Fifty years on from the abduction of Lesley Whittle, the news looks back on the crime that shocked the West Midlands. The story was quickly all over the airwaves, a far cry from the media blackout which has since become standard procedure. Lesley, a petite 17-year-old, was taken from her bedroom during the night of January 14, 1975, and a ransom note was left in her room. Neilson, who became dubbed the Black Panther by the media, tethered Lesley by a noose in a drainage shaft beneath a Staffordshire park, where her body was found following a botched attempt by police to trap him during a ransom drop.
Black Panther : Looking back at 50 years since Donald Neilson kidnapped Bridgnorth teenager Lesley Whittle
"I ended up doing nothing else for about two years. I was pretty well on it full time until the conclusion of the court case at Oxford Crown Court," he said. He began as a prolific burglar, committing more than 400 break-ins. His offending stepped up a gear following a burglary at a house in Cheshire where, having discovered guns and ammunition, he decided that armed robbery would be a more lucrative career option.
However, when Neilson kidnapped Lesley the following January, police were slow to link the crime with the Panther murders. Neilson's carefully laid plans began to unravel during a botched ransom drop at Bathpool Park, Kidsgrove, yards from where Lesley was being held in a deep drainage shaft. Lesley's brother Ronald was supposed to go to the park and wait for Neilson to signal to him by flashing a torch. But, by coincidence, another couple turned up at the park, resulting in confusion.
"I think you have to feel fairly sorry for Mr Booth," Mr Wright said."He and his colleagues had never handled anything like that before. The major error that they made was that they didn't take the Press into their confidence. "I remember saying to him: 'Have you any idea how far that is and what the conditions are like?' - it was snowing heavily.
"I had a call out of the blue summoning me to a press conference at Kidderminster police station at 10 o'clock at night, which was a bit strange. I beetled over there and there was a whole crowd of pressmen there already," he recalled. As the investigation continued, police inexperience in dealing with the media in such situations continued to have unfortunate consequences.
Writing in his autobiography Farmhand to Chief Constable, the late Mr Rennie explained:"The usual practice in murder cases is to retain the papers and exhibits for unlimited periods of time.
BLACK PANTHER LESLEY WHITTLE DONALD NEILSON KIDNAPPING MURDER WEST MIDLANDS
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