The mystery of a lady taxi driver’s awful death out on the moors – and how it may yet be solved 86 years later
VICTIM WAS DISCRIMINATED AGAINST
A CRIME writer claims she may have solved one of Northumberland’s greatest murder mysteries.
Diane Janes has revisited the 1931 killing of taxi driver Evelyn Foster at Otterburn - a notorious case which hit the headlines at the time and has never been solved.
Diane took it upon herself to try to find justice for Evelyn and has penned Death at Wolf’s Nick: The Killing of Evelyn Foster.
The writer gained access to official files in her research and believes she has solved the mystery 86 years on.
Evelyn was found badly burned near the wreckage of her car. Before she died she managed to give a description of her bowler-hatted killer.
But despite the clue, police were unable to track down the man she gave a lift to on the day she died.
Diane said she discovered discrimination against Evelyn because of her sex and class.
She said: “It is often wrongly suggested that long-closed police files contain the solutions to historic murders, but in the case of Evelyn Foster, this has proved to be at least partially true.
“Using the witness statements obtained by the police it is not only possible to show that the vast majority of the victim’s story was true, but also to conclude that her murderer left the scene of the crime on foot, heading towards Newcastle, and managing to put several miles between himself and the crime scene before an initial telephone call had even alerted the local police.
“The files even offer us the name of a credible suspect.”
Diane said working on the book had affected her personally.
She said: “Evelyn lived in an era when a great many people thought that at 28 years old, she ought to be married and at home, cooking her husband’s dinner, not running a successful hire car business.
“Instead of approaching her story with an open mind, some people immediately disbelieved it.
“At the inquest it was implied that she was a fantasist, or a liar.
“Her family, too, were treated in a quite appalling way.
“They received dozens and dozens of letters from people accusing them of all manner of things.
“Other people who lived in and around Otterburn also became the victims of baseless gossip and the police officers who were involved in the local investigation were unfairly criticised.
“Evelyn’s family, some of her neighbours, witnesses, even some of the policemen who assisted in the investigation of the crime, have been poorly served by what was written at the time and later.
“Worse still, there could be no doubting the fact that, in the aftermath of her death, Evelyn had been the victim of prejudice against her sex and her class in a way that made me feel very angry.
“Once I had read the police files it became personal. I have written about murder many times, but I had never before felt so strongly that here was a story that had to be told in full.”
The book reveals how Evelyn was found on a road known as Wolf’s Nick in January 1931.
Her car, and the victim herself, were in flames.
Yet she was able to give a description of a mysterious man with a bowler hat who had asked her to drive him to the next village, then