Horrific ‘60s Halloween murder remains a mystery
IT was a brutal and baffling crime which sparked the biggest murder probe 1960s Tyneside had seen. But despite detectives being brought in from London, police leave being cancelled and 16,000 people being interviewed, who killed retired schoolteacher Katherine Lilian Armstrong in a Halloween horror at her home remains a mystery.
Today as October 31 approaches, we look back on the night, more than 50 years ago, when real life Halloween terror came to a home in Newcastle, as 70-year-old Miss Armstrong was violently slain.
Miss Armstrong, a devout Methodist, was found battered to death at her home on Goldspink Lane in Sandyford at 10.50am on November 1, 1963.
Police were alerted after her cousin, Ada Ridley, called at the corner property, Doncaster House, and saw the curtains remained drawn. There was no answer to her repeated knocks at the door.
A police sergeant entered the house and found Miss Armstrong’s lifeless body in a dress and slippers.
The spinster had been stabbed round the face and head 28 times. She had a nylon stocking tied around her neck, and wounds on her hands suggested she put up a fight.
So serious and baffling was the crime that all leave for Newcastle’s 60-strong crime squad was cancelled, and those on leave were recalled.
Within hours of making the grim discovery, officers requested help from detectives at London’s Scotland Yard.
The Chief Constable made arrangements for Det Supt Eric ‘Jock’ Reid of the Yard’s murder squad to travel to Tyneside that evening.
Miss Armstrong, who had retired from her job as headmistress at the city’s Denton Road Junior School six years earlier, had been a regular churchgoer and had sung with the choir at the Central Methodist Church, on Newcastle’s Northumberland Road, for 40 years.
Detectives initially focused on trying to piece together the missing last 16 hours of Miss Armstrong’s life.
She was last seen alive by two children who saw her looking out of her window at around 6.30pm on Thursday, October 31. She had been due to attend a choir meeting an hour later, but failed to turn up.
With the murder weapon still missing, officers searched drains, pipes and litter bins.
Det Supt Reid revealed to the Chronicle there was no sign of forced entry to the house, making it possible Miss Armstrong knew her killer.
Meanwhile, Mrs Ridley told our reporters how she believed her cousin had been killed by teenagers who had entered her home as a prank before being disturbed. And she said she had begged Katherine to
leave her large home and move closer to her family.
“My cousin’s home was big, dark and gloomy. It got no sun,” she said. “Time and time again I told her she should leave and take a flat near me. But she was very independent and said she was not at all afraid of living alone.”
Police said they were looking into the possibility that teens could be linked to the killing. Detectives also revealed they were reading files of men released from prison after serving time for violence against older women.
These included a man from South Shields who had been the prime suspect in the unsolved murder of 71-year-old Amy Barratt, who was found battered to death in Churchill Street off Newcastle’s Scotswood Road, a year earlier. Connections to this murder were later ruled out.
By November 4, three days after Miss Armstrong’s body was found, extra officers were drafted in to work on the murder hunt and attempt to find the weapon, and detectives vowed to search the entire city to find it.
By this time officers had taken around 200 statements from members of the public, yet they still had no suspects or a motive for the killing.
And as plans were made for police to set up a base at St Barnabas Church Hall, in Sandyford, Det Supt Reid told the Chronicle: “It’s going to be a long hard slog and it will be better to be on the spot.”
Police revealed they planned to question more than 5,000 people in the biggest house-to-house inquiry ever seen in Newcastle. Detectives went out with specially-prepared questionnaires, knocking on doors within a half-mile radius of the murder scene.
A month on from the killing a team of 50 detectives were still spending 18 hours a day working on the case and by January 1964, 16,000 local people had been interviewed.
But police admitted at an inquest into Miss Armstrong’s death they had drawn a blank.
The murder remains unsolved to this day, and it is still possible that Miss Armstrong’s killer is walking amongst us now.
So could modern-day detectives have succeeded where their predecessors failed?
The Chronicle asked a retired Northumbria Police detective to take a look at the case,
Former DCI, Nigel Wilkinson, who has 30 years’ experience as a police officer, told us that if evidence had been preserved this case could still be cracked.
“If this had happened now we would have had a lot of new and different lines of inquiry than they had back then,” he said.
“I would definitely say though that the greatest chance of solving this case lies in forensics. But in those days all they had to go on was blood groups, there was no DNA.
“This was a frenzied attack so there must have been blood all over the house, but it’s possible not all of that blood is the victim’s, Miss Armstrong had defence wounds, which is very significant. She clearly put up a fight and it’s a possibility she caused her attacker to bleed.
“Blood swabs could have been taken. If they had been preserved you might be able to get the killer’s DNA from them now.
“The problem is if there is blood scattered all over the place you can’t take samples of every single spot, and back then they would have had no idea what was coming in terms of forensic science.
“These days there would also be a forensic examination of the stockings where the murderer would have held them.”