When I was four, I found my mum and my sisters dead in our flat we lived in. I was really scared; my mum was just lying there covered in blood. I ran upstairs and my sisters were in the bath. They were dead too.
“After the funeral, I went to live with my dad’s parents. I had a good upbringing, I enjoyed school, had a lot of friends, but at the back of my mind my mum and sisters were dead. I couldn’t understand who would want to hurt them.
“It was weird going from being the youngest to the eldest, not being able to talk to my sisters about boys, make-up and secrets. I can remember taking their things and running off with them, having fun and laughing with them. What could it have been like growing up with them? I’ll never know, I never got the chance.
“As I got older it got harder. I knew they weren’t coming back. Every year on my birthday I would cry, it would be tears of happiness as I remembered them all but also of great sadness. As for my other family members, no-one would talk about my mum. I guess it was too much for them, they must have been too horrified to even say her name. I don’t think it was deliberate, just too painful to talk about.
“I fell pregnant at 18. I wanted my mum so bad, to hear her say she was there for me, and to hold her granddaughter for the first time. I told myself I can be a good mother, be the mother my mum would have been.
“I will never have my mum back to hug or see her smile, I will never be able to share a laugh or evening out with my sisters, but I will always have them in my heart and that will never change.”
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Former British high jump champion Claude Moseley was allegedly murdered by a notorious north London crime gang.
The 32-year-old athlete was stabbed in the back with a samurai sword at a house in Bethune Road, Stoke Newington on 4 February 1994.
Although he had been a successful member of the Haringey Athletics Club, detectives believed he began working for the Adams Family syndicate’s drug trafficking operation. It was rumoured he was killed for skimming off the profits.
Claude Moseley
An enforcer for the syndicate, Gilbert Wynter, was charged with the murder after a witness came forward to police.
But on 16 February 1995, Wynter walked free from the Old Bailey when the witness refused to give evidence after being told he could not remain anonymous.
He claimed that he had been threatened by a prison officer and an inmate.
Sentencing him to three months imprisonment for contempt of court at the Old Bailey, Judge Michael Coombe said: ‘A murderer such as the person who killed the victim in this case is likely to strike again and again until men have the courage to give evidence whatever the consequences are to them.
‘It is terrifying that a man who commits a murder of this kind can get away with it because a man refuses to do his duty and give evidence.
‘This was a particularly vicious type of murder and I am told that those who were there belonged to that section of society which could be described as hardened criminals.
‘There is no doubt you are a terrified man. Equally however, you could have taken the opportunity to have a disguised identity and got help in protecting yourself and your family.’
Wynter, a ‘self-employed jeweller’, went missing on 1 March 1998. It is thought he too was killed by the Adams Family. Legend has it he was buried under the Millennium Dome.
In May 2011, detectives launched a ‘last ditch’ investigation into his disappearance, linking it to the murder of another Adams associate Solly Nahome. Both cases remain unsolved.
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Although there are only 70 cases listed at present, we are trying to slowly add some of the murders dating back to the 19th Century that featured on the original map.
If you are a registered user you will see the following options below the map.
If you click on a location a red google pin marker will appear, and the GPS location will be automatically added. Alternatively you can work out the address on Google Maps and then paste the latitude and longitude (fore example: 51.423173, -0.432173).
Then give it a title (e.g. ‘Lord Lucan and the murder of Sandra Rivett’) and a description, confirm you are human by ticking the box and then click the ‘add marker’ button.
Please make sure you are adding a real London murder case (dating before the year 2000 AD) which is not already on the map.
The map markers have to be approved before they appear on the map to prevent anyone spamming cases or make up a murder.
We hope that opening up this particular map to user-generated markers will speed up the process of filling out the map and make it more useful and informative.
The map itself, plus the map markers and short description, are open to view for everyone. However some case reports (accessed via a link on the map marker bubble) are only available to subscribers.
We reserve the right to edit and change the text relating to any markers added by users.
Please email any questions or suggestions to mailbox@murdermap.co.uk or add a comment below.
Underworld accountant and diamond merchant Saul Nahome was shot dead outside his home in Finchley, north London, on 27 November 1998.
Known as Solly, 48 year-old Nahome specialised in money laundering and was known as a ‘financial adviser’ to the feared Adams Family.
His murder came eight months after the disappearance of another Adams associate, Gilbert Wynter, 37. Legend has it that Wynter is buried in concrete under the Millennium Dome.
At the time the leader of the Adams Family, Terry Adams, was under police surveillance.
Detectives from the Metropolitan Police officially linked the two cases and in May 2011 launched a new “last ditch” effort to solve them.
Detective Chief Inspector David Manning from the Homicide and Serious Crime Command said: “Over time, allegiances change. I would appeal to anyone with information, despite the time lapse and however insignificant they think it might be, to contact us.
“We are now convinced that the two cases are linked. Mr Nahome and Mr Wynter both associated with the same people and they were also well known to each other having been business associates at various times.”
Saul Solomon Nahome
Mr Nahome, a Hatton Garden jeweller said to be involved in laundering the proceeds of the 1983 Brinks-Mat robbery, was assassinated as he arrived at his home in Arden Road, Finchley, at around 4.40pm.
As he got out of his car he was approached by a male wearing a balaclava and was shot in the back several times as he tried to run away.
The gunman then fired four times into his head before walking to the top of Arden Road and riding off on J-reg 125cc black motorcycle with a yellow or orange stripe down the side. The bike has never been recovered.
It is thought the suspect, a black or dark-skinned Mediterranean male, was seen an hour earlier standing by a pillar box in Arden Road.
At the time detectives described it as an “execution-style killing” because the gunman appeared to show no signs of stress or emotion as he calmly walked away from the scene.
Gilbert Wynter, a known enforcer for the ‘A-Team’, had in 1994 been acquitted of the murder of Claude Moseley, a former British high jump champion.
He was last seen when he left his family home off St Anne’s Road, Tottenham, at 8am on 1 March 1998.
Mr Wynter spoke to his girlfriend by telephone later that day but did not use his mobile phone again or access his bank account again. He was reported missing eight days later.
The car he left in, a white Nissan Micra registration number L753 XJU, was found in Spring Gardens, Woodford, on 2 June 1998.
Mr Wynter was described as black, 5ft 11ins to 6ft tall, of muscular build with short cropped hair. When he left his family’s home, he was wearing a ‘Fruit of the Loom’ grey tracksuit top and bottoms, a black puffa quilted jacket with fluorescent stripes and grey Reebok trainers.
DCI Manning said: “The cases have never been closed despite the lack of new information. Having reviewed both investigations and with advances in DNA techniques, we decided to launch a last-ditch effort to bring them to a successful conclusion.”
Contact Crimestoppers anonymously with any information on 0800 555 111.
